Brands across UK consumer sectors expanded creator marketing activity in 2025, but increased scale did not translate into stronger performance, according to new research from Influencer Marketing platform Traackr. The analysis, covering January through October 2025, suggests that many programs are entering a phase where efficiency and creator selection matter more than sheer output.
The report reviewed activity across beauty, fashion, personal care, food and beverage, and spirits, tracking creator participation, posting frequency, engagement signals, and overall attention metrics.
Attention Lags Behind Program Growth
Across categories, brands activated more creators and increased posting volume year over year, yet performance weakened in several sectors. Beauty brands expanded creator participation by 57% while total attention increased by only 5%, indicating diminishing returns from further expansion. Fashion programs saw creator volume climb 21% even as overall attention declined 4%.
Food and beverage brands recorded the steepest drop in performance, with creator participation up 16% but total attention down 9%. Content performance metrics in the category fell 34%.
Traackr’s findings suggest that program expansion alone no longer guarantees incremental reach or engagement, particularly as content feeds grow more saturated.
Spirits stood out as the only category in which growth translated into stronger results, with creator participation increasing by 44% and attention rising by 23%.
Smaller Creators Gain Momentum as Top-Tier Performance Softens
Nano creators emerged as the fastest-growing segment in the UK market. Engagement rose 46% year over year, video views increased 76%, and total attention climbed 60%. Save and share rates also improved, rising 25%.
At the same time, mid- and top-tier creators experienced declining efficiency. Engagement rates ranged from 21% to 29% across the macro, mega, and VIP tiers. Video views declined for macro creators by 13% and for mega creators by 6%, while VIP creators saw only modest growth.
The shift highlights how attention is dispersing toward smaller, community-driven creators, even as brands continue to maintain relationships with larger talent for reach and brand equity.
TikTok Extends Lead as Platform Performance Diverges
Platform-level performance varied sharply. TikTok delivered the strongest year-over-year gains, supported by growth in creator volume (+67%), posting frequency (+23%), engagement (+32%), and video views (+33%). Total attention on TikTok rose 35%.
Instagram showed the opposite trend. Creator participation increased 19%, but declines in engagement (-27%) and video views (-25%) contributed to a 15% drop in overall attention. YouTube recorded a 4% decline in attention, as modest gains in video views were offset by weaker engagement.
The divergence reflects changing discovery dynamics across platforms, with short-form video ecosystems continuing to capture a larger share of audience attention.
Boosted Content Expands as Organic Reach Weakens
As organic attention softened across most categories, brands increased investment in paid amplification. Boosted activity rose between 70% and 116%, while organic attention declined between 12% and 23% in many sectors. Spirits brands were the only group to achieve organic growth (+10%).
The number of boosted video posts increased 178% overall. Despite this surge, brands maintained relatively stable boost intensity, suggesting that amplification strategies are becoming more standardized rather than aggressively scaled.
Engagement and save rates per view both improved for boosted content, rising 8% and 26% respectively, indicating that paid distribution helped surface content to more receptive audiences when used selectively.
Category Performance Reveals Signs of Creative Fatigue
Beauty remained the highest-performing sector with 200,000 VIT (Traackr’s Brand Vitality Score), supported by 5,800 active creators posting an average of six mentions each. However, engagement declined 25% year over year, suggesting increased competition for attention.
Fashion recorded 171,000 VIT with 5,600 creators averaging 5.2 posts per creator. Posting frequency declined slightly, while content performance declined by 24%.
Personal care brands exhibited one of the largest expansions in creator participation, increasing by 40% to 462 creators, yet performance metrics declined. Food and beverage programs averaged 27,400 VIT across leading brands, but content performance fell sharply despite modest increases in posting frequency.
Spirits brands, by contrast, maintained relatively stable posting patterns and benefited from stronger format consistency, helping sustain attention growth.
Rising Brands Focus on Format Systems and Cultural Moments
Among emerging brands, different strategies drove performance gains.
Beauty brand Anua achieved 446% VIT growth by significantly expanding its creator network while emphasizing repeatable routines and ingredient-focused storytelling that encouraged recurring viewing. Activewear label AYBL increased performance by prioritizing posting frequency and building affiliate-driven community momentum through gym check-ins and outfit rotations.
Personal care brand Coterie grew 1,232% by selectively increasing average audience size and focusing on targeted product seeding rather than broad creator expansion. In food and beverage, Lipton achieved 253% growth by integrating creator content into cultural moments such as the Sziget Festival, emphasizing shareable experiences over product-centric messaging.
Cutwater recorded the fastest growth in the spirits category, driven by repeatable TikTok formats, including taste tests and ranking content that creators could easily adapt and remix.
Market Enters a More Mature Phase
Traackr analyzed more than 760,000 creators who produced over 10 million pieces of content mentioning tracked brands during the study period.
Taken together, the findings indicate a shift in how creator marketing programs perform. While brands continue to expand activity, performance outcomes increasingly depend on creator mix, format repeatability, and platform alignment rather than overall scale. As organic reach softens and paid amplification becomes more common, UK marketers appear to be transitioning from expansion-driven strategies toward more structured, performance-oriented program design.
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
Brands across UK consumer sectors expanded creator marketing activity in 2025, but increased scale did not translate into stronger performance, according to new research from Influencer Marketing platform Traackr. The analysis, covering January through October 2025, suggests that many programs are entering a phase where efficiency and creator selection matter more than sheer output.
The report reviewed activity across beauty, fashion, personal care, food and beverage, and spirits, tracking creator participation, posting frequency, engagement signals, and overall attention metrics.
Attention Lags Behind Program Growth
Across categories, brands activated more creators and increased posting volume year over year, yet performance weakened in several sectors. Beauty brands expanded creator participation by 57% while total attention increased by only 5%, indicating diminishing returns from further expansion. Fashion programs saw creator volume climb 21% even as overall attention declined 4%.
Food and beverage brands recorded the steepest drop in performance, with creator participation up 16% but total attention down 9%. Content performance metrics in the category fell 34%.
Traackr’s findings suggest that program expansion alone no longer guarantees incremental reach or engagement, particularly as content feeds grow more saturated.
Spirits stood out as the only category in which growth translated into stronger results, with creator participation increasing by 44% and attention rising by 23%.
Smaller Creators Gain Momentum as Top-Tier Performance Softens
Nano creators emerged as the fastest-growing segment in the UK market. Engagement rose 46% year over year, video views increased 76%, and total attention climbed 60%. Save and share rates also improved, rising 25%.
At the same time, mid- and top-tier creators experienced declining efficiency. Engagement rates ranged from 21% to 29% across the macro, mega, and VIP tiers. Video views declined for macro creators by 13% and for mega creators by 6%, while VIP creators saw only modest growth.
The shift highlights how attention is dispersing toward smaller, community-driven creators, even as brands continue to maintain relationships with larger talent for reach and brand equity.
TikTok Extends Lead as Platform Performance Diverges
Platform-level performance varied sharply. TikTok delivered the strongest year-over-year gains, supported by growth in creator volume (+67%), posting frequency (+23%), engagement (+32%), and video views (+33%). Total attention on TikTok rose 35%.
Instagram showed the opposite trend. Creator participation increased 19%, but declines in engagement (-27%) and video views (-25%) contributed to a 15% drop in overall attention. YouTube recorded a 4% decline in attention, as modest gains in video views were offset by weaker engagement.
The divergence reflects changing discovery dynamics across platforms, with short-form video ecosystems continuing to capture a larger share of audience attention.
Boosted Content Expands as Organic Reach Weakens
As organic attention softened across most categories, brands increased investment in paid amplification. Boosted activity rose between 70% and 116%, while organic attention declined between 12% and 23% in many sectors. Spirits brands were the only group to achieve organic growth (+10%).
The number of boosted video posts increased 178% overall. Despite this surge, brands maintained relatively stable boost intensity, suggesting that amplification strategies are becoming more standardized rather than aggressively scaled.
Engagement and save rates per view both improved for boosted content, rising 8% and 26% respectively, indicating that paid distribution helped surface content to more receptive audiences when used selectively.
Category Performance Reveals Signs of Creative Fatigue
Beauty remained the highest-performing sector with 200,000 VIT (Traackr’s Brand Vitality Score), supported by 5,800 active creators posting an average of six mentions each. However, engagement declined 25% year over year, suggesting increased competition for attention.
Fashion recorded 171,000 VIT with 5,600 creators averaging 5.2 posts per creator. Posting frequency declined slightly, while content performance declined by 24%.
Personal care brands exhibited one of the largest expansions in creator participation, increasing by 40% to 462 creators, yet performance metrics declined. Food and beverage programs averaged 27,400 VIT across leading brands, but content performance fell sharply despite modest increases in posting frequency.
Spirits brands, by contrast, maintained relatively stable posting patterns and benefited from stronger format consistency, helping sustain attention growth.
Rising Brands Focus on Format Systems and Cultural Moments
Among emerging brands, different strategies drove performance gains.
Beauty brand Anua achieved 446% VIT growth by significantly expanding its creator network while emphasizing repeatable routines and ingredient-focused storytelling that encouraged recurring viewing. Activewear label AYBL increased performance by prioritizing posting frequency and building affiliate-driven community momentum through gym check-ins and outfit rotations.
Personal care brand Coterie grew 1,232% by selectively increasing average audience size and focusing on targeted product seeding rather than broad creator expansion. In food and beverage, Lipton achieved 253% growth by integrating creator content into cultural moments such as the Sziget Festival, emphasizing shareable experiences over product-centric messaging.
Cutwater recorded the fastest growth in the spirits category, driven by repeatable TikTok formats, including taste tests and ranking content that creators could easily adapt and remix.
Market Enters a More Mature Phase
Traackr analyzed more than 760,000 creators who produced over 10 million pieces of content mentioning tracked brands during the study period.
Taken together, the findings indicate a shift in how creator marketing programs perform. While brands continue to expand activity, performance outcomes increasingly depend on creator mix, format repeatability, and platform alignment rather than overall scale. As organic reach softens and paid amplification becomes more common, UK marketers appear to be transitioning from expansion-driven strategies toward more structured, performance-oriented program design.
Image source: Traackr
Get the full report here