Here is the number worth stopping on: 20% of 1,000 senior brand and marketing decision-makers surveyed across the UK and US said they invested in B2B creator marketing in 2026. The survey was conducted by Censuswide in September for Billion Dollar Boy Group.

One in five. Not one in fifty. And the money has to go somewhere.

On October 14, Billion Dollar Boy Group acquired Creator Authority, a B2B influencer marketing agency that connects brands with content creators through services spanning contracts, licensing, and campaign management. The all-cash deal, which includes an earnout component, was described as "multimillion-dollar," with specific terms undisclosed. It marks the company's first-ever acquisition.

That matters because of who Billion Dollar Boy is. The social marketing agency spent a decade building its business organically, so buying a B2B creator specialist with LinkedIn accreditation marks a change in habit. Following the acquisition, the group forecasts its 2027 revenue will exceed $100 million; its global revenue grew 24% in the past 12 months.

The clients on the other side of the budget

Creator Authority was founded in 2023 by Brendan Gahan, who previously built and sold influencer marketing agency Epic Signal. The agency joined the LinkedIn Marketing Partner Program in April and works with clients including Amazon, Adobe, AT&T, IBM, Dropbox, HubSpot, Mastercard and Notion.

Those are companies that sell to the exact audience most business coaches, sales coaches and executive coaches already talk to every morning.

"I'm so excited about the B2B space," Gahan, who becomes senior vice president of B2B at Billion Dollar Boy, told CMO Insider. "It feels like YouTube in 2010; there's this moment when it just explodes, and I'm excited to grow with it."

He is not the only one timing it. Thomas Walters, the agency's chief innovation officer, said the firm spotted B2B marketing heating up 18 months ago and hinted more deals are coming. There were 70 creator economy M&A transactions in the first half of 2026, up 23% year-over-year, according to advisory firm Quartermast Advisors, which advised Creator Authority on the sale.

LinkedIn built the plumbing

LinkedIn's Creator Marketplace went live on June 10, 2026. It sits inside Campaign Manager under a new "Content and Assets" section, where marketers search vetted creators by topic, expertise, audience and content performance. Creator contact information is visible, so marketers can reach out directly about promotions and collaborations.

Separately, LinkedIn is expanding BrandLink, its renamed creator monetization program, to let professional creators earn a cut of video ad revenue for the first time. Ad placements that once ran only against publisher video now run against creator video too.

The catch, stated plainly

This is not open season. The marketplace launch is invite-only and in alpha, available to select brands and creators in North America with English-only content. Full self-serve access still runs through LinkedIn sales relationships, which leaves the program gated for most creators.

So the realistic move for a coach with a few thousand engaged followers is not to wait for an invite. It is to become the obvious name in one narrow topic a software company would want to borrow credibility from, and to produce video, because video is where both the ad revenue and the sponsorship inventory sit.

The deal that just closed started the same way. It began with a LinkedIn DM.