LinkedIn is making creator discovery more precise for B2B marketers, testing a new set of search tools designed to help brands find creators who actually fit a campaign rather than simply those with the biggest audience.
The professional networking platform is testing Creator Discovery, a new feature inside its Creator Marketplace that adds deeper filtering options for marketers searching for potential creator partners. General availability is expected in early 2027, according to LinkedIn.
It is another sign of where LinkedIn’s advertising business is heading. Creator marketing is no longer sitting on the edges of the platform. LinkedIn is steadily building it into Campaign Manager, Thought Leader Ads, BrandLink and other paid advertising products.
LinkedIn Adds More Detail to Creator Search
Finding a creator on LinkedIn is one thing. Finding someone whose professional background, content and audience make sense for a specific campaign is much harder. Creator Discovery is being developed around that problem, giving marketers more control over who appears in their search results and allowing them to move beyond broad topic categories or follower counts.
The beta introduces filters covering content type, creator industry, job function, audience demographics and LinkedIn Top Voices. That gives brands more ways to narrow down potential partners according to the people they want to reach and the kind of professional credibility they want associated with a campaign.
That distinction matters on LinkedIn, where a relatively niche creator may carry considerable influence within a specific professional community. A cybersecurity specialist followed by IT decision-makers, for example, could be far more useful to an enterprise software campaign than a general business creator with a much larger audience.
LinkedIn’s existing Creator Marketplace already allows marketers to search for vetted creators based on topics and content expertise, review audience and performance information and find contact details for potential partnerships. Creator Discovery pushes that process further by adding more detail to the matching process.
B2B Creator Marketing Is Becoming More Structured
LinkedIn’s investment in creator discovery comes as creator-led content plays a larger role in how business buyers research products, services and ideas. Rather than relying entirely on branded messaging, B2B audiences are increasingly turning to practitioners, specialists and other professional voices who already have credibility within their industries.
According to figures cited by LinkedIn, 63% of B2B buyers use creators for research and insights during the early stages of the buying process. LinkedIn’s broader research also found that 70% of marketers surveyed said buyers rely more heavily on peer voices and experts than on content produced directly by brands.
The importance of creators does not disappear later in the buying journey either. LinkedIn reported that 56% of B2B buyers who use creators rely on their input during the final stage of purchasing to validate recommendations.
For marketers, that changes what an effective creator partnership looks like. Reach still matters, but industry expertise, professional background, audience composition and subject relevance can carry just as much weight. LinkedIn appears to be designing Creator Discovery around exactly that shift.
Thought Leader Ads Give LinkedIn Another Piece of the Creator Puzzle
Creator Discovery also fits neatly alongside LinkedIn’s Thought Leader Ads, a format that allows companies to put paid promotion behind eligible posts from employees, creators and other professional voices.
Instead of asking brands to turn every creator collaboration into a conventional advertisement, the format allows existing posts to become sponsored content. That gives marketers a way to amplify an individual voice while keeping much of the original tone and presentation intact.
LinkedIn says Thought Leader Ads generate a 252% higher click-through rate than conventional single-image ads targeted at B2B buyers. The company has also reported stronger click-through rates at both awareness and conversion stages among advertisers using the format. Those figures come from LinkedIn’s own campaign data and should be treated as company-reported performance rather than an independent industry benchmark.
The combination is fairly straightforward. A marketer can use Creator Discovery to find someone with the right expertise, identify content that fits the campaign and then use Thought Leader Ads to expand its reach.
That begins to look less like a standalone influencer tool and more like a connected creator advertising workflow.
BrandLink Extends LinkedIn’s Creator Strategy Into Video
Video is another area where LinkedIn is tying creators more closely into its advertising business. BrandLink allows advertisers to place pre-roll advertising alongside selected publisher and creator videos, giving brands access to content that already attracts professional audiences.
LinkedIn says BrandLink promotions achieve an average 130% higher video completion rate compared with in-feed video ads. The company has continued expanding the product through 2026 by adding more publisher inventory, creator partnerships and self-service options for selected advertisers.
Creator Marketplace is already connected to that system. LinkedIn’s support documentation says eligible advertisers can browse curated publisher videos through Creator Marketplace for self-service BrandLink campaigns, although the feature remains limited to selected accounts.
LinkedIn has also expanded Top Voices 360, which gives brands access to creator-led LinkedIn shows and broader sponsorship opportunities. Those partnerships can extend beyond a single post into co-branded content, events and other campaign activity.
LinkedIn Wants Creator Credibility Inside Campaign Manager
The bigger story is not simply the arrival of another search filter. LinkedIn is gradually turning professional influence into something marketers can discover, evaluate, sponsor and measure without leaving its advertising ecosystem.
Creator Marketplace provides the discovery layer. Creator Discovery makes that search more granular. Thought Leader Ads give brands a way to amplify individual posts. BrandLink connects advertising with creator and publisher video, while Top Voices 360 pushes the model into larger sponsorship arrangements.
For B2B marketers, that could make creator campaigns easier to build at scale. It may also change which creators get noticed because follower count becomes only one part of the selection process.
A creator does not necessarily need a massive LinkedIn audience if their expertise, job function and follower profile line up unusually well with what an advertiser needs.
That may be the more interesting part of LinkedIn’s creator push. Professional relevance is becoming searchable.
Sources
Social Media Today — LinkedIn Tests Advanced Creator Discovery to Power Brand Campaigns
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tests-advanced-creator-discovery-to-power-brand-campaigns/831555/
LinkedIn — How B2B Brands Can Drive Impact With Creators and Stronger Creative on LinkedIn
https://news.linkedin.com/2026/how-b2b-brands-can-drive-impact-with-creators-and-stronger-creat