Where does your creator budget actually go? TrinityP3 questions agency margins

Creator marketing may be attracting bigger budgets, but a new TrinityP3 analysis raises questions about how much of that investment reaches the creators themselves.

The marketing consultancy claims that, in an aggregated agency model with limited cost transparency, a $100,000 creator campaign can leave just $35,000 in direct working spend for creators. Under an itemised, transparent model, it estimates that figure could reach $60,000.

The comparison puts a growing issue for CMOs under the microscope: as creator marketing becomes a more established part of the media mix, are advertisers getting a clear picture of where their money goes?

TrinityP3 argues that the creator economy is developing some of the same transparency problems that have long troubled other parts of the advertising supply chain, particularly programmatic media.

Its concern centres on the way some agencies bundle creator fees, management, technology, compliance and other services into a single campaign cost, making it difficult for advertisers to distinguish the money paid to talent from the fees retained by intermediaries.

TrinityP3 founder and global CEO Darren Woolley said the consultancy was seeing a familiar pattern emerge as creator marketing attracted larger budgets.

“We have seen this exact playbook deployed across every major marketing innovation over the last thirty years,” Woolley said. "From media commissions funding 'free' content production to opaque programmatic trading desks, holding companies have consistently built toll booths to extract backend margins.

“Creator marketing is simply the latest target, and anecdotally, we are hearing some real horror stories in the market.”

Woolley argued that marketers often accept bundled agency arrangements because they simplify campaign management and help bypass internal procurement processes. But he warned that convenience can come at the expense of the money available for creators.

“When two-thirds of a budget disappears into agency plumbing before reaching a creator, campaign performance, creative diversity, and localized reach inevitably suffer. Convenience should never cost you half your campaign output,” he said.

The figures do not mean that every dollar outside direct creator payments is wasted. Campaign strategy, production, talent management, technology and compliance can all carry legitimate costs. Nor does the comparison establish that 65% of every creator budget is retained as agency margin.

Rather, TrinityP3's analysis raises a procurement question: can marketers see how those costs are calculated, which parties receive payment and what proportion of their investment ultimately reaches creators?

The consultancy's $100,000 example suggests the difference between an aggregated model and an itemised one could amount to $25,000 in additional direct creator spend.

Lydia Feely, general manager at TrinityP3, said commercial transparency and agency performance guarantees are not mutually exclusive.

"Agencies frequently argue that bundled pricing allows them to offer performance guarantees, but a guarantee should never be used as a shield to deny commercial visibility. Brands have every right to know exactly where their money is going," she said. 

"We aren't suggesting that agencies shouldn't be fairly compensated for strategy, compliance, and technology management. They absolutely should. But those fees must be visible, itemised, and negotiated out in the open."

TrinityP3's call for greater commercial maturity and procurement oversight forms part of an industry bulletin urging brands to tighten their creator marketing contracts and improve visibility over campaign spending.

The bulletin outlines four contractual safeguards designed to eliminate hidden margins: itemised breakdowns of creator costs, open-market sourcing clauses, full pass-through of platform rebates and independent audit rights to verify payments made directly to talent.