According to Awin's Influencing Retail Report 2026, 82% of consumers have changed how they shop. They're becoming more selective, with 34% admitting to spending more time researching and comparing products and 38% setting out with the intention of finding the best price, discount or incentive available.

This creates an uncomfortable question for marketing leaders.

If consumers are making decisions differently, are we still measuring the right things?

Consumer confidence isn’t a new concept. However, in a digital landscape with an abundance of information at our fingertips, the path to gaining confidence has stretched and distorted.

Economic pressure plays a role. Rising living costs have not simply made consumers spend less, they've made them think harder before spending at all. As the cost of making the wrong decision increases, so too does the need for validation, reassurance and trust.

The result is that confidence now requires more proof points than it once did.

A decade ago, a recommendation from a large creator on social media could be enough to encourage a wave of conversions. In 2026, over a quarter of consumers say they're not sure what makes an influencer trustworthy.

In an age of potential misinformation, shoppers seek multiple proof points from sources they perceive as trustworthy.

An example journey could see one consumer discover a product through a creator, head to Google to find product or service reviews, pivot to AI assistants for a neutral view that leads to product comparisons, research competing products through social media or recommendations from publishers and finally search for a discount code or the retailer with the best price before making a purchase.

The important point isn't the journey itself.

It's that the decision and the sale are no longer necessarily happening in the same place.

Traditionally, a discount code site may receive credit for the conversion because it was the final place the purchase occurred. But the creator recommendation, product reviews, publisher recommendations, AI-generated comparisons and competitor research may have played a bigger role in creating enough confidence for that purchase to happen in the first place.

The sale is visible but the decision often isn't.

The sale and the decision are no longer the same thing

This is where the gap between consumer behaviour and marketing measurement begins to appear.

Consumers experience these touchpoints as one connected journey. Marketing reports still tend to view them as separate activities.

The trouble with this new, fragmented customer journey is not the journey itself, but that marketers are still looking for the results in a linear fashion. In doing this, there are huge chunks of the purchase consideration process that are not being credited effectively for their influence on the final conversion.

This becomes even more apparent when you consider that 69.5% of UK Google searches ended without a click.

Attention may still start the purchase journey, but consumers increasingly need something else before they're prepared to convert: confidence.

Confidence isn't built by any single channel. It's assembled across a network of creators, reviews, AI tools, marketplaces, partner environments and brand signals, each one doing partial work, none of them sufficient alone.

It's also important to recognise that confidence is built differently across audiences.

Over 50% of 18-34 year olds have bought something immediately after seeing a creator recommendation, compared with only 8% of over-65s. The pattern repeats with AI, where 61% of 25-34s have bought or considered buying something an AI recommended, compared with only 16% of over-65s.

These differences do not necessarily reflect a change in what consumers value. They reflect differences in how consumers reach confidence about a purchase.

Younger consumers may use trusted shortcuts through creators and AI. Older consumers may rely on different research methods. Both behaviours ultimately point to the same outcome: consumers are seeking confidence before committing.

Confidence is assembled, not granted

With consumers increasingly relying on trusted third parties before purchasing, brand-owned content alone is no longer strong enough.

Marketers need to cultivate their own partner ecosystem, not to replace their owned channels, but to support them across all the touchpoints of the new customer journey.

Creators provide recommendations. Reviews provide reassurance. Publishers provide expertise. AI simplifies and synthesises information. Comparison sites validate value.

Each plays a role in moving a consumer closer to a decision.

Most shoppers are becoming more deliberate and research-led. A growing segment is using trusted shortcuts to reach confidence faster. Both behaviours reward the same thing: showing up consistently across the full network rather than dominating a single touchpoint.

The measurement gap

The implication is that marketing activity needs to be viewed as an ecosystem in its entirety, rather than a collection of activities pigeon-holed into awareness for reach and performance marketing for conversions.

Historically, attention was easy to measure because attention often correlated strongly with sales.

Today, the place where a purchase happens is not always the place where the decision was made.

A creator who generated awareness but no direct conversions may still have been critical to the decision-making process. A publisher recommendation may have provided the final reassurance. An AI-generated comparison may have narrowed the field. A discount code site may simply have captured demand that already existed.

Yet measurement models often reward the point of conversion over the activities that created enough confidence for that conversion to happen.

The confidence-building approach to marketing is fluid and constant. It requires consistency and a willingness to adapt. It requires selecting partners carefully, understanding audience behaviour and recognising that different consumers have different thresholds for confidence.

Most of all, it requires marketers to acknowledge that consumers experience one journey, while marketing often measures fragmented channels.

In a world where information is abundant and choice is endless, attention may get a brand noticed. Confidence is what gets a purchase over the line.

To discuss consumer confidence, advertising performance, and much more, come and meet the experts from Awin at eCommerce Expo, 23-24th September in London. Get your free ticket now.