Consumer Trust in Advertising and Marketing Statistics for 2026

By Christoph Olivier

Published July 31, 2026. Last updated July 31, 2026.

This briefing compiles verified, survey-based statistics on how much consumers trust advertising, brands, media, and marketing channels. Every figure below is drawn from a named study with a working source link, an edition year, and a geography label. Trust figures are self-reported survey data, not observed behavior. Where the largest studies use different questions, samples, or regions, that is stated so the numbers are not treated as directly comparable.

Executive summary

• Recommendations from people consumers know remain the most trusted advertising channel worldwide, at 88% in Nielsen’s 2021 global study, far above any paid format.
• Trust in advertising ranks by format: peer recommendations, brand sponsorships, and TV sit at the top globally, while influencer ads sit near the bottom at 23% (Nielsen, 2021, global).
• Business is the most trusted of the four major institutions at 62% globally, ahead of NGOs (58%) and government (52%), per the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer.
• Trust in national news organizations among Americans has fallen 20 points, from 76% in 2016 to 56% in 2025 (Pew Research Center).
• Consumers say user-generated content is 2.4 times more likely than brand-created content to be seen as authentic, and only 8% say influencer content strongly affects their purchases (Stackla, 2019, US/UK/Australia).
• Studies disagree on geography and wording. Edelman is a global average; Pew is US-only; Nielsen mixes global and regional cuts. Treat cross-study comparisons with caution.
• The clearest, most consistent finding across all four sources: earned and peer signals out-trust paid and influencer messaging by wide margins.

Key findings

• 88% of global respondents trust recommendations from people they know more than any other channel (Nielsen Trust in Advertising Study, 2021, global, 40,000+ consumers).
• Recommendations from people I know reached 89.2% trust in the US cut of the same study (Nielsen, 2021, US).
• Brand sponsorships at sporting events were trusted by 81% of global respondents, the second-highest format (Nielsen, 2021, global).
• Over 78% of global respondents said they trust ads on TV (Nielsen, 2021, global).
• Only 23% of people said they trust ads from influencers (Nielsen, 2021, global).
• In the US cut, emails consumers signed up for (71.7%) and branded websites (71.1%) ranked second and third most trusted (Nielsen, 2021, US).
• Business is the most trusted institution globally at 62%, down 1 point year over year (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2025, 28 countries).
• NGOs were trusted at 58% and government at 52% globally, with 17 of 28 countries showing firm distrust of their governments (Edelman, 2025).
• 69% of respondents worry that business, government, and media leaders deliberately mislead them, up 11 points since 2021 (Edelman, 2025, global).
• 56% of Americans have at least some trust in information from national news organizations, down from 76% in 2016 (Pew Research Center, September 2025, 5,195 US adults).
• 70% of Americans trust information from local news organizations, versus 37% for social media sites (Pew, September 2025, US).
• 90% of consumers said authenticity is important when deciding which brands to support (Stackla, 2019, US/UK/Australia, 1,590 consumers).
• 79% of consumers said user-generated content highly affects their purchasing decisions, versus 13% for brand content and 8% for influencer content (Stackla, 2019).
• Consumers found UGC 9.8 times more impactful than influencer content (Stackla, 2019, US/UK/Australia).
• Trust in advertising was lowest in North America and Europe, up to 20% lower than in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America (Nielsen, 2021, regional).

Which advertising formats consumers trust most and least

The Nielsen Trust in Advertising Study is the reference dataset on format-level trust. The 2021 edition surveyed more than 40,000 consumers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific, North America, and Latin America in September 2021. Respondents were asked how much they trust each advertising channel completely or somewhat. These are self-reported trust ratings, not measures of persuasion or sales.

Peer and earned signals dominate. Recommendations from people consumers know were trusted by 88% of global respondents, more than any paid channel. Nielsen also reports that 50% more people trust recommendations than lesser-ranked channels such as online banner ads, mobile ads, SMS messages, and search-ad placements. Traditional broadcast and event formats score higher than most digital paid formats globally: brand sponsorships at sporting events reached 81% and TV ads exceeded 78%. Influencer ads sat near the bottom at 23%.

Source: Nielsen, Trust in Advertising Study, 2021. nielsen.com. US-cut format percentages via DM Magazine / Marketing News Canada reporting of the same study.

Limitation: Nielsen reports some figures as global averages and others as regional or US cuts, and the exact question wording differs across editions. Owned formats such as branded websites and opt-in email rank high in the US cut (around 71%) but Nielsen frames peer recommendations as the single most trusted channel in every region.

Trust in business, government, media, and NGOs

The Edelman Trust Barometer is the most widely cited global study of institutional trust. The 2025 edition, Edelman’s 25th, is based on more than 33,000 online interviews across 28 countries, conducted October 25 to November 16, 2024. The Trust Index is the average percent trust across business, government, media, and NGOs. These are global averages unless labeled otherwise, so they should not be read as US figures.

Source: Edelman, 2025 Trust Barometer. edelman.com/trust/2025; methodology via PR Newswire release.

Business remains the only institution Edelman scores as both competent and ethical, outperforming government by 49 points on competence and 29 points on ethics. Government and media are the least trusted institutions in the framework. Edelman’s fetched summaries confirm government at 52% globally but did not surface a separately verified global media percentage, so no media figure is stated here from Edelman. For media trust, the Pew Research Center data below is the more granular, US-specific source.

Edelman 2025 also documents an income-based trust divide: high-income respondents show an average Trust Index of 61%, versus 48% for low-income respondents. 69% of respondents worry that leaders deliberately mislead the public, up 11 points since 2021, and 61% report a moderate to high sense of grievance toward institutions.

Trust in media and news information

The Pew Research Center provides the most rigorous US-specific measure of trust in news information. Its September 2025 survey of 5,195 US adults, fielded September 8 to 14, 2025, asked how much people trust information from national news organizations, local news organizations, and social media sites. These are US-only figures and are not comparable to Edelman’s global institutional averages.

Source: Pew Research Center, October 29, 2025. pewresearch.org.

Trust in national news among Americans has fallen 20 points since 2016. Partisanship is the sharpest divide: 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents express at least some trust in national news, versus 69% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the lowest Democratic figure Pew has recorded. Local news retains higher trust (70%) than national news in every group. Social media sits far below both, trusted by 37% of US adults and equally low among Republicans and Democrats.

Trust in influencers and user-generated content versus brand ads

Stackla, now part of Nosto, surveyed 1,590 consumers and 150 business-to-consumer marketers across the US, UK, and Australia in 2019. The study measured perceived authenticity and purchase influence of three content types: user-generated content, brand-created content, and influencer content. These are self-reported perceptions from a three-country consumer sample and predate the 2020s creator-economy expansion, so they should be read as directional rather than current.

• 90% of consumers said authenticity is important when deciding which brands to support.
• 58% of consumers said user-generated content is the most authentic form of content.
• Consumers were 2.4 times more likely than marketers to say UGC is the most authentic content type.
• 79% of consumers said UGC highly affects their purchasing decisions, versus 13% for brand-created content and 8% for influencer content.
• Consumers found UGC 9.8 times more impactful than influencer content.
• 56% of consumers wanted to see user-generated photos and videos from brands, versus 15% who most wanted brand-created photos and videos.

Source: Stackla / Nosto consumer content report, 2019. Social Media Today; nosto.com.

Nielsen’s 2021 finding that only 23% of people trust influencer ads points in the same direction as Stackla’s 8% purchase-impact figure: paid influencer messaging carries the least trust of the channels these studies measured. The two numbers are not directly comparable, since Nielsen measures trust and Stackla measures self-reported purchase impact, but both rank influencers well below peer recommendations and user-generated content.

How trust has changed over time

Long-run comparisons require care because study wording changes. Nielsen’s earlier editions reported that 92% of global consumers trusted earned media such as word of mouth above all other advertising in 2012, and 83% trusted the recommendations of friends and family in 2015. The 2021 edition reports 88% for recommendations from people I know. The direction is broadly stable, but the questions are not identical across editions, so the small decline is not a clean like-for-like trend.

The clearest documented decline is in US news trust. Pew records national-news trust falling from 76% in 2016 to 56% in 2025. Edelman records a rise in the share of people who believe leaders deliberately mislead them, up 11 points to 69% since 2021. Both point to eroding institutional and media trust over the last decade, measured with consistent instruments within each study.

Generational and demographic differences

The fetched primary sources provide limited clean generational cuts, so only verified demographic splits are reported here. Edelman 2025 found that 53% of respondents aged 18 to 34 approve of at least one form of hostile activism against institutions, versus 40% across all ages, indicating sharper anti-institutional sentiment among younger adults. Edelman also documents an income divide, with a 61% Trust Index among high-income respondents versus 48% among low-income respondents. Pew 2025 documents a partisan divide in news trust, with Republicans at 44% and Democrats at 69% for national news. Nielsen’s 2021 study spans Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation but the fetched summaries did not provide per-generation trust percentages, so none are asserted here.

Original synthesis

1. The peer-to-paid trust gap

Combining Nielsen’s format ratings shows a 65-point gap between the most and least trusted advertising channels: recommendations from people I know at 88% versus influencer ads at 23% (Nielsen, 2021, global). Stackla’s independent 2019 data reinforces the ranking from a different angle: UGC drives purchase for 79% of consumers versus 8% for influencer content. Logic: two separate studies, using different metrics (trust versus purchase impact) and different samples (global 40,000+ versus 1,590 in three countries), place peer and user signals at the top and paid influencer signals at the bottom. Limitation: the metrics are not identical, the samples differ, and Nielsen mixes global and regional cuts.

2. A decade of media-trust erosion

Pew’s US series shows national-news trust dropping 20 points (76% to 56%) between 2016 and 2025, while Edelman shows the share believing leaders deliberately mislead rising 11 points since 2021 to 69% globally. Logic: two instruments, one US-specific and one global, both register declining confidence in the credibility of institutional information over the same window. Limitation: Pew is US-only and Edelman is a 28-country average, so the two cannot be summed; they are corroborating trends, not a single measure.

3. The authenticity premium favors owned and earned over paid

Ranking every verified format across sources produces a consistent hierarchy: peer recommendations (88%, Nielsen) sit above owned channels such as branded websites and opt-in email (around 70 to 72% in the US cut, Nielsen), which sit above influencer ads (23%, Nielsen) and social media as an information source (37%, Pew). Stackla’s authenticity data explains the mechanism: 58% of consumers call UGC the most authentic content and 90% say authenticity drives brand support. Logic: trust concentrates where consumers perceive independence from paid promotion. Limitation: Nielsen’s global cut ranks TV (78%) and sponsorships (81%) above owned digital, so the owned-over-paid pattern is clearest in the US cut and among digital formats specifically, not universal across all traditional media.

Methodology

Source-selection criteria: only primary survey publishers with transparent methodology were used. These are Nielsen (Trust in Advertising Study), Edelman (Trust Barometer), Pew Research Center (trust in information sources), and Stackla/Nosto (consumer content survey). Secondary trade and news outlets were used only to retrieve specific percentages published from these primary studies, and are cited as such.

Inclusion rules: every statistic includes a number, an edition year, a geography label, and a source link. Any figure that could not be tied to a named study with those elements was excluded. Exclusion examples: no global media-trust percentage is stated from Edelman because the fetched sources did not surface one; no per-generation Nielsen trust percentages are stated because they were not in the retrieved summaries.

Conflict handling: where studies use different questions or geographies (Edelman global versus Pew US-only, Nielsen trust versus Stackla purchase impact), the difference is labeled and the figures are not merged. Where an edition-to-edition comparison uses changed wording (Nielsen 2012 to 2021), that limitation is flagged.

Limitations: all figures are self-reported survey data and measure stated attitudes, not observed behavior. Edelman and Nielsen field online panels, which can under-represent offline populations. Stackla’s data is from 2019 and three countries only. Date of last update: July 31, 2026.

Source quality ranking

Tier 1 (primary research institutions with published methodology): Pew Research Center (probability-based American Trends Panel); Edelman Trust Barometer (Edelman Trust Institute, 28-country panel).

Tier 2 (credible market and industry research): Nielsen Trust in Advertising Study (global 40,000+ consumer panel); Stackla/Nosto consumer content survey (three-country commercial survey).

Tier 3 (reputable trade and news reporting of primary data): DM Magazine, Marketing News Canada, Social Media Today, PR Newswire, Creative Salon, used only to relay percentages published by the Tier 1 and Tier 2 studies above.

Journalist notes

Most quotable statistics

• 88% of people worldwide trust recommendations from people they know more than any other advertising channel (Nielsen, 2021).
• Only 23% of people trust ads from influencers (Nielsen, 2021, global).
• Business is the world’s most trusted institution at 62%, ahead of government at 52% (Edelman, 2025).
• US trust in national news has fallen from 76% in 2016 to 56% in 2025 (Pew Research Center).
• Only 8% of consumers say influencer content strongly affects their purchases, versus 79% for user-generated content (Stackla, 2019).

Data limitations

All figures are self-reported survey attitudes. Edelman is a 28-country global average and is not a US figure. Pew is US-only. Nielsen mixes global and US/regional cuts. Stackla data is from 2019 and covers only the US, UK, and Australia. Nielsen edition-to-edition comparisons use changed question wording and are not exact trends.

Downloadable dataset: recommended fields

statistic_id, metric, value, unit, study_name, study_edition_year, publisher, geography, sample_size, survey_dates, question_type (trust or impact), source_url, tier, notes.

Press summary

Consumer trust in advertising in 2026 follows a consistent pattern across the major studies: people trust each other far more than they trust paid promotion. Nielsen’s global research puts trust in recommendations from people you know at 88%, while influencer ads reach only 23%. Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer ranks business as the most trusted institution at 62%, ahead of NGOs at 58% and government at 52%, but records rising public suspicion that leaders deliberately mislead them. In the US, Pew Research Center finds trust in national news has fallen 20 points since 2016 to 56%, with social media trusted by just 37%. Stackla data shows consumers view user-generated content as far more authentic and influential than either brand or influencer content. All figures are self-reported survey data with differing geographies and question wording, so they corroborate a direction rather than form a single index.

Suggested headlines

• Consumers Trust Each Other 4 Times More Than Influencers, 2026 Data Shows
• Business Beats Government and Media on Trust, Edelman 2025 Finds
• US Trust in National News Falls 20 Points Since 2016
• Only 8% of Shoppers Say Influencers Sway Their Purchases
• Word of Mouth Still Wins: 88% Trust Peer Recommendations Over Ads

Frequently asked questions

See the FAQ section for ten questions answered with verified statistics.

Citation formats

Nielsen. Trust in Advertising Study. 2021. Global, 40,000+ consumers. nielsen.com/insights/2021/beyond-martech-building-trust-with-consumers-and-engaging-where-sentiment-is-high.

Edelman. 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer. 28 countries, 33,000+ respondents, fielded October to November 2024. edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer.

Pew Research Center. How Americans’ Trust in Information From News Organizations and Social Media Sites Has Changed Over Time. September 2025 survey of 5,195 US adults. pewresearch.org.

Stackla / Nosto. Consumer Content Report: Bridging the Gap. 2019. US, UK, Australia, 1,590 consumers. nosto.com.