The “sponsored content residue” in influencer marketing

Social media influencers partner with businesses to produce sponsored content in influencer marketing campaigns. We find that influencers’ next post after sponsored content suffers an engagement loss, a phenomenon we term “sponsored content residue.” Theoretically, consumers prefer influencer content because of influencers’ intrinsic motivation. When influencers produce sponsored content, consumers perceive them to be less intrinsically motivated, which affects their subsequent content engagement. We examine this effect with four research questions. (1) Which influencer traits moderate the residue effect? (2) Is perceived intrinsic motivation the mediator? (3) How does the residue effect evolve with time? (4) How do influencers cope with it? We answer these questions using econometric modeling on real-world data and an online experiment. First, we demonstrate the existence of the residue effect. Among the influencer traits, disclosing business intention increases organic content engagement; out-of-expertise content cancels out the residue effect; and micro-influencers suffer less from the residue effect. After sponsorship, the residue effect diminishes with time. Moreover, we observe significant changes in creative effort as possible influencer coping strategies. Finally, an online experiment validates the mediating role of perceived intrinsic motivation. This article contributes to the growing influencer marketing literature and provides crucial practical implications.