The creator economy’s headline valuation keeps climbing, and yet most brands still buy creators like it’s 2019: one-off deals, vibes-based vetting, and a screenshot of likes as the report. If the market has grown up, why haven’t your processes?
What the 104 billion figure actually measures
Start with a caveat, because your CFO will ask. The headline market-size estimate is not a measure of what brands spend. It’s a broad figure covering the whole ecosystem, from platform payouts to subscriptions to sponsorships.
So treat it as a signal of scale, not a budgeting benchmark. The number that matters for your plan is advertiser spend, and that data is sharper.
According to the IAB’s creator ad spend release, U.S. creator ad spend more than doubled from $13.9B in 2021 to $29.5B in 2024. The same IAB release projected $37 billion for 2025, a 26% increase year-over-year and about 4x faster than the media industry overall (5.7%). Our own coverage of the 37 billion ad spend milestone digs into the standards gap behind that growth.
Market size tells you the channel is real. Spend data tells you your competitors are already treating it as one. Your planning should lean on the second.
Maturity looks like this
A mature channel has four traits: it earns a permanent budget line, it has a defined owner, it can be measured, and it can be audited. The creator economy is hitting the first two and straining on the last two.
Creators are now a distinct channel
In the same IAB release, 48% of ad spenders consider creators a “must buy,” behind only social media and paid search. Forbes’ coverage of the IAB research frames the $37 billion as spend across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, which tells you where the money concentrates.
That status shows up inside organizations. Brands are folding creator money into performance planning (see how creator and performance budgets merge), and titles are changing to match, as in the rise of creator C-suite roles.
The goals are broadening
Awareness still leads. IAB’s findings show brands run creator campaigns most often to build awareness (43%) and reach new audiences (41%), but driving online sales and conversions (32%) ranked fourth, and 40% of buyers rank overall ROI as their top KPI. That’s a channel being asked to do the whole funnel.
It’s also a channel being asked to prove itself. Budgets are rising faster than the evidence behind them, a tension we examined in budget growth versus revenue proof.
Where maturity hasn’t arrived yet
Here’s the uncomfortable part. IAB CEO David Cohen said the maturity brings a need for clear standards, better measurement and tools to navigate a fragmented ecosystem. In plain terms, the money got ahead of the plumbing.
Three gaps matter most for brand teams.
- Discovery. A third of brands call finding the right creators their biggest hurdle. In the IAB study, more than half of brands said creator reputation (58%) and audience alignment (56%) are among their top selection criteria. Neither is solved by a follower count.
- Measurement. Brands want better attribution and more consistent reporting to tie creator work to business outcomes. Teams are split on what counts as proof, which is the core of sentiment versus hard proof.
- Yet the same IAB release says 95% of advertisers have concerns about AI in creator marketing, with loss of human connection the top worry.
That last point is a useful corrective. AI belongs in your workflow for briefs and edits. It doesn’t belong in the part buyers actually pay for, which is a believable human voice.
Compliance is the price of scale
Bigger budgets mean bigger exposure. Regulators don’t care how mature the market feels.
The FTC’s Endorsement Guides Q&A says a connection between endorser and marketer that a significant minority of consumers wouldn’t expect should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. Paid relationships usually qualify. The same page notes the FTC could seek substantial civil penalties against companies that received notice of penalty offenses and then engaged in deceptive endorsement practices.
This is why regulated sectors are tightening control. Banks pulling creator marketing in house is the leading indicator, and B2B teams are following with dedicated influencer centers. You don’t need a bank’s risk profile to borrow the playbook: a standard disclosure checklist, documented approvals, and a record of every paid relationship.
A practical response for the next quarter
What does a brand do with all this? Skip the grand reorg. Run four moves.
- Name an owner for the creator line. If three teams each fund creators separately, nobody can report total spend or total return.
- Set one KPI hierarchy. Pick the primary outcome per campaign (awareness, qualified reach, or sales) and the metric that proves it before you brief a single creator.
- Vet on reputation and fit, not reach. Use the two criteria buyers rank highest and document the evidence, such as audience overlap, past brand safety, and disclosure history.
- Write the compliance layer once. One disclosure standard, one approval flow, one archive. Reuse it across every platform.
Also look beyond the biggest platforms. Newer surfaces are underpriced while the market sorts itself out, which is the argument in Substack and Reddit as test surfaces. Test small, measure hard, then scale what holds up.
FAQs
How big is the creator economy?
Total creator economy estimates vary widely by research firm and by how each one defines the market. Different research firms use different definitions, so figures vary. For brand planning, advertiser spend data such as the IAB’s is more useful than total market size.
Is the 104 billion figure the same as brand spending on creators?
No. It estimates the whole ecosystem. The IAB projected U.S. creator ad spend at $37 billion for 2025, which is the better proxy for what brands are actually putting into the channel.
What does market maturity mean for brands?
It means creators are a permanent channel, not an experiment. Expect higher scrutiny of ROI, more demand for standardized measurement, tighter compliance, and more competition for the best creators.
Which KPIs should brands use for creator campaigns?
Match the KPI to the campaign goal. IAB found that awareness and reach lead as objectives, while 40% of buyers rank overall ROI as their top KPI. Define the primary metric before launch and agree how it will be measured.
What are the biggest compliance risks?
Undisclosed paid relationships top the list. The FTC expects material connections to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and civil penalties are possible in some cases. Standard disclosure rules, approvals, and records reduce the risk.
Should brands use AI in creator marketing?
Yes, for support tasks like editing, briefs and personalization. Keep human creators at the center of the content, since loss of human connection is advertisers’ top AI concern.
This week, audit every creator contract and budget line across your organization, then assign a single owner and one KPI per campaign. You can’t manage a mature channel with immature controls.
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