CreatorIQ Customers Diversified Creator-Led Investment and Growth in 2025, Activating 70% More Campaigns and Increasing Creator Payments 79% YoY

CreatorIQ Wrapped 2025 highlights growth outcomes of scaled creator marketing programs across community, commerce, and content performance

Los Angeles, CA — December 9, 2025 — CreatorIQ, the global operating system for creator-led growth, today released its annual CreatorIQ Wrapped report summarizing how brand and agency customers performed across the platform in 2025. As the operating system powering creator marketing for more than 1,300 customers worldwide, CreatorIQ is uniquely qualified to quantify the growth of creator-led marketing at global scale. 

For this analysis, CreatorIQ aggregated its first-party social platform intelligence across the 44K+ campaigns run by customers (up 70% YoY), spanning 170 countries, and more than 123M social posts through the Creator Graph™. 

Key findings of CreatorIQ Wrapped:

• Brands and agencies are building real creator communities: 40% of creators were activated across multiple campaigns—demonstrating the strength of ongoing creator partnerships over one-off activations. And investment was meaningful: customers increased direct creator payments through CreatorIQ by 79% YoY.
  
  
• Those communities delivered global impact: Creator content generated 12.8M posts (+141% YoY), 8.4B engagements, and 39.2B views from creators spanning 170 countries.
  
  
• The way brands and agencies activated creators continued to evolve: Instagram remained the leading platform, representing 70% of posts. But YouTube saw standout momentum, becoming a top-three platform by unique posts with a 56% year-over-year increase.

Creator Commerce Trends: Affiliate Growth Powers the Next Wave of Creator ROI

Creator commerce surged in 2025 as brands doubled down on the “Era of Efficacy,” shifting creator investment from awareness-first activations to investing in program operations and driving measurable business outcomes. With the non-linear buying journey creating more, sharper consumer touchpoints—marketers and creators are increasingly accountable for revenue, not just reach. CreatorIQ Wrapped data shows brands responding by scaling programs tied directly to conversion and demanding robust tracking across every commerce moment, from social shops to affiliate links. This mirrors broader industry sentiment reflected in the State of Creator Marketing 2025-2026 report: the primary effect of economic volatility in 2025 was focusing on driving ROI. Meanwhile 34% of agencies said social commerce will be one of marketing’s biggest disruptors in 2026.

CreatorIQ Wrapped data shows creator ROI accelerated in 2025 as CreatorIQ customers increased creator investment tied to performance and sales:

• Payments to creators increased 79% YoY
• Affiliate revenue generated through CreatorIQ increased 84% YoY
• Product links created and tracked increased 93% YoY

Marketing & Strategy Trends: Creator Marketing as an Always-On Performance Engine

• Recurring partnerships remained a core growth lever: 40% of creators were added to multiple campaigns. This multi-platform approach is confirmed by the State of Creator Marketing Report 2025-2026 findings that on average, organizations leverage five social platforms to power campaigns.
• Story posts beat video as the top post type, reflecting demand for fast, native, high-frequency formats
• Evolution of Snap and Pinterest drove meaningful growth: Snap increased in rankings for both campaigns and posts, while Pinterest posts increased as the platform advanced as a commerce-driven discovery environment.

These shifts show creator marketing evolving into an always-on, performance channel: brands are leaning on repeat creator partnerships, fast native formats like Stories, and diversified platform mixes to drive compounding ROI in the Era of Efficacy.

Social Platform Trends: A Diversified, ROI-Driven Platform Mix

Instagram still anchors creator marketing programs, but 2025’s rankings signal efforts moving toward a diversified mix of platforms that deliver measurable ROI for specific outcomes—YouTube for durable conversion and Shorts reach, and Pinterest and Snap as breakout drivers for commerce discovery and multi-platform performance.

• Instagram remains the top platform by customers, campaigns, and posts.
• In its 20th anniversary year, YouTube climbed to a top 3 platform by campaign post volume (+56% YoY).
• Pinterest and Snap rose sharply in rank and total post volume (+294% and +1420% YoY, respectively).
• Campaigns including Snap increased 160%, signaling expanding multi-platform strategies.
• Short-form platforms continue to battle for attention, with TikTok posts jumping 219% YoY and YouTube Shorts up 141% YoY — reinforcing the mainstay of short-form content in creator programs.

“As investment and reliance on creators deepened in 2025, scaling creator marketing programs with the same rigor of any other growth channel became critical,” said Chris Harrington, CreatorIQ CEO. “The winners in 2026 will treat creators like a strategic, ROI-driving engine: powered by trusted data, anchored in long-term partnerships, and tied directly to commerce and measurable revenue. CreatorIQ is meeting this moment head on, providing our customers the only all-in-one operating system with the workflows and intelligence they need to scale confidently and stay ahead of where creator marketing is going next.”

Powering the Era of Efficacy: A Record Year of Innovation for CreatorIQ and Customers

The release of CreatorIQ Wrapped caps off a year of significant business and platform momentum as CreatorIQ continued scaling to meet enterprise demand. In 2025, CreatorIQ:

• Launched the new CreatorIQ platform and new or expanded products including SafeIQ, BenchmarkIQ, and CreatorIQ Pay to deliver faster, safer, smarter ways of scaling creator programs.
• Earned recognitions for market growth and category leadership, including being named a Fastest-Growing Company in North America on the 2025 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ for the fourth year, earning designation as an IDC MarketScape Leader, and earning 12 G2 badges.
• Powered the largest single customer deployment by number of campaigns: 1,350+ active campaigns globally, 9,000+ unique creators activated, 320+ monthly active users.
• Powered the largest single customer deployment by number of creators: 24,500+ unique creators activated across 400+ campaigns, 36 monthly active users.
• Hosted the third annual CreatorIQ Connect in Los Angeles with a record 1,500 attendees across two days.
• Made key executive hires to accelerate scale: Jennifer Cho, Chief Customer Officer, Brig Graff, SVP of Strategic Services, and Brian Atwood, Chief Sales Officer.

To learn more about CreatorIQ, visit creatoriq.com and view the full CreatorIQ Wrapped 2025 report here. 

Methodology

The data in CreatorIQ Wrapped was sourced from the CreatorIQ platform database, encompassing all customer instances year-to-date. Statistics represent aggregated values across all campaigns, creators, and customers active within CreatorIQ. Percent change calculations are based on growth in platform activity compared to the same period in 2024.