Most influencer programs are not being handed to agencies. But the work behind them is increasingly being split into pieces.
What the 2026 data shows
In Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 Influencer Benchmark Report, 66.33% of respondents said their influencer program is managed entirely in-house. Hybrid and agency-led setups each came in at 10.71%, and 12.24% said they are not running influencer marketing at all.
Spend is still rising fast: 87.49% of brands expect to increase creator marketing budgets in 2026, and 72.22% of those plan increases of 50% or more. But bigger budgets have not automatically brought bigger teams. A marketer who handled three creator partnerships last year may now own thirty, and that is where the model bends.
- Sourcing and vetting a growing pool of nano and micro-creators
- Turning briefs into content fast enough for platform schedules
- Managing contracts, payments and creator relationships at scale
- Running fraud and authenticity checks without a dedicated compliance function
- Producing reporting that satisfies finance, not just marketing
What should stay in-house
The brand still needs final approval over creator fit, product claims and anything with legal or reputational risk. The FTC’s guidance for advertisers says companies should train and monitor the people promoting their products and review paid posts for truthful claims and disclosures before they go live. Handing the program to a partner does not remove that responsibility.
Ownership should be explicit. For each campaign, name the person who approves the brief, the creator, the final content and the performance report. A partner can do a lot of work between those decisions, but the brand must know where it steps in.
Where outsourcing actually goes
Brands are not outsourcing the whole program. They are outsourcing bottlenecks. Creator discovery and vetting is the most commonly outsourced function at 19.44%, followed by content production at 15.28%. Talent management, paid amplification and fraud detection each sit around 12.5%, while contracting and negotiation is 11.1%. Reporting is the function teams guard most, handed over by only 6.9%.
That pattern shows operational support rather than replacing the team. A skincare brand doubling its creator roster may not need three new coordinators; it needs someone to absorb the repetitive, time-consuming pieces.
Pepperstone’s creator program shows the model in the wild. Working with impact.com’s team, the brand sourced and contracted creators for localized educational campaigns. The case study reports more than 18 million impressions and 1.2 million clicks across the broader program, but the operational win is the defined handoff between creator selection, local content, review and measurement.
How to decide what to hand over
Run a bottleneck audit on one campaign or one month of work. Record how many creators are reviewed before one is approved, how long briefs and contracts take, how many payments miss target dates, and how long reporting takes. Each delay points to a different fix.
Recurring work that fills a stable role may justify a hire. Repeatable research or tracking may improve with software. Work that spikes during launches, needs local knowledge or demands a specialist skill may belong with an external partner.
When comparing cost, do not treat an agency quote and one employee’s salary as equivalent totals. Ask a partner to separate creator fees, management fees, production, usage rights and paid media, and ask who pays for extra revisions and who owns the relationship data. A cheaper monthly quote can become expensive if those items are missing.
The teams managing this growth best are not avoiding outside help. They are deliberate about where they use it and keep strategy, sign-off and measurement close.
Source: Influencer Marketing Hub
