Creator Marketing’s $44 Billion Question: Can the Industry Finally Fix Its Plumbing?
Practitioners have already bought in, but the boardroom isn’t quite ready. That may be why creator advertising, despite tripling in value over five years, still struggles to command the same budget confidence as established media channels.
The solution, according to one industry leader, won’t be found in dialling up creativity. Making creator media easier to compare, easier to prove, and easier to buy could unlock the path from today’s $44 billion market to $60 billion, $80 billion, or even $100 billion.
“We don’t want to standardize the creativity, we want to standardize the plumbing around it,” said James Douglas, vp of the Experience Center at IAB, in this video interview with Beet.TV at IAB PlayFronts.
The comparison problem starts with a view
IAB is preparing to release findings from its Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative, a survey targeting 100 senior advisors across the creator ecosystem. The goal: identify where standards development should focus as creator marketing matures into a core media channel.
Three friction points are already emerging.
1. The comparability problem
The first is comparability – specifically, the lack of a consistent definition for something as basic as a video view.
“How do we simplify the most basic unit of comparison across the media ecosystem to ensure that we can compare creators and platforms fairly and equitably?” Douglas asked. The inconsistency makes it difficult for media planners to evaluate creator content against paid social, CTV, retail media, or any other line item competing for the same budget.
2. Winning the boardroom, not just the practitioners
The second friction point is proof. Marketers who work directly with creators tend to believe in the channel’s effectiveness, but that conviction often evaporates by the time it reaches the C-suite.
“Practitioners believe in creator advertising, but the boardroom doesn’t,” Douglas said. “We’ve been trying to ensure that creator marketing and creator media is winning the boardroom because we think we’ve already won the practitioners.”
IAB’s 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report found that 48% of creator ad buyers now consider creators a “must buy,” with U.S. creator ad spend projected to reach $44 billion by 2026. But without consistent measurement and attribution frameworks, proving ROI to finance teams and CMOs remains a challenge that limits incremental investment.
3. Buying creator media is still too hard
The third friction point is transactional. Creator marketing remains labor-intensive compared with programmatic channels, and that manual burden is often the first complaint Douglas hears from former agency and brand colleagues.
“Creator marketing is incredibly difficult to buy,” he said. “It’s probably the first thing I hear from most of my former agency and brand colleagues when I ask.”
Rights management, usage terms, exclusivity, whitelisting, and paid amplification all require bespoke contracts and approval workflows – a far cry from the streamlined buying processes advertisers expect from mature media channels.
AI could help, but guardrails are needed
Artificial intelligence offers a potential escape from the manual grind. IAB research shows that three in four buyers already use AI to help manage creator efforts, whether for discovery, optimization, or activation.
But adoption comes with anxiety. Douglas noted that 95% of those same buyers express concern about using AI in the creator context – a tension that reflects broader industry unease about authenticity, disclosure, and quality control.
“We absolutely believe that there’s a space,” Douglas said. “We just want to work with the community of agencies, brands to ensure that when it is applied, we’re applying it in the right fashion.”
Standards for plumbing, not for people
The challenge for any standards effort is preserving what makes creator marketing effective in the first place: the distinctiveness of individual creators and their communities.
Douglas emphasized that IAB’s work will focus on infrastructure, not creative constraints. “What makes it magical, what makes it interesting is every creator is different, every community is different,” he said.
The Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative will dive deeper into the friction points identified in its survey, working with brands, agencies, and platforms to develop standards that enable scale without stifling innovation. “It’s very important for us to ensure that we continue to foster the creativity in the marketplace,” Douglas said.
Practitioners have already bought in, but the boardroom isn’t quite ready. That may be why creator advertising, despite tripling in value over five years, still struggles to command the same budget confidence as established media channels.
The solution, according to one industry leader, won’t be found in dialling up creativity. Making creator media easier to compare, easier to prove, and easier to buy could unlock the path from today’s $44 billion market to $60 billion, $80 billion, or even $100 billion.
“We don’t want to standardize the creativity, we want to standardize the plumbing around it,” said James Douglas, vp of the Experience Center at IAB, in this video interview with Beet.TV at IAB PlayFronts.
The comparison problem starts with a view
IAB is preparing to release findings from its Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative, a survey targeting 100 senior advisors across the creator ecosystem. The goal: identify where standards development should focus as creator marketing matures into a core media channel.
Three friction points are already emerging.
1. The comparability problem
The first is comparability – specifically, the lack of a consistent definition for something as basic as a video view.
“How do we simplify the most basic unit of comparison across the media ecosystem to ensure that we can compare creators and platforms fairly and equitably?” Douglas asked. The inconsistency makes it difficult for media planners to evaluate creator content against paid social, CTV, retail media, or any other line item competing for the same budget.
2. Winning the boardroom, not just the practitioners
The second friction point is proof. Marketers who work directly with creators tend to believe in the channel’s effectiveness, but that conviction often evaporates by the time it reaches the C-suite.
“Practitioners believe in creator advertising, but the boardroom doesn’t,” Douglas said. “We’ve been trying to ensure that creator marketing and creator media is winning the boardroom because we think we’ve already won the practitioners.”
IAB’s 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report found that 48% of creator ad buyers now consider creators a “must buy,” with U.S. creator ad spend projected to reach $44 billion by 2026. But without consistent measurement and attribution frameworks, proving ROI to finance teams and CMOs remains a challenge that limits incremental investment.
3. Buying creator media is still too hard
The third friction point is transactional. Creator marketing remains labor-intensive compared with programmatic channels, and that manual burden is often the first complaint Douglas hears from former agency and brand colleagues.
“Creator marketing is incredibly difficult to buy,” he said. “It’s probably the first thing I hear from most of my former agency and brand colleagues when I ask.”
Rights management, usage terms, exclusivity, whitelisting, and paid amplification all require bespoke contracts and approval workflows – a far cry from the streamlined buying processes advertisers expect from mature media channels.
AI could help, but guardrails are needed
Artificial intelligence offers a potential escape from the manual grind. IAB research shows that three in four buyers already use AI to help manage creator efforts, whether for discovery, optimization, or activation.
But adoption comes with anxiety. Douglas noted that 95% of those same buyers express concern about using AI in the creator context – a tension that reflects broader industry unease about authenticity, disclosure, and quality control.
“We absolutely believe that there’s a space,” Douglas said. “We just want to work with the community of agencies, brands to ensure that when it is applied, we’re applying it in the right fashion.”
Standards for plumbing, not for people
The challenge for any standards effort is preserving what makes creator marketing effective in the first place: the distinctiveness of individual creators and their communities.
Douglas emphasized that IAB’s work will focus on infrastructure, not creative constraints. “What makes it magical, what makes it interesting is every creator is different, every community is different,” he said.
The Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative will dive deeper into the friction points identified in its survey, working with brands, agencies, and platforms to develop standards that enable scale without stifling innovation. “It’s very important for us to ensure that we continue to foster the creativity in the marketplace,” Douglas said.
