Influencer marketing is evolving, and the organizations winning right now aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones asking smarter questions about their audiences to uncover who’s actually driving business outcomes versus who’s just racking up views.
That’s the central question behind our latest report, Redefining Influencer Value: How Audience Intelligence Transforms Reach into Revenue. Across healthcare, gaming, and consumer packaged goods (CPG), the data shows the same thing: the creators generating the most views aren’t always the ones generating the most value.
In this article, we’re breaking down what that looks like in practice. We’ll spend most of our time in healthcare, where audience intelligence, including search affinity, shopping behavior, and cultural alignment, has a particularly strong case to make. Then, we’ll touch on a few other standout findings in gaming and CPG.
Can’t wait to dig into the data?
What’s Fueling Healthcare Conversations on Instagram?
Understanding which conversations healthcare influencers are leading, and how audiences move between them, allows marketers to get ahead of the narrative rather than react to it.
To understand what’s actually driving medical topics on Instagram, for example, we analyzed the leading topics by views among U.S. influencer content in 2025.
Here’s what the data shows:
What stands out here is the mix of alternative and traditional content appearing side by side. Consumers aren’t choosing between clinical and alternative narratives. They’re consuming both simultaneously. For pharmaceutical, supplement, and skincare brands, this creates a clear strategic opportunity: meet audiences where curiosity is high, and intent is forming.
Key Takeaway: The healthcare conversation on Instagram is broader than some brands realize. Showing up only in clinical content means missing a significant share of the audience.
How to Find the Right Influencers for Your Healthcare Brand
Views and engagement are a starting point, but they don’t tell the whole story. To understand how audience intelligence goes beyond follower count, we analyzed the search affinities of two leading dermatology creators on Instagram: Dr. Charles, MD and Dr. Neera Nathan.
To help break down the analysis, imagine you’re marketing a product like Latisse and evaluating influencer options in the dermatology space. Going by follower count alone would point you to Dr. Neera Nathan’s audience of 1.8M, which is broad, medically relevant, and focused on specific conditions and treatments. But when you layer in audience intelligence data, the story is more nuanced.
As the diagram shows, both influencers’ audiences share common ground. It’s where they diverge that the real strategic value lies. Dr. Charles, MD challenges overhyped trends and breaks down ingredient science through a clinical lens, while Dr. Neera Nathan translates complex dermatology topics into accessible, shareable education.
Here’s the key insight: 17% of Dr. Charles, MD’s audience also watches Dr. Neera Nathan, but only 2% of her audience watches him. That asymmetry makes him a strong choice for a product like Latisse.
He isn’t just a niche pick. Partnering with Dr. Charles gives you a highly engaged audience and a direct bridge into Dr. Neera’s broader reach — delivering clinical credibility before mainstream understanding. When you connect audience overlap and search affinities, you get a clearer picture of which creators are shaping audience behavior.
The full report breaks down exactly how to weigh approaches to potential influencer partners, including strategic layering of partnerships based on your campaign goals.
Key Takeaway: Follower count can be misleading. Audience overlap and search affinities reveal which creator moves the audience you’re trying to reach.
Beyond Healthcare: Influencer Insights across Gaming and CPG
The same principles of influencer identification apply across other industries. Here’s a preview of what the report found in gaming and CPG.
Influence Equals Intent: Anime & Gaming in East & Southeast Asia
YouTube anime influencers in East and Southeast Asia generated 18B views in 2025, but raw volume doesn’t tell the whole story. The creators actually shaping fan behavior and purchase intent represent a much smaller, more specific slice of that landscape.
Cultural Fit Outperforms Category Fit: Brazilian Beverage Partnerships
Brazil ranked #2 globally in influencer TikTok views and engagement rate in 2025. In that market, Heineken partnered with a men’s fashion creator with just 136K followers, generating 168M views and 1M engagements in 50 days. The full report explains why it worked and insights you can replicate.
The Bottom Line: Reach Is a Starting Point, Not a Strategy
So how can brands apply these insights? Here’s a simple framework:
- Go beyond reach: Use audience intelligence to analyze search affinities, shopping signals, and engagement depth, not just view counts.
- Look for cultural alignment: Identify creators whose audiences actively search for and engage with content relevant to your product.
- Map audience overlap: Find credibility gateways and unexpected entry points into new audiences.
With the right audience intelligence, marketers don’t need to guess. They can see exactly which influencer partnerships will drive impact and invest with confidence.
Ready to build smarter partnerships?