Latest / Influencer Marketing with Fexingo: Creators, Sponsorships, and Modern Endorsement Deals / How Influencers Are Building Their Own Ad Exchanges
Transcript
- Lucas: So you’ve probably heard the term 'ad exchange' if you follow digital media. It’s basically a marketplace where publishers sell ad space to advertisers through real-time bidding. Google has one. The New York Times uses one. But here’s the twist: now influencers are building their own. Luna: Wait — influencers? Like, individual creators? How does that even work? Don’t they just have a YouTube channel or an Instagram feed? Lucas: Right, that’s the old model. The new model is that some top creators are setting up their own supply-side platforms, or SSPs, so they can sell ad placements directly into their content — across YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, even their own websites — programmatically. No brand deals, no negotiation. Just an open auction for their inventory. Luna: Okay, so they’re basically acting like a media company. But aren’t they already doing brand deals? Why go through all this tech? Lucas: Two big reasons. First, control: they set the floor price, they decide what kinds of ads run, and they keep a much bigger cut — usually 85 to 90 percent versus the 50 to 70 percent they’d get from a platform like YouTube’s AdSense. Second, scale: a single brand deal might pay $50,000 for a post. But if you run a programmatic exchange across your entire channel, you can monetize every single view, even the ones that don’t get a brand sponsor. Luna: So it’s like turning every impression into a mini auction. That makes sense. Who’s actually doing this? Lucas: The most visible example is MrBeast. His company, Feastables, has set up its own ad exchange. They use a platform called Sortable to manage the supply side, and they sell ad space on the Feastables website and within his video embeds. Other creators like Emma Chamberlain and the D’Amelio family have also started experimenting with private marketplaces — basically invite-only exchanges where premium advertisers can bid on their audience. Luna: I’ve heard of private marketplaces in the context of publishers like The Atlantic. So creators are essentially becoming publishers with their own ad stacks. Lucas: Exactly. And it’s not just the mega creators. There are now white-label SSPs — companies like Affinity and Ezoic — that let creators with as few as 50,000 followers set up their own exchange in a day. You plug in your YouTube channel, your TikTok account, your Substack — any platform that supports ad placements — and the SSP does the header bidding, the real-time auction, the reporting. Luna: Header bidding — that’s the thing that lets multiple ad exchanges bid on the same impression at the same time, right? Instead of a waterfall where Google gets first look? Lucas: Exactly. So the creator’s SSP runs a unified auction. Advertisers from different demand sources — Google, Amazon, The Trade Desk, whatever — all bid simultaneously. The highest bid wins. The creator gets the best price, not whatever Google’s algorithm decides to pay. Luna: And the advertiser gets access to a very specific audience. I can see why that’s attractive. But there’s a trust issue, right? How do advertisers know the impressions are real? Lucas: That’s the big friction point. Brand safety and viewability are huge. When you buy on a Google Display Network, you have Google’s verification. When you buy on a creator’s exchange, you’re relying on their SSP’s third-party measurement. Most SSPs now integrate with Integral Ad Science or DoubleVerify to verify impressions. But still, some advertisers are nervous. Luna: I think that’s fair. There’s been so much fraud in programmatic — bots, fake clicks. And influencers have had their own issues with engagement fraud. Lucas: Right. So the creators who are doing this well are investing in transparency. Feastables, for example, publishes a media kit that includes their IAB standard ad formats and their average viewability rate — around 85 percent, which is actually above the industry benchmark of 70 percent. They’re treating this like a serious media business. Luna: That’s smart. Because if you’re a brand like Nike, you might pay a premium for a guaranteed placement in a MrBeast video. But you need to know you’re actually getting those eyeballs. Lucas: Exactly. And the pricing reflects that. The CPMs on creator exchanges are typically between $15 and $30 — compare that to the average YouTube CPM of around $5 to $10. So it’s a premium product, but the audience is highly engaged. Luna: So what’s the catch? Why isn’t every creator doing this? Lucas: The barrier is technical and operational. You need someone to manage the ad server, set floor prices, optimize yield. That’s a job — a revenue operations manager. Most creators don’t have that. But more and more are hiring fractional ad ops people. There are even agencies now that specialize in running creator ad exchanges for a cut of the revenue. Luna: So it’s becoming a service layer. That makes sense. What about the platforms themselves — YouTube, TikTok — how do they feel about creators bypassing their ad systems? Lucas: That’s the interesting tension. Platforms like YouTube have terms of service that restrict how you can sell ad inventory on their platform. But creators are getting around it by embedding their own ad units within their videos — like a mid-roll that’s sold programmatically, not through YouTube’s system. YouTube hasn’t cracked down yet, but it’s a grey area. Luna: So it’s kind of a power struggle. The platform wants to be the intermediary, and the creator wants to own the relationship. Lucas: Exactly. And it’s not just about money. It’s about data. When you run your own exchange, you get first-party data on your audience — what they click, what they buy, what they watch. That data is incredibly valuable. You can use it to optimize your content, to pitch to brands, or even to sell back to advertisers. Luna: So the influencer becomes a data broker too. Lucas: In a way, yes. And that’s where this gets really interesting. Some creators are now building their own demand-side platforms — DSPs — to buy ads on other channels using their own audience data. So they’re not just selling their own inventory; they’re buying inventory elsewhere to retarget their audience. Luna: That’s next-level. So a creator might run an ad on a podcast using their own data, promoting their own merch, all programmatically. Lucas: Exactly. And that’s what some of the more sophisticated creator businesses are doing. They treat their audience as a media asset, not just a follower count. Luna: Okay, let’s talk numbers. What’s the revenue potential for a creator running their own exchange versus traditional brand deals? Lucas: It varies wildly. But take a mid-tier creator with a million subscribers and 10 million monthly views. If they do traditional brand deals, they might make $200,000 a year. If they run a programmatic exchange with a $20 CPM and a 50 percent fill rate, that same traffic generates about $1.2 million annually. Of course, they have to pay for the SSP and ad ops, but the margin is still huge. Luna: That’s a six-figure difference. No wonder creators are starting to see themselves as media companies. Lucas: And that’s just display and video. Some are also selling audio ads programmatically on their podcasts. Spotify is actually enabling this through their Spotify Audience Network — creators can opt in to have ads sold programmatically on their shows. But some are bypassing Spotify and using their own ad servers for podcasts too. Luna: So the whole creator economy is essentially replicating the ad tech stack of a major publisher. It’s like every influencer becomes their own little Vox Media. Lucas: Exactly right. And the question is: will the platforms allow it to scale? If YouTube decides to ban third-party ad units, that could kill the trend. But right now, it’s a gold rush. Luna: So what should a brand do if they want to advertise on a creator’s exchange? Lucas: First, ask if the creator has a private marketplace or an open exchange. A private marketplace gives you more control over placement and pricing. Second, ask for third-party verification — make sure they use an accredited measurement partner. Third, look at their audience data: are they selling based on demographics, interests, or behavior? The more granular, the better. Luna: And what about the creator who’s thinking about setting up their own exchange? Lucas: Start small. You don’t need to build a full ad server from scratch. Use a platform like Sortable or Ezoic that handles the heavy lifting. Make sure you have at least 100,000 monthly views to make it worthwhile. And hire a fractional ad ops person — even 10 hours a week — to manage the yield. The ROI is usually positive within three months. Luna: It’s a lot of work, but the payoff seems massive. And it really changes the relationship between creator and audience — suddenly the audience is a product being sold to the highest bidder. Lucas: That’s the uncomfortable side. And it’s why some creators are hesitant. They don’t want to feel like they’re selling out their audience’s attention to the highest bidder. But the ones who do it well are transparent about it. They disclose that ads are programmatic and they set standards for what kind of ads they’ll accept. Luna: So it’s about trust. And that’s really the core of the whole influencer economy — if you lose trust, you lose everything. Lucas: Right. And that’s actually a good segue to something I wanted to mention. You know, if these marketing conversations have sparked something you’ve actually used — maybe you’ve thought about setting up your own exchange, or you’ve learned something about the ad tech stack that helped you in your work — we’d love to keep this show ad-free and independent. The best way to support that is through listener support at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just if you find value in what we do. Luna: Yeah, it’s a small gesture that goes a long way. And it really helps us keep digging into stories like this — the ones that don’t make the headlines but change how business works. Lucas: Exactly. So back to the future of influencer ad exchanges — I think the next frontier is cross-platform audience targeting. Imagine a creator who can sell an ad that follows their audience from YouTube to TikTok to their newsletter, all through one exchange. That’s the holy grail. Luna: But that requires identity resolution, right? Connecting users across platforms without cookies. Lucas: Exactly. And some creators are already doing it by using their own email lists and first-party data. They ask their audience to sign up for a newsletter or a loyalty program, and then they use that data to create a unified profile. That profile can be sold to advertisers as a custom audience segment. Luna: So it’s like a creator-run data management platform. Lucas: Yes. And that’s where the value really compounds. A creator with 500,000 email subscribers and 2 million social followers can offer a brand a highly targeted audience that no platform can replicate. That’s a moat. Luna: It’s a whole new business model. And it makes me wonder — will we see influencer IPOs? Like, creators selling shares in their ad revenue? Lucas: There are already platforms like Jellysmack that effectively buy revenue shares from creators. And there’s been talk of creator-backed SPACs. But that’s a conversation for another episode. Luna: Fair enough. So what’s the one thing you want listeners to take away from this? Lucas: That the influencer marketing industry is no longer just about Instagram posts and sponsorship deals. The smartest creators are building actual media infrastructure — ad exchanges, data platforms, yield management teams. They’re becoming media companies. And brands that want to work with them need to understand that the rules have changed. Luna: And creators who don’t adapt might get left behind. Lucas: Exactly. The bar is rising. And that’s good for everyone — creators, brands, and audiences.