What LinkedIn actually launched
On June 10, LinkedIn announced two things simultaneously. The first is Creator Marketplace — a self-serve discovery tool now living inside Campaign Manager under a new "Content and Assets" section. You search for vetted creators by topic expertise, review their audience breakdown and content performance, spot existing organic posts that already mention your brand, and amplify selected ones through Thought Leader Ads — without leaving the platform.
The second is BrandWorks, LinkedIn's own in-house creative studio staffed with brand strategists, content producers, and events specialists. It operates as a kind of agency embedded inside the platform, working hands-on with B2B advertisers. LinkedIn's stated target: $100M in annualized revenue from BrandWorks by next fiscal year. That number tells you how seriously they're treating this.
Creator Marketplace is currently in alpha — US and Canada only, English-language content. BrandWorks is available globally for managed accounts.
The numbers that made this inevitable
LinkedIn didn't build a creator marketplace because it liked the concept. The research left it little choice.
82% of B2B marketers say creator content raises credibility with decision-makers. 70% say B2B buyers rely more on peer voices than on brand content. And 56% say buyers use creator input specifically at the final stage of a purchase decision.
That last number is the one that changes budget allocation logic. Brand awareness is one thing. Creator content showing up at the moment someone is choosing between two vendors is a different category of influence — it's a direct conversion lever. Company page ads have been structurally absent from that moment. Creators have been there.
The performance gap in Thought Leader Ads already confirmed this before the marketplace existed. LinkedIn's Thought Leader format, which amplifies individual creator posts, delivers 2.68% CTR. Standard company page ads: 0.42%. You can debate what drives the difference — trust, format, feed algorithm weighting — but the gap is too large to dismiss.
How this works operationally
Creator Marketplace compresses what was previously a multi-step process into one workflow. You open Campaign Manager, navigate to Content and Assets, search creators by topic area, evaluate audience composition and engagement history, identify organic posts mentioning your brand or products, and move directly to amplifying those posts through Thought Leader Ads.
The friction this solves is sourcing. LinkedIn creator partnerships have existed for years, but finding the right person, vetting their real reach, and getting their content into an ad unit required patching together LinkedIn's separate interfaces, spreadsheets, and direct outreach. Creator Marketplace collapses that into one place inside the tool you're already using.
BrandWorks adds a managed layer on top. If you have the budget for a LinkedIn creator program but not the internal team to run one, this is the shortcut — LinkedIn offers its own strategic and creative support rather than sending you to a third-party agency.
Who should care about this now
Not every account has a use case here. LinkedIn's CPMs are high by design — the platform makes financial sense when audience quality justifies the cost.
Creator Marketplace is worth exploring if you're running: B2B SaaS, enterprise software, high-consideration professional services, business tools, or DTC products where the buyer is a professional audience rather than a general consumer. If your target customer is a VP-level decision-maker, a CFO, or a business owner who spends real time on LinkedIn, creator content at the final purchase stage is a meaningful unlock.
Where it probably doesn't move the needle: mass-market consumer brands, sub-$500 AOV products targeting general consumers, and anything where LinkedIn users aren't the ones making the purchase call.
Alpha access is rolling out to US and Canada accounts now. The indicator is simple: a "Content and Assets" section in your Campaign Manager left nav. If it's not there, the feature hasn't reached your account yet.
Four things to do this week
- Check Campaign Manager for the "Content and Assets" section. Its presence (or absence) tells you exactly where you stand on alpha access.
- Pull your existing Thought Leader Ad performance versus company page placement CTR right now. If you're not running any Thought Leader Ads yet, you're missing the format that's outperforming standard placements by a factor of six.
- Search for creators in your core topic areas once access is live — pay attention to who your competitors' customers follow, not just who your competitors are partnered with.
- Identify any organic LinkedIn posts that already perform well in your category and mention your product. Those are your first Thought Leader Ad candidates when the marketplace reaches your account.
If you're not sure how LinkedIn fits into your full paid mix alongside Meta, Google, and everything else, a free ad account audit maps the allocation clearly and shows where budget is likely being wasted across channels.
The 56% stat isn't really a LinkedIn stat. It's a buyer behavior stat that LinkedIn built a product around.
Sources: LinkedIn Newsroom, Hello Partner, PPC Land, Digital Applied, June 2026
