Influencer partnerships expand, though unevenly across the creator economy 

The result is a creator economy caught between maturity and hesitation – growing up fast but not all at once. 

“It’s been a mix this year – very dependent on the brand and creator but we’ve definitely seen more one-off campaigns overall,” said Lauren Potter, vp of operations at Parker Talent Management, which represents mid-to-large-tier creators. “Broader factors like world events and shifting budgets, even things like tariffs, have influenced how brands are planning and spending so longer-term partnerships have been a bit more selective.”

Others say the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction. 

“We’re starting to see wider adoption of longer deals across brand sizes and creator tiers with the key being the health of the relationships between brands and creator,” said Christina Kavalauskas, executive strategy director of social and creator at Deloitte Digital. “If brands allow for creative freedom while offering timely pay and long-term support, you have the formula for long-term, quality associations with creators that lead to increased brand loyalty.” 

Despite appearing at odds, both perspectives point to a market in transition. The creator economy is maturing, albeit slowly, as advertisers start applying the same ROI expectations normally reserved for more established aspects of media plans. But those same expectations have also raised the stakes. Economic caution, AI’s uncertain impact on content creation and fragmented measurement systems mean the industry’s newfound discipline hasn’t yet translated to stability. 

A recent report from analytics firm Gospel Stats, found YouTube sponsorships up 54% year over year – evidence that brand creator deals are proliferating, even if most remain transactional. Agencies say the average partnership has roughly doubled over the past year but the market is still defined by uneven sophistication. The top creators and data-driven marketers are operating like performance agencies, the rest are still resting, iterating and waiting for standards to form. 

The unevenness mirrors what’s happening behind the scenes. Social platforms are quietly sharing more post-level performance data with analytics companies – not out of generosity but because they’ve realized that granular insights help brands spend more. 

“Now that social networks have figured out a way to make money off the creators, they’re much more keen to share data with analytics firms like us,” said  Pierre-Loïc Assayag, CEO and co-founder of Traackr. 

The transparency is helping agencies track ROI more precisely but it also exposes how fragmented the business remains. 

Even so, the creator market’s trajectory is unmistakable upward. Spending continues to climb as marketers reallocate budgets away from other areas like programmatic and toward influencer and creator-led media.

“In the past two or three years, we’re seeing a significant transfer from other budgets into the creator space,” said Assayag. “There isn’t just free money around – this is replacing something else.”

At the same time, the traditional agency model that underpinned influencer marketing’s first decade is being rewritten. JC Oliver, founder of Rainmaker Talent, described it as a moment of professional reckoning “You’re just as likely to be a full-time creator as you are a professional athlete” he said. “The average creator lifespan is three to five years. This isn’t George Clooney – you have to be nimble enough to capture lightning and build a business around it.”

Oliver’s firm is betting that the next phase of the industry will hinge on the infrastructure of supporting creators and influencers – not just the stars themselves. His Rainmaker Group functions like a holding company for the creator economy, with divisions spanning brand strategy, talent management and education. The goal: remove layers of middlemen, empower managers to act as entrepreneurs and build more direct connections between buyer and creators. 

“If the buyer can reach the source, the economics change completely” he said. 

That drive toward performance is shaping the business from both ends – marketers tightening their expectations and creators professionalizing their operations. The common thread is control: brands and agencies want data, creators and influencers want ownership, while ad tech is recalibrating to survive somewhere in between. 

Despite the caution, the opportunity remains vast. The creator economy still accounts for just 2% of global marketing spend, according to Rainmaker’s internal data. 

“We’re in the first inning,” said Oliver. “The next evolution is going to look a lot more like media buying – brands giving big budgets to creators and expecting real ROI. That’s where this is headed.