<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the moderating effect of consumer altruistic values upon two drivers of brand credibility in cause‐related marketing (CrM): cause‐brand fit and consumer attribution of altruistic brand motivations.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>This is a quantitative study. Data have been collected through personal interviews at households using the random route sampling technique. The sample is formed by consumers of insurance and personal hygiene products, using different brand‐social cause combinations. Data have been analysed through structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis to test the moderation hypotheses.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Findings show that altruistic consumers use mainly altruistic attribution to form their judgement on brand credibility in CrM messages, whereas non altruistic consumers base their assessment on cause‐brand fit.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>Real brands have been used in the empirical study and thus further research should replicate the study with fictional brands in order to avoid the effect of consumer prior information.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>The findings have relevant implications for CrM campaign managers in helping them to understand how to increase brand credibility in CrM messages. They should emphasize altruistic motivations if their target comprises more altruists or brand‐cause fit if non‐altruists outweigh.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-heading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>This study contributes to the literature by making explicit the moderating role of altruistic values on two antecedents of brand credibility (cause‐brand fit and altruistic attributions) in a CrM campaign.</jats:p></jats:sec>