Nearly half of brands (48%) now report 3x or greater ROI from creator marketing, up from 37% last year, even as the top obstacle to running these programs has shifted from measurement to difficulty integrating creator marketing data and workflows across marketing systems, according to CreatorIQ‘s seventh annual “State of Creator Marketing” report. The survey, conducted with Sapio Research, polled 2,000 brand and agency decision-makers across nine countries.
Creator marketing investment climbed to an average of $4.8 million per organization in 2026, up 33% year over year. Enterprise investment reached $8.8 million, nearly $2 million higher than last year. The share of brands reporting 5x ROI has doubled, and just 13% report breaking even or losing money, down from 21%. Eighty-one percent report at least 2x ROI, and eight in ten brands seeing 5x returns put more than half their total marketing spend behind creator marketing. Sixty-six percent of organizations report year-over-year investment increases, and 73% of agencies say client ROI improved.
Integration Passes Measurement as the Top Roadblock
For years, measurement was creator marketing’s biggest obstacle. That changed this year. The top roadblock is now difficulty integrating creator marketing data and workflows across marketing systems, cited by 27% of brands, followed closely by difficulty coordinating creator marketing across teams and functions (26%) and difficulty measuring influencer performance (26%), which held flat year over year. Resourcing concerns fell furthest: inadequate staff and inadequate budget each dropped to the bottom of the list at 18%, after years of resourcing concerns ranking among the top constraints.
Confidence in measurement itself is high, with 77% of brands saying they can measure creator marketing’s business impact, but no single methodology commands consensus. Revenue or sales attribution leads at just 19%, with marketing mix modeling and platform dashboards close behind at 18% each.
Ownership Stays Fragmented as Content Reuse Grows
Ninety-nine percent of brands now repurpose creator content, and 56% do so beyond social media. Paid social and digital advertising remains the top destination at 26%, followed by owned social channels (17%) and websites (13%); 11% of brands say internal or executive presentations are creator content’s primary destination. An average of 36 people now contribute to creator marketing at brands and 41 at agencies, with 61% of brands reporting the contributor count rose over the past year.
Despite that growth, no team owns the function outright. Brand marketing teams hold primary execution responsibility at just 20% of brands, followed by social media teams (16%) and paid media, performance, or revenue marketing teams (15%). Dedicated creator marketing teams rank fourth, at 13%.
Creator marketing is also becoming less dependent on paid media budgets specifically. Fifty-two percent of brands with growing creator budgets sourced the increase from paid media, down 12 points year over year, while the share sourced from net-new budget rose from 33% to 38%. Ninety-two percent of paid media leaders still use creator content in paid creative.
AI Drives Growth and Complexity at Once
Forty-one percent of brands that increased creator marketing investment cited AI-related efficiencies as a contributing factor. But 47% of organizations say AI has increased the day-to-day complexity of their creator marketing program, against 37% who say it reduced complexity, and agencies feel that friction more acutely (50%) than brands (45%). For brands, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated outputs is the leading source of added complexity; for agencies, it’s rising client expectations for speed and productivity.
AI-generated content ranks as the top perceived threat to trust in creator marketing over the next three years for both brands and agencies, at 16% each. Managing creator relationships is the function marketers most want to keep from being fully replaced by AI, cited by 36% of respondents.
Higher-Return Brands Run More Complex Programs, Not Simpler Ones
Brands reporting 5x ROI are not scaling back to get there. They involve more people in creator marketing on average (48, versus 31 at brands that break even), commit a larger share of total marketing budget to the category (66%, versus 48% for brands overall), and are more likely to say AI increased their program’s complexity (63%, versus 42% of break-even brands). They also prioritize suitability, brand safety, and risk management more heavily, with 73% calling it very or extremely important, compared with 57% of break-even brands.
Creator-driven commerce follows the same pattern: 68% of brands that treat it as core to their marketing or revenue strategy report 3x or greater ROI, and the share of brands making commerce central to their strategy climbs steadily alongside ROI, from 7% at break-even to 24% among 5x performers.
Instagram remains the platform brands call most integral to their creator marketing strategy (23%), while agencies favor TikTok (21%). Among creators, TikTok is the top platform for branded content at 52%.
Image source: CreatorIQ The full report can be found here
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
Nearly half of brands (48%) now report 3x or greater ROI from creator marketing, up from 37% last year, even as the top obstacle to running these programs has shifted from measurement to difficulty integrating creator marketing data and workflows across marketing systems, according to CreatorIQ‘s seventh annual “State of Creator Marketing” report. The survey, conducted with Sapio Research, polled 2,000 brand and agency decision-makers across nine countries.
Creator marketing investment climbed to an average of $4.8 million per organization in 2026, up 33% year over year. Enterprise investment reached $8.8 million, nearly $2 million higher than last year. The share of brands reporting 5x ROI has doubled, and just 13% report breaking even or losing money, down from 21%. Eighty-one percent report at least 2x ROI, and eight in ten brands seeing 5x returns put more than half their total marketing spend behind creator marketing. Sixty-six percent of organizations report year-over-year investment increases, and 73% of agencies say client ROI improved.
Integration Passes Measurement as the Top Roadblock
For years, measurement was creator marketing’s biggest obstacle. That changed this year. The top roadblock is now difficulty integrating creator marketing data and workflows across marketing systems, cited by 27% of brands, followed closely by difficulty coordinating creator marketing across teams and functions (26%) and difficulty measuring influencer performance (26%), which held flat year over year. Resourcing concerns fell furthest: inadequate staff and inadequate budget each dropped to the bottom of the list at 18%, after years of resourcing concerns ranking among the top constraints.
Confidence in measurement itself is high, with 77% of brands saying they can measure creator marketing’s business impact, but no single methodology commands consensus. Revenue or sales attribution leads at just 19%, with marketing mix modeling and platform dashboards close behind at 18% each.
Ownership Stays Fragmented as Content Reuse Grows
Ninety-nine percent of brands now repurpose creator content, and 56% do so beyond social media. Paid social and digital advertising remains the top destination at 26%, followed by owned social channels (17%) and websites (13%); 11% of brands say internal or executive presentations are creator content’s primary destination. An average of 36 people now contribute to creator marketing at brands and 41 at agencies, with 61% of brands reporting the contributor count rose over the past year.
Despite that growth, no team owns the function outright. Brand marketing teams hold primary execution responsibility at just 20% of brands, followed by social media teams (16%) and paid media, performance, or revenue marketing teams (15%). Dedicated creator marketing teams rank fourth, at 13%.
Creator marketing is also becoming less dependent on paid media budgets specifically. Fifty-two percent of brands with growing creator budgets sourced the increase from paid media, down 12 points year over year, while the share sourced from net-new budget rose from 33% to 38%. Ninety-two percent of paid media leaders still use creator content in paid creative.
AI Drives Growth and Complexity at Once
Forty-one percent of brands that increased creator marketing investment cited AI-related efficiencies as a contributing factor. But 47% of organizations say AI has increased the day-to-day complexity of their creator marketing program, against 37% who say it reduced complexity, and agencies feel that friction more acutely (50%) than brands (45%). For brands, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated outputs is the leading source of added complexity; for agencies, it’s rising client expectations for speed and productivity.
AI-generated content ranks as the top perceived threat to trust in creator marketing over the next three years for both brands and agencies, at 16% each. Managing creator relationships is the function marketers most want to keep from being fully replaced by AI, cited by 36% of respondents.
Higher-Return Brands Run More Complex Programs, Not Simpler Ones
Brands reporting 5x ROI are not scaling back to get there. They involve more people in creator marketing on average (48, versus 31 at brands that break even), commit a larger share of total marketing budget to the category (66%, versus 48% for brands overall), and are more likely to say AI increased their program’s complexity (63%, versus 42% of break-even brands). They also prioritize suitability, brand safety, and risk management more heavily, with 73% calling it very or extremely important, compared with 57% of break-even brands.
Creator-driven commerce follows the same pattern: 68% of brands that treat it as core to their marketing or revenue strategy report 3x or greater ROI, and the share of brands making commerce central to their strategy climbs steadily alongside ROI, from 7% at break-even to 24% among 5x performers.
Instagram remains the platform brands call most integral to their creator marketing strategy (23%), while agencies favor TikTok (21%). Among creators, TikTok is the top platform for branded content at 52%.
Image source: CreatorIQ
The full report can be found here
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