Creator marketing: why top creators choose fewer brands

A creator with 14 million followers stated they prefer five or six brands a year over a hundred one-off campaigns. If your company is used to buying visibility on rotation, the market is changing the rules under your feet.

Is it still worth focusing on top creators for your campaigns?

Yes, but only if you're willing to change how you approach them. The 'pay, post, move on' model no longer works with creators who truly matter.

The creator marketing market — advertising campaigns created in collaboration with creators and influencers on social media — is undergoing a structural shift. Creators with more loyal audiences are selecting the brands they work with, not the other way around. Those who do not adapt lose access to the most effective profiles and end up competing for the remaining available creators, often those with less engaged audiences.

The right question isn't 'how much does a post cost?' but 'what are we willing to offer to get on the exclusive list of a valuable creator?'

What is really happening: why are top creators saying no?

Top creators have realized that accepting too many one-off campaigns erodes the trust of their audience, which is their most valuable asset. Fewer deals, but deeper ones, protect their value over time.

At Advertising Week New York, the most followed creators explained their logic directly. A creator with 14 million followers said she prefers to work with five or six brands a year, focusing on equity deals — meaning a stake in the company — instead of fixed fees. Another creator with over four million followers turns down campaigns she doesn't consider high-performing and suggests brands "entrust them to some micro-creators." A third accepted the role of chief content officer at an eyewear company, complete with an office, product feedback, and directing credits.

This isn't about star tantrums. It's a rational response to a market that has treated creators as interchangeable advertising space, bought by impressions and replaced as soon as the numbers drop. The biggest creators are resisting to avoid falling into that spiral.

What changes in practice for campaign planners?

The selection and negotiation process is getting longer and more complicated. It's no longer enough to send a brief and wait for a quote: you need to build a value proposition that the creator finds interesting.

The classic model — brief to the creator, quote, contract, post, report — doesn't disappear, but it becomes the path for mid-tier and micro creators. With larger profiles, the process increasingly resembles a negotiation between business partners. The brand must come to the table with more than just a budget.

Understand how things work today creator partnerships that drive real results it is the starting point to avoid wasting time and resources on approaches that get ignored.

Three practical scenarios: how does the strategy change for an e-commerce business, a studio, and a manufacturing company?

The partnership model evolves differently depending on the industry and product type. Here are three typical situations with the calculation of the value at stake.

Illustrative examples: numbers are used to show the calculation logic, they are not real client data.

Equity, operational roles, performance fees: what compensation models exist today?

The market has fragmented into at least four distinct models. Choosing the wrong one means losing the creator or overpaying for mediocre results.

Performance-based compensation — payment tied to clicks, conversions, or sales — grew from 23% of partnerships in 2024 to 53% in 2026, according to the Brand Deals Report 2026 by Influencer Marketing Factory . This data alone explains why bigger creators prefer few brands: they only want to work with products they'd bet their earnings on.

What rules and risks do you need to know before signing a creator partnership?

In Italy, there are specific regulatory requirements for working with prominent creators. Ignoring them exposes the brand to fines and reputation damage.

In July 2025, AGCOM has approved the Guidelines and Code of Conduct for Italian influencers (resolution 197/25/CONS). Applies to "relevant influencers": those with at least 500,000 followers on one platform or at least one million average monthly views. Involves about 2,000 active creators in Italy.

For brands, this means that every sponsored post must be clearly identified as such, with transparency obligations falling on both the creator and the advertiser. Before signing a contract, verify that the creator complies with the code and that the contract includes compliance clauses.

On the reputational front, the main risk is the «sellout» effect: a creator who publishes too many sponsored posts loses credibility in the eyes of their audience, and that damage also transfers to the brand. This is one of the reasons why the most careful creators select partners with care — and why you should too.

Why is everyone talking about this now: has the creator marketing market really exploded?

Yes. Global spending on creator advertising is growing four times faster than the rest of the media industry, and the Italian market also exceeded 490 million euros in 2025.

According to IAB's 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend & Strategy Report , global spending on creator advertising in the USA reached 37 billion dollars in 2025, with a year-on-year growth of 26%. The forecast for 2026 is 44 billion. In Italy, according to data from Influencer Marketing Conference 2026 reported by Media Key , the market closed in 2025 at 490 million euros (+5% compared to 2024), with a forecast of 550 million in 2026.

The most interesting signal for those planning campaigns is another: in 2025, the number of content pieces produced decreased by 2%, but the average interaction per content increased. Fewer posts, more quality, more engagement. It's exactly the direction top creators are indicating with their choices.

How to get started practically: the steps to redesign your creator strategy?

Start with an audit of existing partnerships and define what you're willing to offer. Only then contact the creators.

Before reaching out to any creator, it is worth understanding how it works today creator partnership logic on Instagram and which metrics truly matter for measuring ROI. The starting point is always internal: what can you offer that another brand doesn't?

1. Audit of past campaigns. Look at the past 12 months: which creators drove actual conversions? Which ones only brought in impressions? Cut the latter from your future roster.
2. Define your value proposition. Besides compensation, what can you offer? Early access to the product, co-creation, equity, advisory role? Put it in writing before opening any negotiations.
3. Select 5-10 strategic creators. Don't just look at followers. Check the engagement rate, audience loyalty, thematic consistency with your brand, and the number of active sponsors.
4. Reach out to the creator (or their manager) with a proposal, not a brief. Explain why your brand matters to their audience. Leave room for their reply before sending any documents.
5. Structure the contract with flexible clauses. Duration, shared KPIs, compensation methods (fixed, performance, equity), AGCOM compliance obligations. Involve a specialized lawyer.
6. Get into the creative process early. Creators who get the best results are those involved before the brief is finalized. Share objectives, not executions.

What are the most common mistakes when dealing with top creators?

The most frequent is to come with a rigid brief and a fixed budget, as if you were buying advertising space. The biggest creators recognize it immediately and move on.

Another common mistake is confusing reach (the number of followers) with effectiveness. On TikTok, 72% of brand-creator relationships end after a single campaign, according to the Brand Deals Report 2026 . This means most brands don't build anything lasting, and the creators know it.

You can learn more about how Meta has redesigned tools to connect brands and creators , but having the right tools is not enough if your negotiation approach is still stuck in five years ago.

How to figure out if your creator strategy is really working?

Vanity metrics — likes, impressions, follower growth — aren't enough. You need indicators that tie the partnership to business goals.

Measuring the return on creator campaigns is one of the most talked-about topics in the industry. It is worth reading how to calculate the ROI of creator marketing even in physical events , where measurement is even more complex. For digital campaigns, the signals to monitor are more direct.

So, is it worth redesigning the creator strategy for your company?

It is worth it if you have a product that a creator can have a say in, a budget that allows for multi-year partnerships, and the flexibility to negotiate beyond a fixed fee. In that case, top creators offer you loyal audiences that no paid campaign can replicate.

A middle ground if you work with mid-tier creators (100k-1M followers) and can offer at least continuity and creative freedom. The pure one-off model works less, but a six-month partnership with a vertical creator can already make a difference.

Not yet if if your brief is rigid, the budget is fixed, and you can't offer anything beyond compensation. In that case, micro-creators (under 100k followers) with niche audiences are the most efficient choice, at least until the approach changes.

How we see it at SHM

For us, creator marketing works when it stops being a channel and becomes a relationship. The brands that get the best results don't buy visibility: they build alliances with creators who believe in the product. It's the same logic we apply when we help our clients structure Meta campaigns or google ads campaigns : the numbers get better when the strategy is built on clear, measurable goals, not cookie-cutter formulas.

We believe that innovation should be analyzed and transformed into lasting value, not chased like a fad. The fact that top creators are asking for equity and operational roles isn't a fad: it's a sign that the market is maturing towards more solid partnership models. Companies that understand this now have an advantage over those who wait for it to become the standard.

If you want to figure out how to build a creator strategy that actually works for your business, you can check out our approach to strategic AI integration to optimize the selection and measurement of partnerships, or contact us directly for an evaluation of your specific case. You can find all the articles in the cluster Marketing and ADV performance to dive deeper into every aspect of the strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions

The real competitive edge isn't finding the right creator: it's becoming the brand that top creators actually want to work with.