The Q2 Wrap: Influencer Marketing

For years, creator marketing has been synonymous with consumer brands. Lifestyle creators, product reviews, and social-first campaigns have dominated the conversation, while B2B marketers largely relied on webinars, events, paid media, and traditional thought leadership to influence buyers. 

Over the last quarter, however, the landscape has continued to evolve courtesy of a big story.  

LinkedIn's launch of Creator Marketplace is one of the clearest signs that B2B creator marketing is becoming a more established part of the marketing mix, but it isn't happening in isolation.  

• Platforms are investing in better infrastructure 

• Brands are increasing their investment in professional creators 

• Marketers are recognizing that expertise and credibility can be just as influential as audience size. 

For affiliate marketers, this signals an opportunity to rethink how trusted creators fit into broader partnership strategies. Let’s break the opportunity down. 

1. LinkedIn's Creator Marketplace validates the growth of B2B creator marketing 

This quarter, LinkedIn introduced Creator Marketplace, a centralized experience that allows brands to discover, evaluate, and collaborate with professional creators.  

Integrated within Campaign Manager, the platform helps marketers identify creators based on industry expertise, content topics, and performance insights while simplifying collaboration through native tools.  

Combined with products like Thought Leader Ads and BrandLink, LinkedIn is building an ecosystem that makes creator partnerships easier to activate and scale. 

The timing isn't coincidental. According to a 2025 survey by Ogilvy, 75% of B2B businesses are already using B2B influencers on LinkedIn, while 93% of CMOs plan to increase their investment in B2B influencers.  

Rather than creating demand, LinkedIn is responding to a market that has already begun embracing professional creators. 

Here’s what I think: 

The Marketplace isn't significant simply because it's another platform feature. It validates that B2B creator marketing has matured to the point where platforms are investing in infrastructure that removes friction for both brands and creators. 

For affiliate marketers, easier creator discovery, better performance insights, and streamlined collaboration make it more practical to integrate professional creators into a broader partnership strategy.  

As the ecosystem becomes more structured, brands can focus less on identifying partners and more on building long-term relationships that deliver measurable business outcomes. 

2. Trust becomes the true measure of influence 

While B2B creator marketing is often compared to consumer influencer marketing, the two have more in common than many marketers realize.  

Across both spaces, the creators who consistently drive results aren't necessarily those with the largest audiences; they're the ones who have built trust with highly engaged communities. 

Also released this quarter, research highlighted in “The Ultimate LinkedIn Influencer Guide” by The Influencer Marketing Factory reinforces this idea.  

When marketers were asked what they value most in B2B creators, the top choices were: 

• Subject matter expertise (53%) 

• Trustworthiness (52%)  

• Authenticity (36%)  

• Maintaining strong professional networks (52%) 

• Producing diverse content (49%) 

• Fostering meaningful audience engagement (44%) 

Many of LinkedIn's most influential creators have fewer than 5,000 followers, demonstrating that professional influence is built less on audience size and more on credibility within a specific community. 

Here’s what I think: 

This mirrors what Awin has seen across affiliate marketing for years. 

The highest-performing creators aren't necessarily those with the largest. They're the ones whose audiences trust their recommendations.  

Whether they're reviewing beauty products, sharing fitness routines, or educating fellow business owners, successful creators build influence by consistently providing value and authentic experiences. 

The difference in B2B is that trust is often earned through demonstrated expertise and firsthand experience. Buyers are looking for practitioners, founders, consultants, and small business owners who actively use the products they recommend and can speak from real-world experience. 

We've seen this reflected in conversations with brands as well. One client recently shared that creators who genuinely use their products, and can demonstrate that expertise through their own businesses, consistently outperform creators with broader reach but less authentic experience.  

That reinforces an important lesson for affiliate marketers: the most valuable creator isn't always the one with the biggest audience but the one with the strongest credibility among the people who matter most. 

3. B2B brands are making creator partnerships part of their long-term strategy 

As professional creators continue to build credibility with highly engaged audiences, B2B organizations are beginning to move beyond one-off influencer campaigns and incorporate creators into broader marketing strategies. 

This shift is also reflected in how marketers consume information themselves. According to Ogilvy, 90% of marketers believe B2B influencers on social media are important for staying up to date with their industry. Increasingly, creators are becoming trusted sources of education, market insight, and professional perspective, not simply promotional channels. 

In Q2, we saw similar momentum across Awin's own US B2B services vertical, where creator and affiliate activity delivered a 2.49% conversion rate while continuing to grow sales and revenue.  

While B2B creator marketing is still maturing compared to many consumer categories, these performance trends suggest that brands are beginning to move beyond experimentation and build creator partnerships that contribute to measurable business outcomes. 

Here’s what I think: 

Affiliate marketing has always been built around trusted third-party relationships. Professional creators are becoming a natural extension of that model. 

Rather than operating as a separate marketing channel, creators are increasingly complementing affiliate programs by educating buyers, establishing credibility, and supporting demand generation throughout longer B2B buying cycles.  

As organizations continue investing in these relationships, creators are becoming another strategic partner within a broader performance marketing ecosystem. 

Final thoughts 

LinkedIn's Creator Marketplace may be one of the most visible developments this quarter, but it's really a reflection of a much broader shift taking place across the industry. 

Whether in B2C or B2B, the creators delivering the greatest impact aren't necessarily those with the largest audiences, they're the ones who have earned trust. In the B2B space, that trust is often built through expertise, experience, and the ability to educate professional audiences with authentic, relevant content. 

For affiliate marketers, the opportunity isn't simply to add another marketing channel. It's to identify and build long-term relationships with creators who have genuine credibility within the communities they serve.  

The future of creator marketing won't be defined by who has the biggest audience. It will be defined by who has the greatest influence with the right audience. 

Find B2B creators and start influencer marketing on Awin.