London, June 17, 2026, 10:11 BST
- According to Creativebrief’s Social Sells 2.0 report, 58% of brand marketing leaders say they already use a social-first approach or are moving toward one.
- More brands are spending on social and creators, but results are still unclear. About 83% boosted social and creator budgets in the last two years, but 65% say they can’t demonstrate clear ROI.
- Agency teams are getting squeezed. Just 15% of brand leaders now run social and creator marketing with their current creative, media or PR agency, according to a survey.
Creativebrief says brands are shifting social and creator marketing into core growth plans, not just a side media play. The research shows marketers’ budgets are moving faster than their trust in agencies to deliver on this work.
The timing is key here—brands already moved the money. Creativebrief polled over 50 senior marketing leaders from Surreal, Tinder, Unilever, Starbucks, Monzo and others in the first half of 2026. Of those, 83% said their social and creator budgets went up in the past two years.
Measurement is where most get stuck. The same report found 65% still can’t prove clear, measurable returns, though social has to handle both brand and sales jobs now. So this budget shift looks less like a trial and more like a structural move.
Charlie Carpenter, CEO of Creativebrief, said social and creator marketing is now in a “new phase of maturity.” According to Carpenter, the debate has shifted. It’s no longer about if brands should spend on social, but how they can set up the right skills, partnerships and systems to make that spend work. Roastbrief US
Agency warning came in strong. Only 15% of brand marketing leaders keep social and creator campaigns with a current creative, media, or PR shop, according to the finding. Carpenter tied that to a push for specialized skills. He added that market sentiment is that a lot of creative agencies are “not doing a credible enough job” showing they know this space. Roastbrief US
Direct-to-consumer brands are under pressure, and it’s showing in their marketing. Brands selling straight to customers—often online—are shifting more budget toward influencer and creator-led channels, according to an ABNewswire release on openPR. The release said organic reach is slipping and customer acquisition costs are going up, while TikTok and Instagram keep driving product discovery.
The release put specialist agencies House of Marketers, Y’all, and Kulin as top players in creator-led growth, performance marketing, and ecommerce. It told brands to check for metrics like revenue, repeat purchase rates, and acquisition costs, not just follower numbers, when picking partners.
Bigger market trends back up the move. The Interactive Advertising Bureau says U.S. creator ad spend is on track for $37 billion in 2025, a 26% jump from last year. That’s almost four times the pace of growth in the rest of the media industry.
Khushboo Mulani, who started Slay Media, said in a MediaNews4U guest column that brands want to shift from “borrowing audiences to building them.” She cited things like podcasts, newsletters, creator-owned IP and regular video formats as ways brands can keep direct connections with audiences, instead of paying for one-off influencer posts. MediaNews4U
Mulani said artificial intelligence is cutting costs for producing multiple assets from long-form content, like turning a single episode into videos, clips, newsletters, blog posts, and more. But a Creativebrief survey showed 50% of brand leaders think AI is only having a gradual effect on social and creator marketing work.
Brands could end up overpaying before measurement tools catch up. Creativebrief says 85% of brands are using social for long-term brand work, but 53% are still looking at short-term results to measure success. Changing algorithms, pricier paid reach, or weak creator content could quickly make the budget case harder.
Right now, brands are looking for social work that runs more like a system than individual posts. That means rolling content, creators with set roles, direct audience channels, and reporting that ties creative work back to business numbers. Shops that can’t deliver this could see clients switch to focused specialists.
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