The Interactive Advertising Bureau on November 10, 2026 published The Creator Economy's Next Chapter, the first research report from a new programme it calls the Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative. Built on two waves of research and a survey of 53 industry leaders, the report names seven areas where, according to IAB, the systems for measuring, contracting and paying creators "have not kept pace" with spending that the trade body expects to reach $44 billion this year.

Measurement comes first. IAB says it will prioritise measurement standards in 2027, working alongside the Media Rating Council and other industry bodies to bring platforms and measurement providers together on common definitions for views, impressions, reach and watch time. Among the survey's respondents, a common definition of a "view" was the single most-requested standard, at 66%.

In Short

IAB asked 53 people who work in creator marketing what is holding the business back, and they named measurement, contracts, slow payment, internal politics and hidden fees. That matters to every brand, agency and creator that buys or sells sponsored content, because a "view" on one platform is not counted the same way as a view on another, which makes creator campaigns hard to compare with each other or with other media. In 2027 IAB plans to write shared definitions for views, impressions, reach and watch time with the Media Rating Council, and it is recruiting working groups to do the work.

Seven areas from a small survey

The research was carried out by the IAB Creator Economy Board and FrontRow Research, according to the release. IAB itself describes the findings as "directional," a fair description for a sample of 53. The release is explicit about what the initiative is not trying to do. "The aim is not to standardize creators or set prices, but to build shared definitions and expectations that let buyers, sellers, and measurement partners compete and innovate on a common foundation," it says.

The seven areas, in the order IAB lists them, cover measurement, contracts, payment, internal decision-making, team structure, data sharing and fees.

Measurement

Of the respondents, 67% named measurement as the top problem in creator marketing. The most-requested standard, at 66%, was a common definition of a "view." IAB frames this as fixing measurement "at its foundation."

Contracts and payment

Usage rights are the clause that causes the most friction, cited by 61%. They set where, for how long and in which media an advertiser may run content that a creator made, and they decide whether a sponsored post can later become a paid ad. IAB's response is to develop model contract clauses.

On payment, 60% agreed that longer payment terms "cause cascading harm," and only 6% disagreed. The release does not account for the remaining 34%, who presumably neither agreed nor disagreed. Nor does it name a number of days. Its wording is cautious: the industry should "consider the benefits of prompt payment terms," which falls well short of a recommended standard.

Inside the brand

Two findings concern how brands organise creator work rather than how they buy it. According to IAB, 94% of respondents report at least occasional conflict with senior leadership over creator decisions, with budget allocation hit hardest. IAB's proposed answer is an evaluation playbook for senior leaders and finance teams.

A further 80% agreed that media buyers and creator buyers work independently, which the release says often limits the full value of creator campaigns. IAB wants to propose what it calls optimal brand operating models.

Data and fees

Some 58% said withheld results limit shared learning across the industry. The release adds a qualification of its own: access to data and data quality were cited "almost as often as withholding," so not every missing result is being hidden on purpose.

The sharpest finding concerns money. According to IAB, 74% agreed that opacity over fees persists partly because some in the industry benefit from it. The report calls on buyers to lead fee disclosure efforts and says disclosure should become the default. The release does not say what disclosure would cover, whether agency margins, talent management commissions or platform charges, or who would check it.

Measurement goes first

Of the seven areas, only measurement comes with a plan and a year attached. IAB will "work to define core metrics across platforms, from views to impressions, reach, and watch time," according to the release, and will build a Creator advisory body to guide the work. The effort sits within the IAB Experience Center's 2027 roadmap.

The MRC, the US body that sets minimum standards for media measurement and accredits measurement services after audits, is named as a partner. The release's wording is that IAB will work "alongside" the MRC and "engaged industry bodies," and that IAB "plans to convene platforms and measurement providers." It does not say that the MRC will publish a standard, audit creator metrics or accredit anyone. It names no platform that has agreed to take part.

James Douglas, VP, Experience Center at IAB, put the case in terms of scale rather than legitimacy. "Creator marketing has largely won the argument about whether it belongs in the marketing plan. What it needs now is the infrastructure to scale," Douglas said. "The people closest to this work told us where the friction is, and more than half said they would help build the solutions."

IAB's Creator Economy Board and committee will now form working groups on measurement standards. The release sets a simple test of success. When industry leaders are asked the same questions in future research, "the obstacles at the top of their list should look completely different than they do today."

David Cohen, IAB's chief executive, argued that timing matters. "The creator economy has grown up faster than the infrastructure to support it, and the window to act is now, while demand is strong and the industry is willing," Cohen said. "If we wait, the same friction points will get set in stone and undoubtedly inhibit future growth."

IAB is inviting creators, brands, agencies, platforms, publishers, ad tech partners, commerce and retail media teams, legal teams, measurement providers and talent representatives to join the working groups.

Who decides what counts as a view?

The problem IAB wants to solve is easy to describe and hard to fix. Each platform counts its own views, and those platform figures are what creators and brands usually work from. Those counts are not built to the same rules, and platforms change them on their own schedule.

YouTube offered a recent example. In August it said that from August 24, 2026 a view would be counted the moment a video begins to play, across Shorts, long-form videos and live streams. The definition of YouTube views therefore changed in the middle of the year for every creator on the service, and a brand comparing a long-form creator's views from before and after August 24 was comparing two different metrics.

The cross-platform question is harder still. A brand deal that runs on three platforms produces three view counts, built on three definitions, none of them audited against a common standard. IAB's target list goes beyond views to impressions, reach and watch time, four metrics that each platform currently defines for itself.

This is also a different exercise from IAB's other recent measurement work. When it released a draft Cross-Channel Measurement Decision Guide on October 20, 2026, IAB said it was not setting any new metric standard; that guide dealt with choosing between mix models, incrementality tests and attribution when they disagree. The creator work, by contrast, is aimed squarely at definitions.

What the numbers rest on

The release gives no fieldwork dates, does not say how the two research waves were split or who exactly the 53 respondents were, and does not say whether every respondent answered every question. On IAB's own landing page, the report is credited as developed with FrontRow Insights rather than FrontRow Research, and reading it requires a free IAB account.

The sample size limits how far the percentages can be pushed. By PPC Land's calculation, and assuming each figure is based on all 53 respondents, the 66% who want a common view definition is about 35 people; the 6% who disagreed on payment terms is three; and the 94% who report conflict with senior leadership is about 50. Those are useful signals from people inside the business. They are not a measurement of the market.

The $44 billion figure has its own history. In its 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend and Strategy Report, published in December 2025, IAB put US creator advertising at $37 billion in 2025 and projected $43.9 billion for 2026. By September, IAB was citing a rounded $44 billion for 2026, up from $13.9 billion in 2021. The November release calls the figure "creator media budgets" and does not specify the US, though IAB's report page describes the same growth from $13.9 billion in 2021.

The headline finding also echoes another survey. In August the Association of National Advertisers found that 67% of client-side marketers called influencer measurement the hardest step in managing creator programmes. That study had its own small base, 78 marketers who answered the primary questions, and it asked a different question to a different group. The matching percentage is a coincidence, but both surveys point to measurement as the weakest part of creator buying.

The ANA study also bears on fees. Only half of its respondents said they had full visibility into what was paid to influencers. Among those who did, the split averaged 30% to the agency and 70% to the talent. IAB's 74% finding on opacity points at the same gap.

How the initiative fits IAB's creator year

The Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative is the latest in a run of creator-related work by IAB and its national affiliates in 2026.

In February IAB put a Direct Buy Addendum and updated General Terms out for public comment, the first refresh of its standard media contract terms since 2010. That framework deals with conventional direct media buys and sets no payment term. Model contract clauses for creator deals, with usage rights at their centre, would extend the same approach to a market that has so far worked largely on one-off agreements.

In July IAB announced a Global Creator Week across 17 markets for September 14 to 18, 2026. One of the sessions, in Mexico, was devoted to a proposed standard base contract. At the time PPC Land noted that the announcement carried no binding technical specification and no measurement standard. The November release moves one step closer by naming the metrics it will tackle, though not yet a publication date.

IAB's US CreatorFronts marketplace ran on September 15, 2026 in New York, alongside the Podcast Upfront and PlayFronts. According to IAB's event page, the 2027 CreatorFronts will take place on September 14 and 15, 2027 in New York City and will explore what it would take for creator advertising to reach $100 billion.

National IABs have taken their own steps. IAB UK launched a creator qualification on May 19, 2026, costing £50 and running across nine modules, citing ASA research that only around 57% of influencer ads met disclosure requirements. In September, IAB Ireland found that just 17% of adults saw paid creator posts as authentic, against 72% who said authenticity mattered.

Platforms are moving on disclosure too. In September YouTube said it would begin labelling brand deals that creators fail to disclose, using automated detection. Disclosure to viewers, though, is a separate matter from the commercial fee disclosure that IAB's report addresses.

Why this matters for the marketing community

Creator money is increasingly being spent as media money. Meta said on October 21, 2026 that its ads with creators grew more than 97% year over year and passed a $15 billion annual revenue run rate. These partnership ads run under a creator's name with the creator's permission, so they draw on media budgets, media buyers and media reporting. Yet the underlying creator content is still often commissioned through a separate brand deal, negotiated by different people under different contracts.

That split is what IAB's 80% figure describes. It also helps explain the 94%. A chief financial officer looking at a television plan sees audience figures built to standards that measurement companies are audited against. The same executive looking at a creator plan sees platform-reported views counted in different ways. Without a common definition, budget arguments become arguments over whose numbers to trust.

Contracts and payment terms matter for a different reason. Usage rights determine whether creator content can be reused in paid media, and for how long, which is exactly the point where creator and media budgets meet. Payment terms affect who carries the cost of delay. Late payment is a familiar problem elsewhere in marketing: the 4A's has said that anything beyond 30-day terms is incompatible with the typical agency commercial model, and average agency-fee payment terms rose from 45.7 days to 58.1 days between 2013 and 2019, according to The Kaplan Group citing ANA data. Creators often sit at the end of a longer chain, with agencies and talent managers between them and the brand.

On fees, the report's position is notable mainly for where it points. It asks buyers to lead. Whether platforms, agencies and other intermediaries follow is a question the release does not answer, and the 74% figure shows that most respondents believe some parties have a financial interest in the current arrangements.

IAB has not said when the first definitions will be published, which platforms will sign up, or whether the MRC will audit anything. Until those details exist, the initiative is a statement of intent backed by a small survey. The working groups, and the platforms that join them or stay away, will show whether it becomes more than that.

Timeline

Summary

Who: The Interactive Advertising Bureau, through its Creator Economy Board and Experience Center, with research by FrontRow Research; James Douglas, VP, Experience Center at IAB; David Cohen, CEO of IAB; and the Media Rating Council, which IAB names as a partner in its measurement work.

What: IAB published The Creator Economy's Next Chapter, the first report from its Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative. Based on two waves of research and a survey of 53 industry leaders, it names seven opportunity areas: measurement, model contract clauses, prompt payment terms, an evaluation playbook for senior leaders and finance, brand operating models, performance data sharing and fee disclosure. IAB will prioritise common definitions for views, impressions, reach and watch time in 2027 and is forming working groups and a Creator advisory body.

When: The report and initiative were announced on November 10, 2026. The measurement work is part of the IAB Experience Center's 2027 roadmap. No publication date for the standards has been given.

Where: The announcement was issued from New York. The measurement definitions are meant to apply across platforms, and IAB's spending figures refer to the US market.

Why: IAB expects creator media budgets to reach $44 billion this year, while the systems for measuring, contracting and paying creators have, by its account, not kept pace. Respondents named measurement as the top problem at 67% and asked most often for a common definition of a view, at 66%. Without shared definitions, creator results are hard to compare across platforms or against other media, which feeds the internal budget disputes that 94% of respondents reported.