What 400 B2B Marketers Say About Creator Marketing

TL;DR: B2B creator marketing gets planned like a media buy, but TopRank Marketing’s survey of 400 B2B marketers suggests creator content doesn’t behave the same. Its value builds over time and across the buying journey, well beyond what a single post’s view count shows. 

B2B creator marketing usually gets planned like a media buy: pick a creator, book a post, review the draft, and count the views. Most paid channels work that way, and most budgets are approved that way, so it makes sense.

Then the post goes live, the views come in, and a week later someone asks whether it was worth it. You look at the numbers and have a feeling, but they don’t tell the full story. 

A media plan can undervalue what creator content does.

View counts only capture who saw the post that week. But more of your buyers now research with LLMs, and the same post can surface in their answers long after the campaign ends, especially if the creator is recognized as a trusted source.

Then there’s the choice of creator. One creator rarely suits every stage of the buying journey, and one post rarely builds trust on its own.

TopRank Marketing’s fifth annual B2B Influencer & Creator Marketing Research Report asked 400 B2B marketers how their creator programs perform. Lee Odden, TopRank’s CEO, joined us on the Attributed Podcast to talk through what they found.

Here’s what it means for how you choose creators, plan campaigns, and understand the value they create. You can also listen to the full conversation with Lee here.

1. Creator Content is Finding an Audience Beyond the Feed

Creator content used to have a clear audience: people. Now it also reaches the AI tools your buyers use to research.

In TopRank Marketing’s survey, 34% said they found their brand content visible in AI search because of influencer collaborations. Another 32% said they found evidence of Google AI Overview visibility as a result of their influencer engagements.

LLMs are becoming another place where buyers research, compare, and form opinions about brands. And they aren’t building those answers from your owned content alone.

“All of this AI visibility can be influenced by, ironically, influencers,” Lee explains. “Having multiple credible influencers publish about you creates consensus … as the best answer for [your category]. And then LLMs will pick you.”

When a credible creator talks about your brand on LinkedIn or discusses the problem you solve on a podcast, you’re getting more than exposure to their audience. You’re giving buyers another credible voice to learn from.

And you’re creating more independent content about your brand that search engines and LLMs can find and surface when someone asks a relevant question.

That content keeps working long after the original post. You can repurpose it across other channels, while the original content can continue showing up through traditional search and AI-led discovery. The people who see it today are only part of the potential value you’re getting.

2. B2B Marketers Are Using Different Creators for Different Buyer Moments

33% of the B2B marketers surveyed said they work with entertainment creators. And 32% work with analysts.

That means entertainment creators are edging past one of B2B’s more traditional sources of authority. B2C-style humor and sketches are making their way into B2B marketing, giving you a much wider range of creators to work with.

If you want to reach buyers who don’t know your brand yet, an entertainment creator can bring the audience, format, and personality needed to get their attention. Lee points to creators on TikTok who run entertainment-style product demos. These videos can pull millions of views and, when the product demo is paired with something like a discount code or a free trial, generates inquiries as well as brand awareness.

The question is where you want to meet the buyer. Humor can work when you’re trying to get noticed. When a buyer starts seriously evaluating their options, expertise carries more weight.

“When it comes time for engagement and conversion, that’s where we need to lean more on those traditional influencers,” Lee says. Specifically, the people with deep domain expertise and a respected voice within their industry.

You don’t need one creator to do everything.

You might work with someone who knows how to make a technical subject interesting enough to stop the scroll, then bring in a subject matter expert who can give buyers the depth they need to start evaluating their options.

The creator who gets the buyer’s attention doesn’t have to be the same person who earns their trust.

3. Creator Marketing Gets Stronger Through Repeated Exposure

Buyers rarely make a decision after a single interaction.

Our 2026 LinkedIn Benchmarks Report found that an average B2B customer journey involves 88 touches across 4 channels. A buyer might remember seeing an expert mention your brand once. But when they encounter your brand through that expert again (on LinkedIn, at an event, in a newsletter, on a podcast), it starts to become familiar.

Against that backdrop, TopRank Marketing found that 70% of always-on programs rated themselves as very effective, compared with 25% of occasional creator activations.

Always-on programs give you more opportunities to show up through people your buyers already pay attention to and trust. As Lee puts it, “if you have an expectation to be relevant in the marketplace in a way that compounds, relationships are the way to go.”

Your creator content becomes one of many encounters that can help buyers recognize your brand, understand what you do, and become more confident in choosing you.

Always-on creator marketing gives that trust time to build, rather than asking a single campaign to do all the work.

The Takeaway

Creator marketing might be bought like media, but it doesn’t behave like it once the content is out in the world.

An ad buys you a moment, while creator content lives longer. The same content can be repurposed across channels, surfaced in LLM answers, and put your brand alongside people your buyers already trust and pay attention to.

Creators can also play different roles as the customer journey unfolds. One gets attention, another brings expertise. With repeated exposure, the connection to your brand gets stronger.

That’s where the value of working with creators starts to add up. Together, those collaborations keep influencing buyers in different places, at different moments, long after the original post goes live.

About the Speaker

Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing, a B2B content marketing agency that helps brands drive results across the full funnel, from brand to demand to revenue. His work combines search, social, content, and influencer marketing for B2B brands. He is also the author of Optimize and host of the “Beyond B2B Marketing” podcast.