General EvidenceInsights

Pre-Purchase Creator Touch Rates: TikTok vs. Instagram

Results as of

Review 2025–H1 2026: 51% of Haribo buyers and 31% of dm-drogerie-markt buyers watched an affiliated TikTok creator before purchase — TikTok touch rates run 2–14× higher than Instagram in every category.

Pre-Purchase Creator Touch Rates: TikTok vs. InstagramGrouped bar chart showing the pre-purchase creator touch rate for five product categories on TikTok and Instagram among German buyers from January 2025 to June 2026. Each pair of bars shows the share of buyers who had a creator touchpoint on TikTok (dark bar) versus Instagram (light bar) in the 30 days before purchase. Food/Haribo tops TikTok at 51%, followed by beauty/dm at 31%, fashion/SHEIN at 20%, fitness/ESN at 18%, and home/IKEA at around 2%; Instagram touch rates are consistently near zero across all categories.Grouped bar chart showing the pre-purchase creator touch rate for five product categories on TikTok and Instagram among German buyers from January 2025 to June 2026. Each pair of bars shows the share of buyers who had a creator touchpoint on TikTok (dark bar) versus Instagram (light bar) in the 30 days before purchase. Food/Haribo tops TikTok at 51%, followed by beauty/dm at 31%, fashion/SHEIN at 20%, fitness/ESN at 18%, and home/IKEA at around 2%; Instagram touch rates are consistently near zero across all categories.
Grouped bar chart showing the pre-purchase creator touch rate for five product categories on TikTok and Instagram among German buyers from January 2025 to June 2026. Each pair of bars shows the share of buyers who had a creator touchpoint on TikTok (dark bar) versus Instagram (light bar) in the 30 days before purchase. Food/Haribo tops TikTok at 51%, followed by beauty/dm at 31%, fashion/SHEIN at 20%, fitness/ESN at 18%, and home/IKEA at around 2%; Instagram touch rates are consistently near zero across all categories.
Info
Sample size
n = 1,312
Data date
2025–H1 2026
Segment
All segments
Platform
Browsing, Purchases
Market
Germany

Analysis

Food and beauty lead all categories in absolute pre-purchase creator exposure on TikTok: more than half of Haribo buyers and nearly one in three dm-drogerie-markt buyers encountered an affiliated creator before their purchase. Yet that reach translates into a weak purchase conversion signal precisely because these creators saturate ordinary TikTok feeds — virtually everyone sees them, not just shoppers.

TikTok's Content-Commerce Loop Outpaces Instagram

TikTok Shop launched in Germany in March 2025 and merged product discovery with short-form video in a single feed, giving creator content a direct path to checkout that Instagram's link-in-bio model cannot match. NIQ data found that over 15% of German online shoppers had bought through TikTok Shop within its first year, with fashion and beauty among the earliest and largest categories. The 2–14× TikTok-over-Instagram gap in creator touch rates reflects both this structural advantage and the fact that Instagram's watch-history signal only became available from late January 2026, meaning the comparison likely understates Instagram's true reach for earlier purchases. Brands with broad TikTok creator ecosystems — like Haribo and dm-drogerie-markt — benefit from mass awareness but should complement it with tighter creator affinity targeting to close the purchase loop. The over-index chart by category shows which categories convert that awareness most efficiently.

This analysis is based on public segment data. For deeper cuts, use our Enterprise interface.

Methodology

Data covers German online shoppers with verified purchase history and platform activity from January 2025 to June 2026, across five brands representing five categories (Haribo/food, dm-drogerie-markt/beauty, SHEIN/fashion, ESN/fitness, IKEA/home). The touch rate is the share of category buyers — anchored to their first brand purchase — who watched or followed an affiliated creator on TikTok (video watch or follow event) or Instagram (Reels watch or follow) in the 30 days before purchase. Only buyers with confirmed dual-source coverage for the respective platform and browsing activity are included, ensuring that a zero touch is a true zero rather than a data gap. Instagram Reels watch data is available only from 28 January 2026 onward; Instagram touch rates for 2025 purchases reflect follow events only. Figures are cohort-internal composition rates, not population-weighted estimates for Germany.

These insights are based on the General Evidence Panel. Our data comes exclusively from users who are compensated for their anonymity. Become part of the panel & earn from your data