In a recent flurry of M&A activity, advertising giants have been pouring capital into the creator space, signaling a shift in how marketing dollars are allocated. With major holding companies like Publicis acquiring Influential and Captiv8 and Omnicom investing in Creo, the industry is placing a multi-billion dollar bet on influencer infrastructure. This sudden rush raises a critical question: Why now, and what do they know that others don't?

According to Nirav Chatterji, VP of Data Business at CreatorDB, the answer is that they're playing a desperate game of catch-up. And from his front-row seat in the data trenches, it’s clear: the industry is scrambling to build capabilities it should have developed years ago.

• Late to the game: "Many agencies are simply late to the game," he says, arguing that many of these agencies have been forced to acquire expertise they couldn't build internally. The old playbook is broken, and in this new era, the future belongs to those who can see beyond surface-level metrics. "We're taking a very data-centric approach to the creator economy, which no one's done so far," he explains. The problem, he says, is that "everyone that you see out there is recycling the same crawled data."

Before you can apply the data, however, brands must fundamentally change their strategic approach. The market's maturation means the days of treating influencers as disposable assets for one-off campaigns are over. "What creators are bringing to the table are communities," Chatterji explains.

• Community > campaigns: "Influencers are essentially the new-age media companies; they have distribution power, audience trust, and creative control." This reframes the relationship from a simple transaction—"an afterthought"—to a long-term strategic partnership. The shift to long-term partnerships naturally involves larger, more significant investments, which introduces a new level of scrutiny.

• Follow the money: This is the crucial bridge connecting strategy to data. As influencer marketing moves from a small line item to a major budget allocation, the decision-making power moves with it. "As a lot of these bigger dollars come into the market, the decisions are going from the CMO to the CFO," Chatterji notes. A CFO, unlike a CMO, doesn't care about 'vibes'. They demand hard data to justify large investments.