U.S. influencer marketing spending, excluding paid media amplification and non-social media expenditures, is expected to reach $9.29 billion in 2025, up 14.2% from 2024. 

This surge in spending has also led to rising costs for influencer partnerships. For instance, a mid-tier influencer (50k–100k followers) may charge between $500 and $5,000 per post.

Hence, local businesses seeking creator partnerships may face significant cost barriers, while neighborhood creators struggle to earn income from their engaged local audiences.

While established influencer marketing platforms often exclude small businesses with thousand-dollar campaign minimums, expensive monthly retainers, and mandatory account management fees, a new solution aims to address this gap in the market.

Founded by Luke Himmelsbach and Dylan Wilczkowiak in 2022, CreatorPad addresses this disconnect by connecting neighborhood businesses directly with local creators through an automated platform that removes traditional cost barriers. 

The platform’s impact became clear in Denver when a local brewery, Bierstadt Lagerhaus, generated over 250,000 views and dozens of customer intent comments through a $250 campaign with two neighborhood creators.

Luke Himmelsbach (left) & Dylan Wilczkowiak (right)

Reimagining Local Marketing

The early results didn’t happen by accident. Luke and Dylan built CreatorPad after identifying a fundamental flaw in how influencer marketing platforms serve small businesses.

Their partnership began with a different vision entirely – a Web3 creator community focused on mentorship. “What we wanted to start with was a creator community,” Dylan explains. “Back then, not only was there a boom in the creator economy as a result of the pandemic, but also there was a boom and hype around Web3 communities.”

However, user behavior revealed a deeper market opportunity. “We started talking to our users, trying to put some new ideas in front of them based on how they were already using the platform,” Dylan recalls. “What we saw was a lot of mentors and mentees would actually have their relationship on the platform evolve or mature into them becoming friends or business partners.”

This insight led them to explore local creator collaborations, where they discovered an underserved market. “We learned that if we were going to start connecting creators in person, like in the same city, then they would actually also love to be able to find local brand deals,” says Dylan.

A Fresh Approach to Creator Partnerships

CreatorPad developed its platform using what Dylan describes as a “product-first, tech-first” approach that challenges traditional assumptions about influencer marketing. 

“A lot of the other influencer marketing platforms out there are, you know, they have long sales processes, there’s a lot of hand holding going on,” he explains. “It’s sort of like an agency under the guise of being a tech platform.”

Instead, CreatorPad focuses on automation and accessibility. “We spend a lot of time on building a really great product,” Dylan emphasizes. “For us to make influencer marketing, especially at a local level, just as impactful and easy as running a Meta ad or a traditional advertisement… the platform needs to be as easy; you set a campaign and you forget it.”

Luke particularly emphasizes their focus on realistic budgets: “Because we’re focused on [avoiding] hidden costs… so many of these platforms will be charging thousands of dollars or X amount of seats and you have to have a minimum amount of seats… For these small businesses that don’t have the margins to go and play with something like that, we really want to allow them to break in at whatever budget fits their margin.”

How It Works

To deliver on these promises of simplicity and accessibility, the platform’s operational model prioritizes simplicity and transparency. 

“When the business launches the campaign… that money goes into an escrow account,” Dylan explains. “We’re not going to use that money for any payment of our costs. That money is sitting safely.”

The platform’s payment system directly addresses one of the creator economy’s biggest pain points. While industry standard payments often take 30-90 days, CreatorPad has reduced this to just 14 days after content publication, with plans to further reduce it to 10 days.

This is achieved through their escrow system. When a business launches a campaign, the full budget is immediately secured in an escrow account – not accessible to CreatorPad or the business – ensuring creators will be paid. After the creator publishes approved content, a 14-day monitoring period begins. Once complete, funds are automatically released to the creator’s wallet for withdrawal.

“Running a creator business is so hard, especially when trying to make it a full-time business,” Luke notes. “That’s why so many creators end up either burning out or quitting… ‘Wow, I just did something for $300. Now I have to wait three months. That’s not going to pay any bills.’”

Dylan adds, “We’re just really excited for this opportunity to just cut that time down as much as we possibly can for payment.”

The platform streamlines every aspect of campaign management. “All the campaign communication happens on the platform,” Dylan details. “The creator submitting their work to the business for review, the business reviewing, the business sending back feedback, the creator iterating on the work… us tracking the post and pushing all the analytics back into the platform for both the creator and the business to see how the campaign is performing.”

Measurable Local Impact

CreatorPad’s streamlined approach is already delivering results. The platform’s effectiveness is demonstrated through concrete results. 

“We ran a campaign with them with two local creators that drove several hundred of thousands of views,” Luke shares about the Bierstadt Lagerhaus campaign. “All of the comments were just people saying, ‘I’m so excited to go here. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place… My family is visiting this weekend. I can’t wait to bring them here.’”

This local focus creates particular value for micro and nano creators. “They want to work with businesses, they want to start making money on their content,” Luke explains. “Most of the time they’re working full-time jobs and they just want to be creative and don’t understand how to monetize this because they’re being bought out by these more vanity metric-oriented creators.”

Expanding the Vision

With this proven model of local success, CreatorPad’s expansion plans now target markets with similar infrastructure gaps.

“In conversations I’ve had with influencer or creator friends based out of the UK, France, and Germany, they say that the influencer marketing space is here, but there’s no infrastructure around it,” Luke reveals. “There’s really no way to make money or run a business. And that’s something that we most definitely want to solve.”

The platform is also evolving its capabilities. “Moving forward, we also want to put in a lot of work on the attribution side of things,” Dylan explains. “How can we actually better attribute the campaign and the new sales that the creator is driving for the business beyond vanity metrics… how can we actually show the business that this campaign led to X amount increase in revenue or X amount increase in foot traffic for the duration of the campaign?”

What the Future Has In Store for Local Marketing

CreatorPad’s model suggests a key shift in how local businesses approach marketing. “We’re very much focused on catering to creators as well,” Dylan emphasizes. “We’re not just building a platform that helps businesses run these campaigns and sort of leaves out the creators.”

This dual focus on creators and businesses creates a sustainable ecosystem. “It’s not as simple as just waltzing in,” Luke notes about their careful approach to growth. “You have to actually love to do it and want to do it, because people can hear — You can feel the emotion if it’s just a cash grab or if someone has an emotion they want to put out into the world.”

Operating at the intersection of local commerce and creator economics, CreatorPad demonstrates that effective influencer marketing isn’t just about reach – it’s about relevance. 

As Luke summarizes: “You’re not getting a thousand views spread across the country. You’re getting a thousand views in your local area, city, town, wherever that may be.”