Creator Signals

Creator Signals is a biannual creator intelligence report published by #paid. It's built on a declared-intent survey sent to #paid's network of 150,000+ opted-in creators across North America every six months. The report captures what creators are planning to do, buy, prioritize, and talk about in the months ahead, making it a forward-looking tool for brands that want to reach audiences before cultural moments peak.

Most trend reports tell you what already happened. Creator Signals captures declared intent—what creators are actively planning, spending on, and excited about right now, which means brands can use it to get ahead of culture rather than react to it. Because the data comes directly from creators (not social listening or third-party proxies), it reflects real behavior, not algorithmic noise.

The survey is sent every six months to #paid's creator network of 150,000+ opted-in creators across the US and Canada. Each wave captures thousands of responses, making it one of the largest recurring first-party creator datasets in North America.

Yes. One of the most valuable applications of Creator Signals is identifying creators who have already expressed affinity for specific brands, categories, or products. These aren't creators who are just looking for work, they're creators who have opted in, declared their interests, and have an existing relationship with the brands they mention. That authenticity translates into more credible content and more effective campaigns.

Creator Signals is built for teams thinking in roadmaps, not one-off campaigns. Because the data is collected every six months and covers creator intent across spending, travel, life milestones, hobbies, and cultural moments, marketing teams can use it to map their always-on strategy against real audience behavior across the full year — rather than scrambling to react to trends as they emerge.

The report covers a wide range of declared behaviors and intentions, including: upcoming life milestones (new home, new baby, career changes), travel plans, financial priorities, active hobbies and interests, content creation habits, platform preferences, and specific brands and products creators are actively using. This breadth allows brands to find audience fit through multiple angles, not just category or follower count.

Creator Signals helps brands identify creators whose real lives align with their target customer. If your audience is young parents who travel frequently and care about personal finance, Creator Signals can surface creators who are actively living that life. That alignment between creator reality and brand story is what drives cultural relevance and audience trust.

The data is first-party and declared, meaning creators opted into #paid's network and answered survey questions directly. There's no scraping, no inference, and no third-party enrichment. Responses reflect what creators actually said about their own lives, intentions, and brand relationships, which makes it a more reliable foundation for campaign strategy than data.

Social listening tools tell you what's being talked about publicly after the fact, based on content that already exists. Creator Signals captures what creators are planning and intending before they post about it. That forward-looking, declared-intent layer is what makes it useful for planning rather than just reporting. It also goes deeper than content behavior, capturing life stage, lifestyle values, and brand affinities that social listening can't surface at all.

Yes. Because the data is declared and opted-in, #paid can identify creators who have indicated openness to working with specific categories, including regulated ones, and cross-reference that against lifestyle signals that indicate genuine fit. This is particularly useful for brands in categories like financial services, alcohol, health and wellness, and others where authentic alignment matters as much as reach.