Why 1 in 4 UK consumers buy DIY products after influencer recommendations
Rather than just buying content, brands are now buying category advantage before everyone else realises that they should.
One in four UK adults has purchased a DIY or home improvement product after an influencer recommended it. In other words, millions of people are now taking renovation advice from creators before they even step foot in a store.
In DIY, creator content isn’t a “nice to have". It’s the difference between a customer wandering the aisles and a customer walking in with a screenshot.
That figure comes from Sprout Social’s research into UK consumer behaviour. That’s a quarter of the market is buying products on the basis of a creator's recommendation. To work that out as the number of people in the UK as a homeowner or renter, that's roughly 6.25 million households acting directly on creator‑led inspiration.
Why does this category outperform?
Influencer marketing delivers strong returns across most consumer categories, but in home improvement, it performs exceptionally well because of how people behave in this space.
The first is intent. When someone follows a home improvement or DIY creator, they’re planning a project, researching materials, comparing tools and actively looking for recommendations they can trust. That makes creator partnerships particularly effective here.
The second is trust. In home improvement, trust is a growth driver. Purchases such as tools, materials, finishes and fixtures are considered decisions. Consumers research before they buy, and they place significant weight on the experience of people who have actually used the product. A creator who has used a product on a real project and says so honestly carries a level of credibility that a display ad cannot replicate.
The third is longevity. A well-produced tutorial or project walkthrough does not disappear when the campaign ends. It continues to generate views and mentions your product for months or years afterwards. This is known as evergreen content in the marketing world. Brands that factor content longevity into their ROI calculations consistently find that the return improves significantly over time. This is because a good tutorial just keeps quietly selling your product while everyone else is busy refreshing their ad budgets.
Strong performance is one thing, proving it is another. The question isn’t, "Did the creator drive the result?” It’s, "Did we set the right KPIs to see it?”
The numbers that matter for brand decision-makers
It’s getting harder to ignore the data on influencer marketing in the home improvement and DIY sectors. Advertising spend in the UK reached £917 million in 2024, now more than what is spent on cinema, radio and magazine advertising individually and on par with their combined total. It’s forecast to surpass £1.3 billion by 2029, so this means that brands are committing to it even more than ever.
91% of brands using influencer marketing say that creator content drives stronger returns than traditional digital advertising, and 82% of marketers report that influencer-sourced leads are higher quality than leads from other channels.
For the home improvement and DIY sector specifically, micro-influencers in the 10,000 to 100,000 follower range consistently outperform larger creators on conversion. Their audiences are more engaged, more niche, and more likely to act on a recommendation because they followed the creator for precisely that kind of guidance. However, macro-influencers, with 100,000 to 1,000,000 followers, can provide brands with a massive reach and discovery to new audiences.
What good measurement looks like
One of the most common concerns from senior marketing teams is attribution, and they’re asking questions such as, 'How do you know the influencer campaign drove the result?'
It’s unfair, and frankly ineffective, to judge a creator solely on the data from a one‑off, transactional, ad‑style collaboration. There are too many variables at play, and the algorithm alone can swing results dramatically from one post to the next.
What is useful, however, is understanding the signals that give you a rough idea of whether a partnership has long‑term potential.
While we absolutely value metrics like views, reach and engagement, especially at scale, working with creators, particularly macro-creators, provides you with something that data alone can't: a trusted, credible human being speaking directly to your customer about why your product matters. That’s something a brand cannot replicate on its own.
When that message is delivered in a way that feels authentic to the creator and their audience, and that’s where the real difference happens.
Measurement has improved significantly. UTM parameters, unique discount codes, referral links and affiliate tracking all provide a direct line from creator content to purchase. Branded search volume during and after campaigns is another strong indicator. For brands selling through retail partners, merchant sell‑through data is often the most reliable measure of all.
But even with all of that, creators aren’t just data points.
An important question is how you define 'return' before the campaign begins. Brands that set clear KPIs at the outset, whether that is cost-per-conversion, content asset value, audience reach, or a combination, consistently report stronger outcomes than those measuring retrospectively.
It is also worth noting that creator content has value beyond the campaign itself. 41% of brands report that repurposing creator content in paid advertising delivers higher returns than studio-produced creative. This means the content fee is producing a performance asset that can be used across multiple channels.
The brands moving now are the ones building the relationships that matter
The home improvement sector is not yet saturated with creator partnerships in the way that beauty or fashion is. The brands establishing relationships with trusted DIY, home improvement and lifestyle creators now are doing so ahead of the point at which this becomes a standard part of every media plan.
At Build and Bloom Management, we connect home improvement brands with trusted DIY, home improvement and lifestyle creators across the UK and manage everything from creator selection to campaign measurement.
If you are planning a campaign in the home improvement, DIY or lifestyle sector, we would be glad to have that conversation.
Talk to us about your next campaign.
Industry data referenced in this post: UK consumer influencer purchase behaviour, Statista; influencer marketing ROI and spend data, Charle Agency (citing Sprout Social, IAB UK and industry benchmarks); influencer marketing benchmark data, Influencer Marketing Hub 2026 Benchmark Report; creator content performance data, Aspire State of Influencer Marketing 2025.