Creator marketing has completed its move from experimental line item to core media channel. Brands in the United States and United Kingdom now spend an average of $6.6 million a year on creator programmes, according to CreatorIQ research with Sapio Research published this year, and creator content accounts for an average of 44 percent of the creative assets brands use in paid media.
The survey of marketing leaders found that 92 percent of paid media decision-makers now use creator content in paid campaigns at least some of the time — feeding platforms such as Meta, TikTok and YouTube rather than living only as organic posts on a creator’s own account. More than eight in ten respondents reported returns of at least twice their investment from creator activity.
The wider market numbers point the same way. The IAB’s creator economy reporting puts US creator advertising spending at a projected $44 billion in 2026, growing roughly four times faster than the media industry overall. Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 benchmark, meanwhile, found that close to nine in ten brands expected to increase influencer budgets this year, with a large share planning rises of 50 percent or more.
What has changed is not just the size of the cheques but where creators sit in the plan. For the heaviest-spending brands in the CreatorIQ sample — those investing at least $1 million a year and reporting doubled returns — creators absorb more than half of the entire marketing budget. That reframes creators from a social team sideline into the centre of the media strategy, with implications for how agencies pitch, how rights and usage are negotiated, and how long partnerships run.
The industry press increasingly describes a shift toward longer, more deliberate collaborations. UK data cited by Marketing Week shows a majority of brands increasing investment in long-term creator partnerships, alongside a move to episodic, series-style content rather than one-off trend posts. Practitioners argue that always-on creator presence builds the search and recommendation visibility that one campaign burst cannot.
Measurement remains the weak point. Multiple analyses warn that a meaningful share of creator investment is wasted on poor brand fit and weak attribution, and spending is running ahead of the workflow infrastructure built to manage it. Discovery, contracting, rights management and cross-platform measurement are still fragmented for many advertisers.
The direction of travel, though, is not in doubt. As of Friday, October 9, 2026, the question inside marketing departments is no longer whether creators belong in the plan, but how much of the plan they should carry — and what proof they must show to keep it.
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