Creator Marketing is growing up: Key Takeaways from the IAB Creator Marketing Summit

I recently attended the IAB Ireland Creator Marketing Summit, which brought together brands, agencies, platforms, publishers and creators to explore where creator marketing is heading and the role it can play within the wider marketing mix. There were perspectives from IAB Ireland and RED C, TikTok, Meta and brands including Heineken, Dulux and An Post, alongside plenty of research and real-world campaign examples.

My biggest takeaway from the day was that creator marketing is becoming a much more significant growth opportunity for brands, but marketers need to become more sophisticated in how they plan, execute and measure it. Creator marketing is no longer simply an awareness tactic or a way to produce social content. The research and case studies shared throughout the summit showed its potential to influence the full customer journey and deliver both long-term brand and commercial impact.

Creator marketing can influence the full customer journey

Some of the most interesting research presented at the summit looked at what people actually do after seeing creator content. Among heavy online media users in Ireland:

• 38% have researched a brand or product further after seeing creator content
• 36% have discovered a new brand or product
• 33% have visited a brand's website or social channels
• 22% have tried a product for the first time
• 19% have made a purchase
• 22% have gone on to recommend a product to others

Another figure shared during the summit suggested that influencer marketing delivers a 3x long-term multiplier, the highest of any media channel measured in the research presented. The important point for marketers is that creator marketing shouldn't be viewed solely as an awareness channel. It can support discovery, consideration, conversion and longer-term brand growth.

Authenticity matters, but there's still a significant trust gap

Authenticity was another major theme throughout the day. While 72% of Irish adults said authenticity is important, only 17% believe sponsored creator content currently feels authentic. Similarly, 68% value transparency, but only 21% believe creators are sufficiently transparent about paid partnerships. The research highlighted several factors that can help build that trust: honest reviews that acknowledge both positives and negatives, clear disclosure of partnerships, alignment between the creator, brand and audience values, and longer-term brand relationships rather than one-off posts.

Relatability matters too. Audiences respond to creators with similar lifestyles, interests or experiences, as well as everyday content, humour, personality and locally relevant storytelling. For brands, there's a balance to strike. Creator partnerships need appropriate governance and transparency, but too much control can remove the authenticity that made the creator valuable in the first place.

Build with creators, don't just brief them

One of the strongest ideas from the summit was the shift from “working with creators” to “building with creators.” The Orchard Thieves “Foxpack” model was a good example of this. Rather than bringing creators in once an idea had already been developed, creators were involved earlier and their knowledge of audiences and culture helped shape the work itself.

It's a subtle but important change in thinking. Creators understand their communities, what they engage with and the cultural conversations happening within them. Bringing that perspective into the process earlier can challenge assumptions and ultimately lead to work that feels more natural to the audience it's trying to reach.

Creator selection is becoming much more data-led

Choosing the right creator is also becoming more sophisticated than looking at follower numbers or selecting a familiar face. The summit showcased how agencies and platforms are increasingly using audience and performance data, social listening and tools such as Brandwatch to inform creator selection. That means looking at factors including:

• Audience and brand alignment
• Existing affinity with the brand or category
• Engagement quality and audience credibility
• Content style and creative fit
• Brand safety
• Historical organic and paid performance
• The creator's potential role across the wider customer journey

Meta also demonstrated tools that allow brands to identify creators who have already tagged or organically interacted with them, evaluate potential partners using authenticated first-party data and amplify creator content through partnership ads. Ultimately, the right creator isn't necessarily the one with the largest following. It's the person who can make a brand's message feel relevant and credible to their community.

Don't make ads, make entertainment

One of the lines that stuck with me most from the day was: “Don't make ads, make entertainment.” The performance data shared at the summit backed that up.

One case study showed creator-led content achieving 72% higher watch time and 171% higher completion rates than polished brand content. TikTok also shared that creator content outperformed non-creator content by 52% in six-second view-through rate and 11% in overall VTR. It reinforces the importance of creating content for the platform it's going to live on and allowing creators to retain their natural style. Highly polished creative isn't automatically better creative. When creator content becomes too prescriptive or overly produced, brands risk removing the qualities that made it engaging in the first place.

Organic and paid creator activity need to work together

Another clear takeaway was that creator investment shouldn't stop when an organic post goes live. Meta shared that adding creator partnership ads to business-as-usual campaigns delivered a 22% higher conversion rate, while boosting creator content resulted in a 19% reduction in CPA, 71% higher brand lift and 13% higher CTR. Creator fees, usage rights, amplification and measurement therefore need to be considered together from the beginning. Rather than seeing paid amplification as an optional extra once content has been produced, the strongest approach connects the creator partnership and media strategy from the outset.

Think beyond one-off creator partnerships

There were also some strong examples of brands taking a longer-term approach. An Post's #BookTok activity demonstrated the value of identifying an existing community and building a credible, ongoing role for the brand within it, rather than relying on a series of disconnected partnerships.

At the other end of the scale, Unilever was highlighted as an example of just how significant creator investment is becoming for major brands, reportedly partnering with more than 50,000 creators for its World Cup activity alone. YouTube also highlighted the growing breadth of the creator opportunity. Approximately 5,500 Irish YouTube channels now have more than 10,000 subscribers, while YouTube reached more than 1.9 million Irish adults through connected TV in February 2025. Creator marketing isn't limited to short-form social content. There's an increasingly broad ecosystem of creators, formats and platforms for brands to consider.

And what about AI?

AI inevitably featured in the conversation, but the research showed that audiences remain cautious about its role in creator content. 72% believe it is important that creator content is human-generated, while 80% believe creators should clearly disclose significant use of AI. At the same time, only 33% feel confident distinguishing between human and AI-generated content. AI can clearly support research, planning and efficiencies, but creator marketing ultimately depends on human perspective and credibility. Using AI in ways that undermine that risks weakening one of the things audiences value most about creators in the first place.

Creator marketing is becoming a more strategic discipline

If there was one message I took away from the summit, it's that creator marketing is growing up. It's moving beyond isolated influencer posts and becoming a more integrated part of how brands build awareness, create demand, influence consideration and drive action.

But taking advantage of that opportunity requires a more sophisticated approach: better creator selection, greater collaboration, authentic content, stronger integration between organic and paid media, robust measurement and longer-term thinking. The opportunity for brands isn't simply to work with more creators. It's to think much more strategically about the role creators can play across the customer journey.