51% OF CREATORS HAVE ALREADY COMMENCED HOLIDAY CONTENT

Latest Commerce Creator Lighting Survey by URLgenius & impact.com Identifies Creator and Brand Insights Poised To Shape The Season

Industry pioneer in intelligent app linking, URLgenius, and impact.com, the world’s leading partnership management platform, joined forces to unveil key insights from their latest Commerce Creator Lightning Survey¹. The findings spotlight new opportunities for Brand Marketers to align with Commerce Creators and thrive amidst the evolving consumer holiday shopping behaviour and challenges of a nervous economy.

“In this climate, Commerce Creators have a direct impact on audience buying decisions and brand loyalty, as shoppers become more selective with their spending,” said Brian Klais, CEO & founder of URLgenius. “While 51% of creators have begun their holiday campaigns, brands still have time to refine partnerships and position themselves for success in 2025.”

Key insights from the Commerce Creator Lightning Survey include:

Fierce Competition:

• 45% of creators say rising competition for audience attention is their top challenge this holiday season 
• The pressure to produce fresh content (25%) and to maintain a work-life balance (23%) were also notable challenges.

Compensation Balancing Act:

• 47% of brands prefer flat-fee with performance bonuses, with nearly half of creators citing rate negotiation as their biggest challenge in working with brands.
• The silver lining? Pay-per-post plus commission emerged as the top compensation model across all follower counts, offering a win-win by sharing both risk and reward.

Unease of the Unknown:

• Both parties rely on measurement to illustrate success, but are concerned with it being outside their control.  For brands, sales figures and engagement metrics ranked first and second respectively when assessing the success of an influencer marketing campaign with 41% citing difficulty in measuring campaign effectiveness as a common challenge.
• For creators, 64% marked shifts in social media algorithms changing as their top concern in the next year, impacting their income and business. 

Creative Differences:

• While over half of brands surveyed value strong creative control, 35% of creators prefer complete creative freedom to keep content authentic for their audience. Both sides must balance brand safety with a creator’s authenticity to foster trust. 
• 40% of brands surveyed prioritized brand fit when selecting creator partners. Marketers must look beyond follower counts to build lasting partnerships, which both Creators and Brands ranked as the most effective collaboration.

“September is not over and we’re already seeing half of creators actively share holiday content, indicating that brands should be engaging with influencers now, to leverage a cost-effective and ROI-driven channel that aligns with how today’s buyer makes purchases,” said Cristy Garcia, impact.com Chief Marketing Officer. “We’ve seen when brands and creators come together to create and share authentic content, including trusted reviews and recommendations today’s shoppers seek out before making a purchase, they can build stronger connections with consumers and ultimately drive conversions.”

Click here for additional insights and data from URLgenius & impact.com Creator Commerce Lightning Survey.

¹About Commerce Creator Lightning Survey Data: URLgenius & impact.com Commerce Creator Lightning Survey was conducted from August 15, 2024 – September 4, 2024, across 143 brands and 148 URLgenius client creators. Brand Respondents: 66% of brand respondents surveyed stated they oversee both their affiliate and influencer marketing teams with nearly 50% having their influencer and/or affiliate marketing programs for at least three years and 60% stating it is very important to their marketing mix. Client Creator Respondents: 51% of respondents’ follower count is between 100K-500K with 74% identifying it as a career.  Nearly all creator respondents selected affiliate commissions as their primary source of income, while ad revenue (36%) and selling their own products & services jumped dramatically YoY.

Source: URLgenius

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