The creator economy is becoming a “must buy” — and a $37 billion industry in the U.S.

Investments in the creator economy have been turbulent, but even amid an uncertain future, business is still booming. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has published its 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report, which details the ongoing growth of the increasingly sophisticated influencer marketing sector.

Let’s start at the top: The value of the creator economy is still going up. The IAB report projects that ad spend on creators in the U.S. will top out at $37 billion in 2025. Should that estimate prove accurate, it will represent a year-over-year increase of 26%.

The growth of the U.S. creator economy may be slowing, since we saw a year-over-year spending uptick of 34% between 2023 and 2024. Even if the curve is flattening, there are still plenty of reasons for optimism in the creator world. Most notably, a significant number of ad buyers now see creators as indispensable additions to modern marketing plans.

Among the 450 U.S.-based ad spend decision-makers who responded to the IAB’s survey, 48% said that they see creators as a “must buy” entity. Only paid search and social media were higher on the must-buy list, and once-mighty ad categories like linear TV (a must-buy for 32% of respondents) and radio (26%) are watching as creators usurp their influence. That’s why 53% of respondents now have specific ad budgets that are allocated for creator-related work.

When you consider that 41% of creator marketers see access to new audiences as a top objective for their campaigns, it makes sense that they are prioritizing partnerships with individuals who hold sway over large swaths of young consumers. “The Creator Economy in the U.S. has rapidly evolved from a niche content movement into a central force shaping how brands connect with consumers,” reads the preface to the report. “What began as a wave of individual voices has become one of the fastest-growing sectors in all of media, now blurring the lines between entertainment, commerce, and community.”

“Creator marketing is the one thing that can deliver personalization at scale,” added a C-suite exec at an agency holding company. “Nothing creates intimacy at the level that creator marketing can. I’ve never seen something represent the concept of ‘people like me’ more than creator marketing.”

There’s great potential in the world of creator marketing, but it’s still far from a frictionless industry. The specter of badly-behaved creators causes 58% of respondents to weigh reputations when selecting who to sponsor. Inefficient measurement options are still frustrating creator marketers as well. “Proving ROI” and “attributing sales to creators” emerged as the most common measurement-related issues within the IAB’s survey sample.

The creator economy may still have some maturing to do, but there’s no doubt that it has officially eclipsed most traditional rivals among U.S. marketers. To learn more about the growth of that sector — and how it relates to important acronyms like AIs and KPIs — download the full IAB report.