As Americans spend more time on social media, influencers have become a go-to strategy for many advertisers hoping to reach scrolling consumers. U.S. annual creator economy ad spend is expected to reach $43.9 billion in 2026, an 18% increase from the year prior, according to data from the Association of National Advertisers. The group’s research shows that as more resources are directed to influencer marketing, industry professionals are beginning to reevaluate how they connect with and maintain relationships with both creators and agencies alike.
“People say, ‘if you don't have a creator marketing strategy, you're becoming invisible to a large segment of consumers,’ particularly like Gen Z and Generation Alpha, but even millennials as well,” said Leah Marshall, vice president, digital and influencer marketing, at ANA. “While it is a newer tactic and a newer channel, marketers see it as pretty essential.”
ANA’s “Influencer Marketing Agency Compensation” report includes data from a quantitative study fielded between Oct. 1 and Dec. 1, 2025. Of the 106 respondents, 84 got through initial screeners. All participants were client-side marketers, with 87% at the manager or director level and 13% at the vice president level or higher.
Half of respondents to the study had a budget of $100 million or more while the other half had less than $100 million. Additionally, 49% of respondents were B2C, 10% were B2B and 41% were both. An additional 20 qualitative interviews were also conducted in December and January.
The argument for in-housing
Most marketers, 52%, take a mixed approach when it comes to managing influencer marketing, working with both in-house and external partners. Thirty-two percent of respondents primarily use external partners while 16% primarily handle relationships in-house, though the latter group appears to be growing, per ANA.
One-third of respondents who primarily handle influencer marketing in-house previously used an agency. Better knowledge of brands, greater control and cost efficiencies were ranked as the top three benefits of in-housing creator marketing functions.
“When there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the agency experience, there is a sense the grass might be greener on the in-house only side, and people are gravitating towards that,” said Marshall. “But obviously it depends on the bandwidth and the financial resources of the company, because it does take a lot of budget to do things in-house only.”
For marketers who use agencies for influencer marketing, the type of agency used varies greatly. Influencer and creative agencies were the most common, with 83% of respondents using that type of agency whether it was part of a larger holding company or not. PR agencies proved to be a close second, used by 36% of respondents. By agency type, media, creative and talent agencies were the least used.
Compensation clarity
When it comes to payment structure, 55% of respondents said the agencies they use primarily leverage a project-based model while 45% use a retainer-based model. Only 25% of respondents reported tying agency compensation to specific key performance indicators, per the report.
Engagement rate (90%), impressions (87%) and reach (86%) are the top KPIs for marketers while evaluating influencer content. Video views (84%), sentiment analysis (69%) and earned media value (63%) ranked as the least important performance metrics to survey respondents.
Payment structure is just one part of the overall compensation picture. Just 51% of marketers have full clarity into influencer payments. On the agency side, 39% said the agency they use does not employ nontransparent compensation methods, while 31% said agencies did use such methods.
This level of ambiguity has led to some dissatisfaction among industry professionals, with 27% of survey respondents indicating they were either not very satisfied or not satisfied at all with compensation agreements. Just 25% said they were very satisfied with compensation agreements while 48% said they were somewhat satisfied.
While satisfaction levels remain relatively high, 55% of respondents indicate they are at least somewhat likely to change their compensation approach within the next 12 months. Of the remaining 45%, 32% are not very likely to change their compensation agreement and 13% are not likely at all.
“There's a pretty significant transparency gap when it comes to knowing what marketers are paying agencies for in terms of services. Oftentimes, everything is bundled together, so they don't know exactly what money is going to what services. And then additionally, they're not seeing what creators are being paid,” said Marshall. “For some marketers…it's not the biggest deal to them. And for other marketers, it's hugely problematic.”
