Something has been shifting in the creator economy. MrBeast’s YouTube following now outnumbers the combined populations of the U.S. and Canada, and his business has grown into a conglomerate spanning chocolate, toys, and financial services. He’s the extreme case, but the pattern underneath him is what matters for most brands: creators are building direct lines to consumer wallets, and marketers are figuring out how to plug into that pipeline without needing a celebrity-sized budget to do it.

Social Commerce is Accelerating

eMarketer projects U.S. influencer marketing spend will grow 15.7% this year, reaching $13.7 billion by 2027. That growth is spread across the entire creator spectrum, from nano accounts with a few thousand followers to mega-influencers with tens of millions. The real opportunity isn’t in picking one tier over another. It’s the ability to target the right slice of any creator’s audience, no matter how big that creator is.

That’s where Alliant’s capability comes in. Say a mid-sized skincare brand wants the reach of a mega-influencer like Charli D’Amelio, but not the price tag that comes with an actual sponsorship. Using Alliant’s Social Audiences, that brand can build a TikTok audience of D’Amelio’s followers, then layer in rich, transactional and lifestyle attributes to isolate the subset who already buy skincare online, skew toward the brand’s target age range, and show high purchase intent. The brand gets a celebrity-adjacent audience without paying for the celebrity, and the campaign is aimed at people who were already primed to purchase.

Alliant’s own research backs why this matters. In a nationally representative survey, we found that 22% of U.S. adults have purchased a product based on an influencer’s endorsement, most often online. Fashion, beauty, and gaming led the categories where endorsements translated into sales, and TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram were where consumers most often encountered them.

Who’s Actually Buying, and Why it Matters for Targeting

The demographic story behind that 22% purchase rate is worth sitting with. Younger consumers, particularly Gen Z, and women were significantly more likely to buy something because an influencer recommended it. Millennials, meanwhile, are the generation most likely to be influencers themselves, alongside women more broadly. That combination, a Millennial-skewed creator base speaking to Gen Z and female purchasers, is exactly the kind of nuance that gets lost when brands treat “influencer marketing” as one undifferentiated channel, and exactly the kind of nuance that lets a brand run a celebrity-caliber campaign on a fraction of the budget, if they’re targeting the right follower base to begin with.

Creative Intelligence Needs a Data Layer Underneath It

Here’s the gap: knowing that a creator has engagement doesn’t tell a brand whether that creator’s audience actually buys, or what they buy, or how their purchase behavior compares to the general population. That’s the piece that turns “this creator seems influential” into “this creator’s followers are 40% more likely to purchase fashion products online.”

Alliant’s Social Audiences are built to close that gap. They combine social engagement signals – follower data, hashtags and platform behavior across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, X, and LinkedIn – with Alliant’s robust dataset of transactional and lifestyle attributes. That means a brand isn’t just targeting “people who follow this creator.” It’s targeting people who follow this creator and have a documented pattern of buying in the relevant category, whether that’s beauty, gaming, fashion, or something more niche.

As creator-driven commerce keeps growing, the brands that win won’t be the ones with the biggest influencer budget. They’ll be the ones who know precisely which followers convert, and where to find more of them.

Want the full data behind who’s influencing, who’s buying, and what’s driving purchase decisions? Download Alliant’s research report, The Power of Influence: Understanding Influencers and Their Impact on Consumer Purchasing, or explore how Alliant’s Social Audiences can help you turn followers into buyers.