83% consumers stop buying after negative influencer review
Mumbai: iCubesWire has released its Influencer Marketing Consumer Report 2026, shedding light on the increasing role of influencers in shaping consumer trust and purchase behavior. The report underscores that influencer marketing is no longer just a visibility channel but a critical driver of credibility, consideration, and conversion.
According to the findings, 61% of consumers believe influencer content became more credible in 2025, while 70% confirm that influencer recommendations significantly influence their purchase decisions. These insights build on the 2025 report, highlighting how influencer impact is now being exercised more cautiously.
Commenting on the report, Sahil Chopra, Co-Founder & CEO, iCubesWire, said, “Consumers today are smarter, and care more about authenticity than an influencer’s following. People don’t just watch and buy anymore, they pause, research, compare, and question. Influencers are catching on, moving away from overly polished, ad content toward honest opinions, and real experiences.”
59% Digital share signals media reset
Even as digital dominates India’s advertising landscape, traditional media continues to command a significant share of total spends, although its relative importance is steadily declining. In 2025, digital accounted for ₹71,621 crore, or 59 percent of total AdEx, while television contributed ₹25,964 crore, translating to a 21 percent share. Print followed with ₹16,594 crore and a 14 percent share, while out-of-home advertising stood at ₹4,724 crore, radio at ₹1,501 crore and cinema at ₹935 crore.
Television remains the largest traditional medium, driven by the enduring appeal of live sports, high-impact entertainment formats and strong regional programming. Print continues to deliver credibility-led visibility in categories such as government communication, education, retail and public information campaigns. Cinema and radio retain niche relevance for immersive storytelling and local engagement, while out-of-home advertising is emerging as the only traditional medium expected to grow over the forecast period, supported by the scaling of digital OOH networks, upgraded transit infrastructure and rising demand for premium urban visibility.
The RFV Playbook
Stop optimizing features nobody uses: A framework for analytics that actually drives decisions
Every analytics team has experienced this frustration: you build a comprehensive dashboard, run detailed funnel analysis, measure retention impacts, present beautiful insights and nothing happens. No decisions get made. No priorities shift. Your stakeholders nod politely and move on.
The problem isn’t your analytical skills. It’s not your tools. It’s not even your stakeholders. The problem is that you’re answering optimization questions before establishing whether a feature deserves attention at all.
ChatGPT Searches Google Shopping to Create its Recommendations
More and more research is unwrapping the hidden logic and processes that happen in the background of ChatGPT’s search functions.
Interestingly, most of these lean on Google. For example, previous experiments have confirmed that ChatGPT uses SerpApi for its search functionality.
The reason why is pretty simple: Google has had 27+ years to build an enormous information ecosystem.
And now, investigations from Oliver de Segonzac, Alexis Rylko, and Tom Wells have also suggested that ChatGPT runs encoded queries through Google Shopping for composing its product carousel recommendations.
This could have real implications for optimization, so we set out to test this for ourselves.
The TL;DR: Focus Your Product Optimization On Google Shopping
The previous belief was that the b this isn’t the case.
ChatGPT does create additional shopping queries that it sends to Google Shopping. Most of the time, the Google Shopping results will then shape the final products that are included in ChatGPT’s response.
Economic Survey calls for social media age limit
The Economic Survey 2025-26 has called on the government to implement age-based limits for social media usage for children and digital advertisements targeted at them, a proposal that could shake up companies like Meta and Google in what is their biggest user base market in the world. The Survey’s recommendation stems from the larger concerns surrounding “digital addiction” among young users.
If the government were to act on the Survey’s recommendation, it would add India to a growing list of countries which are considering measures to tackle children’s exposure to social media content, which can be harmful for them. The Survey particularly highlights Australia’s ban on social media for users below the age of 16, but stops short of advocating for a similar ban on such services.
Taking the lead
At least two Indian states – Andhra Pradesh and Goa – are looking at banning social media for children. In India, its data protection framework has stated that tech companies offering services to those under 18 years will have to seek consent from parents. India’s framework also prohibits behavioural tracking and targeted advertising to children. It has been notified but is yet to come into effect.
Amazon’s Rufus is racking up sales
New research from Sensor Tower, analyzing over 100,000 real Amazon shopping sessions during the 2025 holiday season, shows AI-assisted shopping isn’t a novelty any more – it’s becoming a default consumer behavior. On Black Friday, Rufus-assisted sessions captured approximately 40% of total sessions but drove roughly 66% of purchases. Sessions involving the assistant converted at 3.5 times the rate of non-Rufus sessions – a gap that held steady across October, November and December.
Most striking: nearly all incremental holiday growth on Amazon came from AI-assisted shopping. Rufus sessions rose approximately 90% from October 1 through Black Friday week, while non-Rufus sessions grew just 8%.
From BC Web Wise
Scaling a campaign to ₹1–5 crore a month isn’t just about increasing budgets. It’s about navigating new challenges, aligning closely with business KPIs, and building systems that can scale. Vishal Agrahari, VP of Digital Paid Media at BC Web Wise, breaks down the complexities of high-budget performance marketing and shares actionable strategies to stay on track while protecting ROI.
