In the “era of efficacy,” creator marketers are making their millions work harder

This year, influencer marketing is projected to be a $10 billion business that will involve more than half of all U.S. advertisers. That’s a lot of money flying around, but brands are arguably using more prudence than ever before when it comes to their influencer budgets.

The latest trends in so-called “creator marketing” are explored in a new data dump from CreatorIQ. The platform published its annual State of Creator Marketing report, and one notable year-over-year change concerns the metrics brands are using to evaluate their influencer partnerships.

CreatorIQ teamed up with Sapio Research to query 1,723 brands, agencies, and creators about the strategies that are informing their current sponsored partnerships. The overall mood among those respondents is a tightening of the proverbial belt: Creator marketing is not the “wild west” it used to be, and advertisers are demanding more from their influencer spend even as those budgets skyrocket. The result, as CreatorIQ dubs it, is an “era of efficacy.”

The evidence for the spending uptick is clear. 71% of surveyed organizations increased their influencer marketing investment year-over-year, and 98% of the brands in CreatorIQ’s sample said that they repurpose creator sponcon on other channels, such as company websites, social channels, and email campaigns.

Creator marketing is so hot right now — but a volatile economy has its own effect on that industry. 51% of the brands that responded to CreatorIQ’s survey cited an “increased focus on ROI” as a primary result of adverse economic conditions. To that end, metrics like return on ad spend (ROAS) are becoming more common advertiser benchmarks compared to raw viewership. Only 8% of respondents cited follower counts as the most important factor informing their creator-related decisions. For comparison, “creator suitability” came in at 22% on the same axis.

Even if brands want to make their creator budgets work harder, they don’t always have the tools on hand to accomplish that mission. Accurate measurement continues to be a boogeyman for the industry, with 26% of brand respondents dubbing measurement difficulties as a “top roadblock.” On the agency side, increasingly risk-averse attitudes led 36% of respondents to describe creator vetting as a “top challenge.”

“Creator marketing is no longer a side tactic—it’s become the growth engine where content, community, and commerce converge. We’ve seen the impact of creator marketing, and increased investment has followed. But the story now is how maturity brings new responsibility and complexity,” said CreatorIQ CEO Chris Harrington in a statement. “The next era isn’t just about bigger spend; it’s about proving ROI, safeguarding trust, and building the infrastructure to scale responsibly. That’s how we push the industry forward and ensure creator marketing delivers lasting value for brands and consumers alike.”

Five years from now, CreatorIQ projects that 85% of enterprise organizations will increase their investments in creator marketing. But if the latest State of Creator Marketing report tells us anything, its that the titular industry is constantly shifting and being shaped by see-sawing market forces. By the time 2030 rolls around, who knows where we’ll end up?