Almost nobody is cutting creator spend, and that is the lowest-drama number in marketing right now, and it should make you uncomfortable. When almost nobody reduces a line item, the debate stops being about whether to fund it and starts being about who runs it well. The budget concentration trend is real, and the winners will be decided by operations.
What the survey actually found
The figure comes from the Creator Marketing Wave 4 research from Northwestern’s Retail Analytics Council and LTK. It was fielded in June among 209 senior marketing decision-makers at brands that already invest in creator marketing. That last part matters, and I will come back to it.
Here are the budget numbers.
Read that again. Creator budgets are growing almost as broadly as digital budgets overall. Creators are no longer a test line sitting beside the real media plan. They are moving with it.
Creator budgets are rising at nearly the same rate as total digital budgets. The question has shifted from “should we fund this?” to “can we prove what we are funding?”
Why concentration, not just growth
“Concentration” is my reading, not the survey’s label, so treat it as interpretation. But the data supports it. Spend is clustering in a few places, and so is the consensus around it.
Start with program structure. Only 9 percent remain mostly campaign-based, per the same research, and not one respondent described their program as ad hoc or experimental. If you are still funding creators in bursts around launches, you are in a small minority. Our look at always-on UGC economics digs into what that does to cost per asset.
Then look at where the content goes. Creator content also appears in content and email (52 percent), display (50 percent), AI-driven search (41 percent) and connected TV (36 percent), the survey reports.
So the budget is not just paying for posts. It is paying for a paid media asset library. That changes who in your company should be reading the P&L for it.
A sampling caveat you should not skip
So is that low cut rate a read on the whole market? No. The respondents are brands that already invest in creator marketing. Brands that tried it and quit are not in the sample. No. The respondents are brands that already invest in creator marketing. Brands that tried it and quit are not in the sample.
That is survivorship bias, plain and simple. That figure describes the mood among committed buyers, not the whole market. It is still a useful signal for you, because those committed buyers are your competitors for the same creators, the same ad inventory and the same attention.
Also note the sample is small. A base of 209 is solid for directional reads, but sub-cuts get thin fast. The Founder/DTC cell is 48 respondents, so I would not hang a budget decision on a single split between cells.
The constraint is measurement, not appetite
Here is where the story gets interesting. The report’s authors describe a category that has finished arguing about whether creator marketing works but has not built the operating discipline to run it. I agree with that.
The measurement picture is messy. On reporting, the survey found brands split evenly between awareness (51 percent) and campaign sales (51 percent), with conversion rates at 50 percent. Across marketing generally, the same research puts brand lift in the lead at 61 percent, while data-driven attribution reaches only 30 percent.
The realized benefits skew upper-funnel. Asked what impact creators have had, brands named brand sentiment (60 percent) and awareness (58 percent) most often, with sales at 49 percent. Yet when asked where creator recommendations most influence the business, respondents rated conversion and loyalty highest, at 55 percent each.
Two questions, two answers, both defensible. For a CFO, though, that gap is a problem. If your team says creators drive conversion but your reports show awareness, finance will eventually ask which story is true.
When nearly every peer is holding or growing spend, the brand that cannot explain its numbers is not safe. It is just quiet until budget review.
That is why holdout design matters more than another dashboard. Our piece on creator holdout tests covers how to isolate incremental lift when the media environment gets crowded.
Where the money goes when budgets rise
The Northwestern and LTK findings point to a few places where growth dollars are likely to land. I am inferring from the data here, so verify against your own program.
- What produces that trust is specific, and the research lists clear product information (62 percent), transparency about paid relationships (60 percent), category expertise (54 percent) and honest comparison (51 percent).
- Decision-risk reduction. Respondents said the contribution most likely to consistently drive results is helping customers feel confident in their decisions (65 percent), followed by demonstrating real-world usage over time (61 percent).
Notice what is missing from that list: raw reach. The report’s own advice is that reach alone is no longer the organizing selection criterion, and that briefs and rosters should be built around demonstrable category expertise. If you pick creators on follower count, you are optimizing for the wrong trust driver.
Longer relationships fit this pattern. Showing real-world usage over time is hard to do in a one-off post. Our coverage of repeat creator deals shows why more brands are moving that way.
Stack, AI and the founder versus CMO split
Budget growth also brings tooling sprawl.
AI is nearly universal. Across six workflow areas, 95 to 98 percent report using AI in some form. The report’s point is sharp: when everyone uses it, AI stops being a differentiator. Your edge is the data and judgment you feed it.
The organizational split is worth a look. The research found Founder/DTC brands more willing to consolidate onto one platform (65 percent versus 33 percent) and more committed to continued AI investment (95 percent versus 81 percent). CMO-led brands run larger rosters and more elaborate measurement. The authors say neither posture is more mature. They are adapted to different constraints. A small DTC team with one P&L wants fewer moving parts. A multi-brand portfolio needs rights, budgets and reporting negotiated across agencies.
What should you do with a low cut rate?
Do not read it as permission to spend more by default. Read it as a signal that your competitors are building capacity, and that capacity is the scarce resource.
Here is the order I would work in:
- Audit the gap between claimed and reported outcomes. If stakeholders believe creators drive conversion, your reporting should show conversion evidence, not only awareness.
- Set boost rules before you set boost budgets. Decide what share of influencer spend goes to paid amplification and under what usage rights.
- Rewrite selection criteria around expertise and disclosure behavior. Those are the trust drivers respondents named.
- Pressure-test the economics of the wider market. Budget growth does not mean creators are paid well, and fair pay affects retention. See our piece on paying creators fairly.
For context on how uneven the money is across the creator side of the market, the K-shaped creator economy analysis is a useful companion.
One honest limit: this survey measures intent and self-reported behavior. It does not tell you what any brand’s return actually was. Treat it as a map of where peers are heading, not proof the destination pays off.
Your next step: before your next budget review, write down which single outcome your creator spend is accountable for, and run one holdout test against it this quarter.
FAQs
How many brands are cutting creator spend?
The respondents all work at brands that already invest in creator marketing, so the figure does not cover brands that never started or have already left.
How many brands are increasing creator budgets?
The same survey found 80 percent of brands are increasing creator budgets, and 25 percent are raising creator spend by more than 10 percent. Eighty-two percent are increasing digital budgets overall, so creator spend is tracking the broader digital plan.
Does rising creator spend mean it is driving sales?
Not necessarily. Brands most often name brand sentiment (60 percent) and awareness (58 percent) as realized benefits, with sales at 49 percent. Many rate conversion and loyalty as the stages where creators most influence the business, so the two views need reconciling with proper measurement.
What share of creator budget goes to paid amplification?
Among brands running creator content in social advertising, the survey found 73 percent direct between 11 and 40 percent of their influencer budget to boosting. Ninety-two percent of brands run creator content in social ads at all.
Should every brand consolidate onto one creator platform?
No. Founder/DTC brands lean toward consolidation more than CMO-led brands do.
How reliable is a sample of 209 marketers?
It is good for directional reads on committed buyers, but weaker for narrow sub-groups. The Founder/DTC cell has only 48 respondents, so cell-to-cell differences are signals to test, not facts to budget against. Check the report’s methodology section before leaning on any sub-group split.
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