There is a lot of noise in the creator economy right now about what brands should focus on in 2026.

  • More long-term partnerships.
  • Less control.
  • Stronger creator-brand alignment.
  • A rethink of audience data.

All of it matters. None of it is the real differentiator.

The creator economy only has one reliable advantage that consistently leads to long-term, sustainable success, and that is infrastructure. Not infrastructure in the abstract, enterprise-transformation sense. But infrastructure in the practical, unglamorous reality of how creator teams actually operate day to day. How work gets done. How decisions are made. How not taking a step back before you scale can lead to the dismantling of entire in-house influencer/creator marketing departments.

The creator economy has been rewarding ambition, not sustainability

Creator marketing has been on a steady upward trajectory for more than a decade. Budgets continue to rise, and expectations are, too.

Influencer/creator functions are now expected to outperform other internal departments and deliver performance, brand impact, cultural relevance, and measurable ROI at the same time. And while there are plenty of success stories, many of them exist despite proper internal workflows, systems, and structure.

Most influencer/creator teams are still operating on workflows designed for a very different reality: smaller teams, lower budgets, fewer stakeholders, and minimal scrutiny. Those same workflows are now being asked to support larger budgets, more creators, more markets, more approvals, more campaigns. Just hire another influencer/creator manager.

The result is a growing mismatch between outdated influencer/creator marketing setups and modern expectations. Flying under the radar, these cracks are easy to ignore. When your output is expected to rise by 30%, it becomes impossible to ignore.

Programmes that once looked successful start to inexplicably under-perform when budgets start to increase, and teams are expected to extract more performance without reassessing how and why things are done. Admin begins to trump strategic work. Approval cycles become defensive. Content quality drops under volume pressure. Performance declines. Knee-jerk strategic decisions start to happen and are followed by de-investment and layoffs. Lets hand this off to an agency instead.

Infrastructure is what allows creator marketing to scale

The teams that are pulling ahead are not doing anything radically new on the surface. They are not necessarily working with different creators. They are not producing wildly more creative content.

What they have done differently is invest in scalable internal ecosystems that allow creator marketing to operate consistently, predictably, and without constant reinvention.

It starts with a clear internal mission. When everyone in the organisation understands why creators exist in the business, and how they contribute across brand, performance, and community, internal friction drops immediately. There is less re-education, fewer defensive conversations, and more aligned decision-making.

From there, the focus shifts to workflows. Not off-the-shelf solutions that promise to do influencer marketing for you, but systems designed around how teams actually work. Identification, contracting, briefing, approvals, campaign management, budgeting, payments, reporting, and measurement all need to reflect internal reality and not vendor demos.

Strong infrastructure prevents admin-heavy headcount scaling. If growth simply means more spreadsheets, more emails, and more manual work, creator teams will struggle to perform in the next 24 months.

When teams spend most of their time managing processes instead of shaping strategy, performance inevitably suffers.

Leadership and structure matter more than tactics

One of the most consistent failure points I see is around leadership/ownership. Influencer/creator marketing leadership roles are still too often given to people who have not earned their stripes in the creator economy.

While I am the first to admit that effective influencer marketing is not rocket science, it is also no longer experimental. There are now more than enough people with 10+ years of hands-on experience who are ready to lead departments. Instead, many of them burn out in admin-heavy roles with limited progression, while individuals who come from outside of the creator economy get the nudge and are put in charge of global teams, leaning on existing knowledge from others to help shape their opinion and position in the market, instead of shaping it with existing expertise.

A clear, aligned internal creator mission is not optional. Defining what influencer marketing means inside your organisation, and how you execute it, is foundational work. Yet it is routinely skipped in favour of short-term activation pressure.

I have personally been questioned for asking what our function's raison d'etre within a business was, and where we should show up, and more importantly, how. Instead, I was pushed to focus on extracting more performance with more budget, more creators and more content.

Why CPM-dependent strategies do not hold up

If your influencer/creator programme only works when you hit your CPM targets, you are not running a long-term strategy. You are running a fragile system that treats humans as performance channels, rewards vanity metrics and creates the illusion of predictability in an industry that rewards creativity.

These types of programmes tend to unravel the moment something changes. Then performance starts to dip and what once looked scalable starts to feel expensive.

Infrastructure-led programmes behave differently. They are not built solely around short-term efficiency metrics. They are designed to absorb volatility, maintain momentum, and continue delivering value even when conditions change. That resilience is the difference between programmes that survive scrutiny and those that start disappearing over the next four budget cycles.

Why this matters now

The creator economy is entering its do-or-die phase. Commerce, content, and community are increasingly intertwined. Internal scrutiny on creator spend is intensifying, not easing. The margin for operational inefficiency is shrinking fast.

In this environment, excellent execution at scale becomes the competitive advantage. Not creativity. Not budget size. Infrastructure.

The bottom line

The brands that win in 2026 will not be the ones spending the most money. They will be the ones that invested early in robust internal frameworks, systems strong enough to scale creator work without burning out teams, frustrating creators, or eroding credibility.

Infrastructure is not the most exciting part of the creator economy, but it is the part that decides who will still be around in five years time.