Should brands buy influencers like media or build long-term partnerships?

Why is influencer marketing splitting in two?

Influencer marketing is no longer one thing. In October, Digiday described the creator economy as splitting in two. Top creators now act like creative partners on longer deals. Nano and micro creators are increasingly bought at scale, much like long-tail publishers.

The platforms are speeding this up. In September, Meta launched its Creator Marketing Hub globally. It adds creator discovery filters, ad-readiness editing tools and in-hub messaging. Partnership Ads can now be run through Meta’s API and AI tooling. Finding and boosting creators is starting to look like buying media.

The money explains the urgency. The same Marketing Dive report cites IAB data showing creator channel spend reached $37 billion in 2025. It also notes that 45% of consumer purchases are influenced by creator recommendations.

So the real question for a marketer is not whether to use influencers. It is how much to treat them as inventory, and how much to treat them as partners.

What does the data say about long-term partnerships?

The evidence favours repeat relationships. Deloitte surveyed 3,518 US consumers in May 2026 for its study on long-term creator partnerships. About 70% of people who engage with creators keep returning to the same ones.

Trust drives the sale. Deloitte found trusted-creator recommendations made purchase 2.5 times more likely. About 60% of US creator-engagers bought something mainly because of a creator in the past six months. Yet Deloitte notes most brand deals are still one-off and transactional.

Spend keeps rising anyway. EMARKETER forecasts US influencer marketing spend will reach $13.7 billion by 2027. In that research, 54.7% of US marketers said proven ROI would justify bigger creator budgets.

Where do nano, micro and macro creators each fit?

Creator size changes what you are buying. Smaller creators win on engagement. Larger creators win on total impact.

Source: Dash Social influencer benchmarks, updated March 2026.

The cost gap is just as wide. In India, Agency Reporter puts nano reel rates at INR 3,000–8,000 and micro at INR 8,000–25,000. Citing the Reelax H1 2026 report, it says one celebrity collaboration can cost as much as 150 nano and micro posts.

So brands buy nano and micro creators for lower cost per view and per engagement. Their audiences also trust them more, because the creator feels like a peer. Macro and mega creators still do a job small creators cannot. They make a launch feel big, earn press coverage and lend authority.

Sales do not only come from long-term partners. Specialised nano and micro creators often sell best, because their audience already wants the product. Renee Cosmetics told afaqs that 80% of its influencer budget goes to micro creators, whom it calls its main sales drivers.

How does this look in Southeast Asia, the UAE and India?

Southeast Asia is performance-led and TikTok-heavy. AnyMind’s 2026 analysis shows TikTok’s share of influencer campaigns rose from 28% in 2023 to about 51% in 2025. In Indonesia, 74% of campaigns are built around performance outcomes. In the Philippines, TikTok carries 64% of campaign volume, while Singapore still leans on Instagram.

The UAE has formalised the creator market. The UAE Media Council now requires an advertiser permit for paid and unpaid promotion, with a January 31, 2026 deadline. Licensed creators must display their permit number. That makes vetting and longer contracts easier for brands.

India shows the same tension. An EY and Big Bang Social report projected the market would reach INR 3,375 crore by 2026. It found 71% of brands paid fixed fees, while 29% were exploring performance-linked models. Nearly half preferred micro and nano creators for lower cost per reach.

How should a brand split its influencer budget?

We use a simple sequence. It treats media buys as the test bed and partnerships as the reward.

1. Define the job. Write down whether the campaign is for reach, consideration or sales. Use macro creators for reach and authority, micro creators for niche consideration, and specialised nano and micro creators for sales.
2. Start with a scaled test. Brief 20 to 50 micro and nano creators chosen by audience match. Use Partnership Ads or whitelisting to amplify the best posts.
3. Measure what matters. Track saves, comments, link clicks and sales by creator. Ignore follower count when you read the results.
4. Brief for AI visibility. Ask creators to publish public feed posts and Reels, not only Stories. Public posts can be found and cited by AI engines.
5. Shortlist the top performers. Pick the five to ten creators whose audiences engaged and bought. Check fit with your brand values too.
6. Convert them into partners. Offer three- to twelve-month contracts with a fixed fee plus a sales commission. Give them product input and early access.
7. Keep testing at the edges. Hold back part of the budget each quarter for new creators. This keeps the roster fresh and prices honest.
8. Check local rules. Confirm disclosure rules in India, licensing in the UAE and platform policies in each market before you sign.

A practical starting split is 60% scaled buys and 40% partnerships. Shift towards partnerships as you find creators who reliably sell.

Why do creators matter for AI visibility too?

Repeat partnerships create repeat conversation. The same creators talk about the same brand, in their own words, across months. That steady chatter builds the reviews, comparisons and mentions that search engines and AI assistants draw on.

This is why we say AI recommends the brands people talk about. A one-off burst fades quickly. A partner who mentions you every month keeps your brand in the conversation.

We have measured this, so it is not a guess. Our Brand Chatter Intelligence team tracked ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Gemini in one Indian category, children’s health drinks. We analysed 168 AI answers from November 2 to 8, 2026.

Source: BeTagged Brand Chatter Intelligence, 168 AI answers, India children’s health-drink category, 2–8 November 2026.

Creator platforms made up nearly one in ten citations. That is more than any single website, including google.com at 6.5%. Instagram alone was cited almost five times as often as YouTube. Creator content was also the most negative source type, so creators were shaping how AI judged the brands.

The lesson is direct. Public creator posts, including those from nano and micro nutrition creators, now feed AI answers. Every creator brief is also a brief for AI visibility. This is one category in one market, and we are now mapping the same split across Southeast Asia, the UAE and the US.

At BeTagged, we run both models side by side. We pick creators by audience match, not follower count, and test them at scale. Our InCom model then lets brands pay when they sell, so the best performers earn more as partners.

Regional depth helps here. In India we work with more than 350,000 regional creators across 22+ languages. Similar local rosters in Southeast Asia, the UAE and the USA let one brand test widely and then commit locally.

Frequently asked questions

Shamik TalukderCo-founder & CEO, BeTagged

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