Is there a walled garden emerging in creator marketing?
Opinion | The Future of Brands: Creator Economy Week in Focus
Creator marketing runs on tools that manage risk and prove effectiveness, but as ownership of the underlying data increasingly sits within agency ecosystems, is a walled garden emerging?
Creator marketing has grown up. What started as a simple, often informal exchange has evolved into one of the fastest-growing, tech-driven channels in the marketing mix. But as data volumes grow, so does the question of who owns it. With agency groups increasingly owning a stake in creator tech, is a new walled garden emerging?
As part of our recent research for our whitepaper Creator Economy Operating Models: A Marketer’s Framework in partnership with ISBA, we spoke to UK marketers about how the channel is run in their business.
We found that brands at the beginning of their creator marketing journey, or those that use creators sporadically, may still rely on manual spreadsheets. Advertisers further along their journey are using dedicated tech tools and there’s plenty to choose from.
At one end of the market are enterprise platforms such as CreatorIQ that bring multiple parts of the creator lifecycle together. At the other are specialist tools such as HypeAuditor, for audience quality and fraud detection, or dedicated commerce, compliance and measurement solutions.
But agencies are increasingly buying or plugging into these tools. Publicis now owns Influential and Captiv8. CreatorIQ, which remains independent, has integrated with dentsu’s audience platform, giving dentsu clients access to its creator database. Brands need to think about whether they access a tool directly or through their agency, because who owns what matters more than ever.
An agency-owned platform can be an excellent way to manage creator marketing at scale, but if the data, workflows and historical relationships all live inside that platform, your brand’s ability to part ways with the agency, compare data, or bring capability in-house shrinks with every campaign.
This is why brands who manage hundreds or thousands of creators are seeking greater ownership and control of their tech stack and data in-house, rather than solely relying on agency-owned solutions.
An in-house tech stack protects continuity and access to historical creator data if agency partners change. It also enables a connected reporting process across PR, brand and media teams, with less friction over who owns what, because the answer is settled in advance.
Some advertisers have taken this even further, building full-lifecycle infrastructure that covers everything from automated vetting and asset approval to real-time campaign optimisation that they control end to end.
Why ownership matters more under regulatory pressure
But the case for owning your own stack isn’t just about control. It also makes sense when regulators come knocking.
For many brands, one of the biggest motivators to invest in their tech stack is to reduce the risk of reputational damage.
Regulators are increasingly clamping down on non-disclosure of ads (#ad). In the UK, the ASA publicly names advertisers that fail to disclose ads, and the CMA can now fine companies directly for breaches of consumer protection law. If the audit trail for that disclosure sits inside an agency’s proprietary system, a brand’s ability to respond quickly is reliant on that relationship.
In 2026, a single AI-generated, paid post can create advertising, data privacy and consumer protection risks simultaneously. All backed up by the risk of being sued. No single regulator owns influencer compliance. When accountability is fragmented, a brand that doesn’t own its audit trail relies on someone else’s system to defend it.
The commercial advantage
Beyond compliance, ownership pays off commercially. When a brand owns its data, it can act on it in real-time, making in-flight adjustments such as reallocating budget to high-performing creators mid-campaign rather than waiting for the final report.
As marketers, we’ve experienced walled gardens before, with the big tech platforms. This time, the difference is that brands can shape the outcome.
The question is whether they rely on agency expertise and tools or invest in bringing that infrastructure in-house.
The answer depends on where a brand is on its creator marketing journey. For light users, agency tools may be all they need. But brands operating at scale should own their infrastructure, with agencies adding value through expertise and creator relationships.
Hannah Mirza is the founder and CEO of Responsible Marketing Advisory.