Influencer fraud costs brands $1.3 billion a year
Outdated Confidence: high
Source found and quoted correctly, but old enough that the market has changed.
- Commonly cited as
- "Fake influencers cost brands $1.3 billion a year" (as measured)
- True origin
- CHEQ with University of Baltimore economist Roberto Cavazos — The Economic Cost of Bad Actors on the Internet: Fake Influencer Marketing
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2019
- Data as of
- 2019
- Last checked
- What the source says
fake influencer marketing will cost advertisers $1.3 billion in 2019
- Method & sample
- Modeled estimate: an assumed 15% composite fraud rate applied to an estimated $8.5B global influencer spend (Mediakix figure).
- Drift between quote and source
- Type: a projection from an assumed rate quoted as a measured loss
- Date: 7 years old
- Interest
- CHEQ sells ad-fraud prevention.
Safe rephrasing
A 2019 CHEQ-commissioned model estimated fake-influencer fraud at $1.3B, assuming 15% of $8.5B spend was lost.
Sources we opened
- CHEQ report (2019, PDF) (primary)
Machine-readable: /api/claims/influencer-fraud-costs-1-3-billion.json · Last checked 2026-10-16