Consumers Have Seen It. Why Don’t They Always Buy?
Creator marketing reach does not automatically lead to purchases. Exposure, consideration, and transaction are distinct stages, and consumers do not always move from one to the next.
A survey found that 83% of respondents had seen or opened an affiliate link, but only about 40% of them had bought through one. Income also shapes purchasing patterns.
Live shopping attracts viewers through promotions, prices, and information-related interaction. Brands need to evaluate conversion by format and examine consumers’ needs during the consideration stage.
Many creator marketing strategies rest on the assumption that the more people see a piece of content, the greater the chance that a product will be considered and bought. For this reason, reach has become one of the key indicators for assessing creator performance. However, reach only shows how many consumers were reached, not how far they have moved toward a purchase.
Being known does not always mean being considered, and being considered does not always end in a purchase. Exposure occurs when consumers see content or come across a product link. Consideration takes place when they assess a product’s relevance to their needs, whether its price suits them, and whether it is worth buying. Purchase, meanwhile, is an observable action. The three are interrelated, but moving from one stage to the next does not happen automatically.
This is where the paradox of creator marketing emerges. Creator content and product links can reach consumers widely, but that reach does not necessarily produce transactions. Data on affiliate links and live shopping reveal the gap between exposure and purchase. They also raise a question: what happens when consumers already know a product but have not yet made a decision?
Many Are Exposed, Fewer Buy
Affiliate links allow consumers to move from creator content to a product page. But to what extent do these links end in a purchase?
Citing GoodStats, a Jakpat survey conducted from November 25 to December 3, 2025 found that 83% of respondents, or 886 of 1,069 people, had seen or opened an affiliate link. Of those previously exposed, about 40% reported having bought through an affiliate link in the past six months.
This means that most respondents who had seen or opened such links did not report a purchase through that channel in the same period.
Purchase rates were also relatively similar across generations. GoodStats recorded figures ranging from 35% among Gen X to 41% among Millennials. According to the Jakpat report cited by GoodStats, income also differentiated purchasing patterns, with purchase rates dropping sharply among low-income consumers.
This difference suggests that the breadth of exposure alone cannot explain purchasing patterns. Who is being reached also matters, because consumers in different income situations may respond differently to the content they encounter.
The data do not explain why some consumers buy while others do not. Some may simply want to look at the product, be comparing options, or not yet have a strong enough reason to complete the transaction. The available information does not distinguish among these possibilities.
For marketers, figures on exposure and purchase offer only an initial picture. To understand why a campaign does or does not generate transactions, brands need to look beyond the number of people reached.
Live Shopping: Price Draws Attention, Interaction Adds Value
Unlike affiliate links, which direct consumers to a product page, live shopping lets them see a product in real time while interacting directly with the seller. This format creates an opportunity to look for information while watching the product being demonstrated.
A Jakpat publication from July 2026, summarizing a report from the same survey, shows that 92% of respondents regularly watch live shopping sessions. More than half of respondents had also bought through the format in the past six months.
To understand the appeal of this format, it is worth looking more closely at why consumers engage with it.
Citing the IDN Research Institute, Jakpat analyzed the responses of 818 respondents interested in shopping through live shopping. Of these, 71% were attracted by promotions or discounts, while 66% were drawn by lower prices.
Information-related reasons also stood out. A total of 65% were attracted by the ability to ask questions or interact directly with the seller, only one percentage point below the reason of lower prices. In addition, 56% were attracted by being able to see the product directly, and 55% wanted to check the product’s actual condition.
These figures reveal two sides of live shopping’s appeal: the chance to get an attractive price and access to product information. Consumers can not only follow offers but also seek explanations that help them assess the product.
On a regular product page, consumers rely on the materials the seller provides. Questions about actual size, texture, or how to use the product may remain unanswered by photos and descriptions. In a live broadcast, they can ask the seller to show the product from another angle or explain things that are unclear.
For marketers, both aspects deserve attention when evaluating this format. Price can draw consumers in to watch, while interaction gives them room to seek additional information. Even so, the reasons someone is interested in live shopping do not in themselves prove that the interaction changed their consideration or caused a purchase.
In other words, a format’s popularity and its effectiveness need to be assessed through different indicators. Viewer numbers help show the content’s ability to attract attention, while the role of the content in consumer consideration requires further observation.
Attention, Influence, Conversion: Three Stages, Three Measurement Needs
The data on affiliate links and live shopping can be read through three concepts: attention, influence, and conversion. This framework helps marketers distinguish between a content’s reach, its role in consumer consideration, and purchase outcomes.
Attention: Are consumers exposed?
The attention stage concerns the content’s ability to reach an audience and capture its attention. Indicators such as reach, impressions, views, and clicks help brands understand how widely content has spread and how the audience has responded.
The figures of 83% of respondents having seen or opened an affiliate link and 92% regularly watching live shopping describe exposure to the two formats. However, the two measure different behaviors and need to be read according to their definitions.
A click, for example, shows that a consumer took action to look further. But they may click a link out of curiosity, to compare prices, or simply to find out which product the creator uses. A click signals that the consumer took an initial action, but it is not enough to show how strong their intention to buy is.
Influence: Does the content play a role in consumer consideration?
At the influence stage, attention has the potential to develop into consideration. Content can help consumers understand a product’s benefits, resolve doubts, or judge whether an option suits their needs.
This process is not always visible in campaign metrics. A viewer may watch a broadcast to the end without changing their consideration. Conversely, a consumer may buy a product whose link they opened earlier after obtaining information from another source.
For this reason, reach and click figures do not explain what happens after consumers interact with the content. Did they get the information they needed, remain unsure about the product, or end up choosing an alternative? These questions matter for understanding the content’s role in consumer decisions, but they cannot be answered through exposure indicators alone.
Live shopping offers one context in which to observe part of this process. Questions in the comment section, requests to show the product from another angle, or doubts about size can give clues about the information consumers are looking for.
These signals are not direct evidence that influence has occurred. However, if observed and traced further, they can help brands understand the information needs that emerge while consumers are considering a product.
Conversion: Do consumers buy?
The conversion stage refers to observable purchase actions. Citing GoodStats, about 40% of respondents who had seen or opened an affiliate link reported having bought through such a link in the past six months. The Jakpat publication on live shopping also states that more than half of respondents had bought through that format in the same period.
These two findings give a picture of the experience of buying through each format. However, the figures cannot be directly compared as equivalent measures of effectiveness without considering the measurement base and context of each.
Purchase figures also do not explain the process that precedes a transaction. The data can show whether consumers report a purchase, but the reasons behind their decisions require additional information.
This is where the measurement gap becomes important. Campaign reports can capture exposure at the start and purchase at the end, while the consideration process connecting the two is not necessarily well recorded.
When no purchase occurs, reach and click figures cannot distinguish between consumers who never really considered the product, consumers who considered it but decided not to buy, and consumers who are still postponing their decision. All three can look the same in a campaign report, yet they require different responses.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to add more engagement indicators. Brands need to understand which indicators can help explain consumers’ consideration process and how that process relates to purchase.
Measuring Influence at the Consideration Stage
Reach and clicks remain useful as initial indicators. However, to find out what happens after consumers are exposed, brands need to supplement these measurements with evaluations better suited to each format and to the consumer consideration process.
The first step is to separate performance by format. Affiliate, live shopping, and organic content bring consumers into contact with products under different conditions. There are short recommendations accompanied by links, broadcasts that open space for questions and answers, and organic content that does not always carry a link or a call to buy.
Combining the three into a single reach figure or a single sales figure can hide these differences. Comparing conversion by format using a consistent measurement base can help brands identify distinct purchasing patterns and determine which parts need further investigation.
Even so, differences in conversion explain only the end result. They do not reveal why purchasing patterns differ or whether a format helps consumers move from exposure toward more considered deliberation.
To investigate the influence stage, brands can start by observing signals related to consumers’ information needs. Questions asked during broadcasts, content that is saved, follow-up searches for the product name, or comparisons with other products can serve as starting points for understanding their behavior.
Every indicator has limitations. Saving content, for example, does not automatically mean the consumer intends to buy. Likewise, a question during a broadcast does not necessarily show that they have become more confident about the product. The value of these indicators lies in their ability to help brands formulate better questions, and then test their relationship with purchases that occur later.
This question is one of the research agendas of the Indonesia Creator Marketing Report (ICMR) 2027: how influence at the consideration stage can be identified and measured more precisely before its outcome becomes visible in conversion.
As long as the consideration stage remains inadequately measured, evaluations of creator effectiveness will continue to rest on exposure and transactions, while the process connecting the two remains insufficiently understood.
For Brands: Don’t Stop at Reach and Conversion
For brands, the implication is not to abandon reach or replace it with a single new metric. What needs to improve is how creator marketing performance is read: as a consumer journey, not merely a collection of exposure and transaction figures.
There are two initial steps that can be taken.
First, evaluate conversion by format.
Separate the performance of affiliate, live shopping, and organic content, using consistent indicator definitions and measurement bases. This comparison helps brands recognize purchasing patterns in each format and determine which parts need further investigation.
Second, trace the consumer consideration process.
Use the differences in these patterns as a starting point to find out what information consumers need, what questions remain unanswered, and what interactions could potentially help them assess the product. The relationship between these signals and purchases needs to be tested, rather than the signals being immediately treated as evidence of influence.
In this way, evaluations of creator performance can answer two different questions: which format generates purchases, and what consumers experience before making that decision. The first question can be traced through conversion by format, while the second requires further observation of the consideration process.
A wide reach shows how many consumers were successfully reached. To understand the effectiveness of creator marketing more fully, marketers also need to know how exposure relates to consideration and the decision to buy.
This article is part of the Consumer Paradox series, seven articles that each unpack one marketer assumption. In creator marketing, the paradox is that consumers’ access to content and products can grow ever wider, while the attention gained does not necessarily turn into a purchase decision.
References
Jakpat. (2026a, June 30). Live shopping & affiliate links: Demographic insights. Jakpat Insight. Retrieved October 19, 2026, from https://insight.jakpat.net/live-shopping-affiliate-links-demographic-insights/
Jakpat. (2026b, July 13). Live shopping vs affiliate links: Which wins consumers? Jakpat Insight. Retrieved October 19, 2026, from https://insight.jakpat.net/live-shopping-vs-affiliate-links-which-wins-consumers/
Pramesthi, N. A. (2026, August 19). 7 out of 10 Indonesian consumers choose to shop via live shopping. IDN Research Institute. Retrieved October 19, 2026, from https://www.idnresearchinstitute.com/english/7-out-of-10-indonesian-consumers-choose-to-shop-via-live-shopping-00-314l1-k019g8
Wafa, I. (2026, July 7). Belum banyak konsumen e-commerce yang checkout lewat link affiliate [Not many e-commerce consumers check out through affiliate links]. GoodStats Data. Retrieved October 19, 2026, from https://data.goodstats.id/statistic/belum-banyak-konsumen-e-commerce-yang-checkout-lewat-link-affiliate-rp5lL
