Creators with meaningful audience relationships demonstrate that influence isn’t about size, it’s about impact

By Brian Conlan, President, DAX US

Audience behavior is shifting. People are spending more time listening to podcasts, streaming audio, gaming, and engaging with content created by mid-tier creators (those with tens of thousands, not tens of millions, of followers) who hold extraordinary sway within tightly knit, highly engaged communities.

This gap between influence and investment represents one of the biggest opportunities in modern media. Brands that lean into this influential market will gain an advantage that isn’t just cost-efficient but also performance-efficient.

Below are five actionable steps any brand, of any size or budget, can use to unlock the power of mid-tier creators.

Redefine “reach” to focus on relevance, not raw numbers

Traditional influencer planning often starts with follower count. But in podcasting, gaming, and specialist creator channels, the metric that matters most is relationship density. A podcaster with 40,000 weekly listeners who tune in for 40 minutes at a time is delivering a deep, attentive audience.

How to operationalize this:

• Partner with creators with high consumption depth (watch time, listen time, repeat engagement).
• Use community indicators (comments, Discord activity, Patreon support, or newsletter open rates) to understand influence, in addition to visibility.
• For campaign briefs, include descriptive “reach goals”. For example, “reach creators who shape financial habits for millennial moms” vs. “reach creators with 1M+ followers.”

Treat mid-tier creator buying like media planning, rather than talent casting

Working with creators for one-off partnerships and boutique deals has its place, and that approach can work with big celebrities; it works differently for mid-tier creators.

The industry now has tools to treat all creators like any other media channel—planned, measured, optimized.

Best practices:

• Build always-on creator “bench plans” i.e. rotating lineups of mid-tier creators to test, score, and re-run based on performance.
• Test creative campaign formats across creators: baked-in host reads, short-form ads, pre-roll, long-form endorsements.
• Lean into A/B frameworks: run similar creative across multiple creators and optimize toward lift, not likes.
• This reduces risk and builds repeatable learnings over time.

Build creator lists based on psychographics and categories

Mid-tier creators don’t always map neatly to traditional advertising categories. However, a gaming creator can indeed influence fitness purchases. A relationship-advice podcaster can inspire financial services consideration. A wellness host can influence travel or meal-planning categories.

To find creators who move people, brands can look beyond content labels.

Try this:

• Start with audience mindsets (“people who want to optimize routines,” “new parents with time constraints,” “aspiring side-hustlers”), then map the creators those groups trust.
• Identify creators who consistently spark behavioral actions: signing up, clicking through, attending live events, or leaving detailed comments.
• This creates a universe of creators who align with consumer motivations.

Use data to predict brand suitability, in addition to scale

One reason brands gravitate toward creators with millions of followers is that they say they feel safer. But today, we have access to granular suitability signals across podcasting, streaming audio, video and gaming content that remove the guesswork.

Practical steps:

• Use contextual tools to understand the content that surrounds creator output: tone, topic clusters, adjacency risk.
• Identify creators whose audience signals (age, sentiment, purchase behavior, category interest) align most closely with campaign goals.
• Score creators using the same suitability logic used in CTV and digital environments.
• This creates a clear path for marketers who want authenticity and brand safety.

Assign budget to diverse, calibrated bets

A big advantage of mid-tier creators is cost efficiency. Instead of investing heavily in one marquee name, marketers can fund a portfolio of creators.

How to implement:

• Allocate 10–20% of influencer or audio budgets to mid-tier “test-and-learn” cohorts.
• Track performance on three simple KPIs: engagement depth, action rate, and cost per incremental outcome.
• Scale the top 30–40% of performers into multi-flight partnerships.
• This approach rewards creators based on actual performance and generates higher aggregate ROI.

The Opportunity Ahead

The creator economy is reshaping how people discover products, form opinions and make decisions. Continued growth will come from creators who sit close to communities and who shape culture from the middle out.

When marketers focus on relevance, treat mid-tier creators as scalable media, and build repeatable frameworks for testing and optimization, they unlock a part of the ecosystem that has been hiding in plain sight.

The missing middle is a big opportunity. And it’s one the industry can tap into today with the right playbook.