A Survey of Marketing Professionals Who Use Creator Marketing: Full Findings Report
By Frank Dudley, Professor and Associate Director, Retail Analytics Council, and Frank Mulhern, Ph.D., Professor, former Associate Dean and Director, Retail Analytics Council. The Retail Analytics Council is part of the Medill Spiegel Research Center at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University.
Executive summary
Wave 4 was fielded in June 2026 among 209 senior marketing decision-makers at brands that invest in
creator marketing. The picture it returns is of a category that has finished arguing about whether creator
marketing works and has not yet finished building the operating discipline to run it. Investment is rising,
adoption is near-universal, and the open questions are structural: how the work is organized, which
outcomes are claimed for it, and what can be proven.
See the latest creator marketing research from LTK and the Retail Analytics Council. Read the full Creator Marketing 2026: Wave 4 findings report, based on a survey of 209 senior marketing decision-makers who invest in creator marketing.
Ten findings summarize the wave. Each is reported in full in the sections that follow.
1. Creator marketing runs continuously, not in campaign bursts.
Ninety-one percent of brands run a program with an always-on component — 62% hybrid, 29% fully
continuous — and only 9% remain mostly campaign-based. Not one respondent described their program as
ad hoc or experimental. (P22)
2. Budgets are rising across both digital and creator lines.
Eighty-two percent of brands are increasing digital budgets in 2026 and 80% are increasing creator budgets,
with 25% raising creator spend by more than 10%. Three percent are cutting creator investment. (P11, P17)
3. The realized benefits skew upper-funnel; the perceived influence peaks late.
Asked what impact creators have had, brands name brand sentiment (60%) and awareness (58%) most often,
with sales at 49%. Asked where creator recommendations most influence the business, they rate conversion
and loyalty highest at 55% each. These are two different questions and both readings are correct; Section 9
treats the distinction directly. (P25, P45)
4. Creators lead the trust hierarchy, and trust decomposes into specifiable behaviors.
Forty-four percent rank creators as the most-trusted source, ahead of social media ads at 34% and celebrities at
22%. What produces that trust is operational: clear product information (62%), transparency about paid
relationships (60%), category expertise (54%), and honest comparison (51%). (P43, P44)
5. Creator content is a paid media asset.
Ninety-two percent of brands run creator content in social advertising, 73% direct, between 11% and 40% of
influencer budget to boosting, and creator content now appears in content and email (52%), display (50%),
AI-driven search (41%), and connected TV (36%). (P35, P37, P39)
6. AI adoption is effectively total, which ends its usefulness as a differentiator.
Ninety-three percent invest in AI now and 84% intend to invest again in 2027. Across all six workflow areas
measured, 95% to 98% report using AI in some form, and 95% call AI capability must-have or important when
evaluating platforms. (P46, P47, P48, P49)
7. Measurement is the binding constraint.
Reporting splits evenly between awareness (51%) and campaign sales (51%), with conversion rates at 50%.
Across marketing generally, no method is close to universal: brand lift leads at 61%, and data-driven
attribution reaches only 30%. (P29, P15)
8. Brands want a simpler stack, but not necessarily a single one.
Eighty-six percent run two or more tools and only 11% operate on one consolidated platform. Ninety percent
want less complexity than they have, but the demand divides: 50% want a few best-in-class tools that
integrate, 40% want one consolidated platform. (P31, P33)
9. Creators earn results by reducing decision risk.
The contribution rated most likely to consistently drive results is helping customers feel confident in their
decisions (65%), followed by demonstrating real-world usage over time (61%) and simplifying complex
choices (57%). (P50)
10. Founder-led and CMO-led organizations buy the same category differently.
The two cells agree on the thesis and diverge on posture. Founder/DTC brands are markedly more willing to
consolidate onto one platform (65% versus 33%) and more committed to continued AI investment (95%
versus 81%), while CMO-led brands run larger rosters and more elaborate measurement. Section 12 treats
the comparison in full. (P33, P47)
Read the full Creator Marketing 2026: Wave 4 findings report.