Reach is Cheap
Memo #1: The era of performance over popularity in the creator economy.
Welcome to Creator Economy Dispatch, where research meets reality. Insights, interviews, and observations on how creators, brands, and platforms actually work together—part case study, part cultural commentary.
Once upon a time, all a brand wanted was to be seen.
Influencer marketing didn’t start with sales goals. It started with style, aesthetics, and a vague sense of “brand awareness.” No one quite knew what moved the needle, but the posts looked good, and for a while, that was enough.
Now? The party’s over.
Welcome to the conversion economy, where conversion is king and return on investment (ROI) is the metric that matters. (And yes, “roi” means king in French. I don’t make the rules.)
In 2025, the goal is no longer reach. It’s revenue. That might sound obvious, but in a space built on likes and vibes, it’s a shift that’s quietly reordering the creator economy. And it’s only getting more extreme.
From brand buzz to bottom line
Everyone I’ve talked to (agency reps, brand marketers, creators) agrees: the bar is higher. What used to be a soft-focus awareness play is now a hard-edged performance channel. The same brands that once said “just post whatever feels authentic” now ask creators to deliver 6x their rate in tracked sales. Yes, really.
This isn’t hypothetical. One agency told me that a major fashion brand expects creators to deliver six times their rate in ROI. A $4K fee? They want $24K in sales. If not, they probably won’t renew. As one talent manager put it: “It used to be transactional. Now it’s conditional.”
But the tools haven’t caught up. Conversion is hard to track. Attribution is murky. Sales data often isn’t shared with the creators generating it. And still, creators are being judged by numbers they can’t fully control.
Why it matters
This shift has two big implications.
First, it puts pressure on creators to become mini media companies, running multi-platform strategies, optimizing conversion funnels, and justifying every campaign with data. Not every creator signed up for that. Especially not the ones who got into this work for the art, not the analytics.
Second, it’s changing who gets picked.
It’s not just the biggest creators who are winning. It’s the right ones. The ones whose audiences trust them, click their links, and actually buy. Microinfluencers with 20K followers can drive more impact than mega-influencers with 2 million, because their followers aren’t just watching… they’re converting.
That makes campaign matchmaking more important than ever. Brands can’t just go by follower count. They need to choose creators with loyal, aligned audiences. People who actually move the needle in their category. In a performance-driven world, reach doesn’t cut it. Relevance does.
Where we go from here
The future of influencer marketing won’t be defined by who can make the most beautiful content. It’ll be defined by who can convert (without losing trust, taste, or themselves in the process).
This is the tension now: creators are expected to be storytellers and salespeople, content studios and conversion funnels. Brands are doubling down on performance. Platforms are optimizing for transactions. And everyone’s trying to keep up.
No one knows exactly where the leverage will settle. Between brands, platforms, and creators, the power balance is still in flux. But one thing’s clear: the metrics are getting louder, and the margins for error are getting thinner.
In a space built on connection, the next competitive edge might not be scale. It might be staying human.