Pundit
Max Willens
2 receipts • Tracked since Apr 2026
Independent media analyst. Former senior reporter at Digiday and analyst at Insider Intelligence.
Affiliations
No firm affiliations on record.
— Filed —
2 receipts
2026
2 predictions- Mar 5, 2026Story still evolving.“We’re talking about at least $21 billion going into the pockets of US-based creators in 2026. [We’re] looking at a pile of money that nearly doubled between the years of 2022 and 2025. And what we see, and we indicated in the headline, is that effectively half of the money in 2026 is going to go to nano and micro influencers.”
Creator marketing has continued its rapid growth and the focus on nano and micro-influencers has increased. However, the exact dollar figures ($21B total, 'half' to nano/micro) for 2026 are part of eMarketer's proprietary data and are not publicly available for independent verification. Qualitatively, the direction of the prediction is supported.
- May 6, 2026Story still evolving.“My prediction is that 2026 will be the year that creators and retail media networks begin to work together more visibly. And so, I just think that as retail media networks look to find ways to broaden their appeal to brands and find ways to deliver on not just bottom funnel KPIs, but really full funnel objectives, you’re going to see more of this.”
Retail media and creator marketing have both seen significant growth. Industry practices and product launches support the idea that collaborations became more visible. However, a quantitative metric for 'more visibly' working together is not available in public sources to definitively confirm the prediction.