Dentsu has teamed up with Meta to help brands manage influencer marketing at scale, as marketers increasingly shift from working with a handful of creators to orchestrating campaigns involving hundreds or even thousands of influencers.
According to Digiday, the partnership addresses one of the creator economy’s biggest challenges: scaling influencer campaigns efficiently. While brands continue to increase investment in creator marketing, many still lack the tools and infrastructure needed to discover, manage and measure large networks of influencers effectively.
The collaboration combines Dentsu’s creator marketing framework with Meta’s APIs and platform capabilities to simplify creator discovery, campaign activation and performance measurement. By automating key stages of the process, the platform is designed to make influencer marketing more scalable, efficient and data-driven.
The move reflects a broader shift in digital marketing. Rather than relying primarily on celebrity influencers, brands are increasingly turning to communities of micro- and nano-creators to drive greater authenticity, stronger audience engagement and broader reach. However, managing these extensive creator networks manually has become increasingly complex, prompting agencies to invest in AI-powered technologies and automation.
As part of the partnership, Dentsu is deploying its Creator & Trends Studio (CATS), an AI-powered platform that leverages Meta’s APIs to identify creators based on audience relevance, content themes and participation in emerging online trends. The platform enables marketers to respond more quickly to cultural moments while significantly reducing the time required for creator discovery.
Several global brands, including Galderma and Elizabeth Arden, have already adopted the framework. The partnership aligns with a wider industry trend toward creator diversification, as brands increasingly expand their influencer networks to improve campaign effectiveness.
Industry leaders are already embracing this approach. L’Oréal now collaborates with approximately 500,000 creators each year, while Unilever activated around 50,000 influencers during its 2022 FIFA World Cup campaign.
The momentum behind smaller creators continues to grow. According to eMarketer, micro- and nano-influencers are expected to account for nearly half of all influencer marketing investment in the United States this year, highlighting advertisers’ growing preference for highly engaged niche communities over traditional celebrity endorsements.
Digiday also reports that Dentsu has already recorded stronger campaign performance through creator-led advertising formats. Elizabeth Arden, for example, achieved improved ad recall and higher sales conversions using Meta’s partnership advertising products.
The collaboration further underscores Meta’s commitment to strengthening its creator ecosystem. By deepening partnerships with global agency networks such as Dentsu, the company aims to accelerate the adoption of its creator and partnership advertising solutions while making creator-led campaigns a more integral part of brand marketing strategies.
As influencer marketing continues to mature into a core advertising discipline, competitive advantage is increasingly defined not by the number of creators a brand works with, but by its ability to use technology and AI to coordinate creator networks at scale.