Jennifer Quigley-Jones started influencer marketing agency Digital Voices nearly a decade ago with just $700. Last month, she sold her company to PMG, a marketing agency whose clients include Nike and Apple.
When Digital Voices launched creator sponsorships were—at best—an afterthought for big brands. Now, influencer marketing is a roughly $37 billion dollar industry, according to data from the IAB, spanning everything from paid social to TV, public relations and out-of-home advertising. About 90% of Digital Voices’ clients are also now enterprise brands.
That has made influencer marketing agencies a hot target for more traditional marketing and media businesses, including agency holding companies like Publicis and WPP, which need to bolster their capabilities to meet growing client requests.
“Being a solo founder for nine years has its challenges,” Quigley-Jones told us. “We really wanted to find somewhere where we could elevate what we were doing.”
At the same time, “we were seeing a lot of consolidation in the industry, which I think is because influencer and media are coming so much closer together,” she said. It’s also often easier for these big agencies to buy specialized influencer firms, rather than build influencer tools and programs from scratch.
Over the course of six months, Quigley-Jones and her team met with 51 potential acquirers. In the end, she said her decision to sell to PMG boiled down to three things: Culture, tech and clients. She also didn’t want to sell to a company that already had an established influencer marketing business.
“I wanted to make sure we were going somewhere that was going to push growth, rather than what you see with a lot of the big holding [company] acquisitions,” she said. “There’s been a lot of reductions, infighting or multiple agencies doing the same thing” when they’re under the same roof.
In 2025, agencies accounted for 21% of all creator economy M&A deals, roughly on par with 2024, according to data from Quartermast Advisors, a boutique M&A advisory firm. Ten of the 16 agency acquisitions last year were of influencer marketing agencies, making it the most in-demand type of company within that category, which also includes things like social or podcast booking agencies.
Quigley-Jones didn’t disclose the size of the deal with PMG. But influencer marketing agency transactions have gotten bigger over the years, in part as competition has increased. To date, Publicis’ acquisition of Influential in June 2024 remains the largest deal, valued at roughly $380 million if earn-outs are met. Publicis also acquired influencer marketing platform Captiv8 last May for a reported $150 million.
The flurry of M&A also puts pressure on independent influencer marketing agencies, who struggle to compete with larger rivals when it comes to media spend and scale.
“Some [independent agencies] could really double down on the culture piece and the cultural challenger mentality and talk about breaking the system. But that means you have to always be on the cusp of doing incredible creative work, which is hard to sustain,” Quigley-Jones said.
For many smaller influencer marketing agencies, even those with amazing creative talent or another differentiating factor, finding a buyer may be the path forward. It seems that there is still plenty of interest, especially as different types of buyers from consultancies to private equity firms look more seriously at the space.
“What buyers really want right now are influencer agencies and talent representation firms,” said James Creech, founder of Quartermast Advisors, adding that there have already been four influencer marketing agency M&A deals in the past month alone. Digital Voices is one of them.
We also spoke with Quigley-Jones about what agencies—and creators—are doing wrong, why rules around the use of beauty filters are a good model for AI regulation and why she would never call her business her “baby.”
In other news…
TikTokers Take The Grammys
Artists popularized on TikTok had a big night at the Grammys, which aired for the last time on CBS on Sunday.
Olivia Dean, whose song “Man I Need” has been used in at least 1.7 million TikTok videos, took home the “Best New Artist” award. Lola Young, won “Best Pop Solo Performance” for her TikTok-viral song “Messy.”
Messy is also an appropriate word to describe Sunday’s show. Many of the most memorable moments were mishaps, including Cher forgetting to present the award for “Record of the Year” and then incorrectly announcing the late Luther Vandroos as the winner.
Alex Warren, who initially found fame online as part of the Hype House collective of TikTokers, also briefly stumbled due to a tech issue with his ear piece during his live performance with the other “Best New Artist” nominees.
All of those nominees had a viral moment on TikTok and other social media apps in the past year. Warren has also frequently credited the success of his hit song “Ordinary” to its popularity on social media and he continues to lean into these platforms as a creator.
After the event, Warren posted a TikTok video with the jumbled audio he heard via his ear piece. That video has already garnered 23.8 million views, which is more viewers than CBS and Paramount+ drew in for the 2025 Grammy’s (15.4 million). Though of course it’s easier to grab attention with a 15-second video than an hours-long broadcast.
The Round Up
OnlyFans is in talks to sell a 60% stake in its business to San Francisco-based investment firm Architect Capital, the Wall Street Journal was first to report. The deal would value OnlyFans at about $5.5 billion, including debt.
Spotify rolled out group chats, allowing users to share podcasts, playlists or audiobooks they’re listening to with up to 10 people. Spotify first launched DMs in August.
Instagram may allow users to remove themselves from someone’s Close Friends list, which only shows content such as Stories and Reels to a select group.
USA Gymnastics launched the second season of its creator program, which gives current and former gymnasts access to major gymnastics events to create content, build an audience and share their perspective with fans.
Regulatory Woes
Spain on Tuesday announced plans to bar social media use for teens under 16. It’s the latest country to make such a move following Australia’s ban in December. Ripple effect indeed!
In related news, Snapchat said it has taken down more than 415,000 accounts in Australia belonging to users under 16 or who the company believes are under 16 based on its age detection technology. Last month, Meta said it blocked about 550,000 accounts across its apps in the country to comply with the ban.
Brand Buzz
Dhar Mann partnered with Old Navy for a short-form branded content series in which participants have to guess which outfit is designer and which is Old Navy. It’s the latest in a string of announcements from the mega-YouTuber, who only recently started partnering with brands. It also comes on the heels of a major PR blitz for Mann, including appearances at major conferences and a high-profile partnership with the NFL.
These moves come after Mann hired longtime media executive Sean Atkins as CEO in 2024.
Old Navy’s parent company Gap also recently hired Pam Kaufman as its newly created Chief Entertainment Officer. Kaufman, a former Paramount executive, will lead the company’s efforts in developing original content, which includes partnering with creators.
Creator Moves
Erica Wheeler is the first women’s basketball player to announce a partnership with OnlyFans. The WNBA guard, who plays for the Seattle Storm, said she plans to use her OnlyFans account to show behind the scenes of her daily life, such as workouts and time with family. OnlyFans has been trying to expand beyond explicit content with partnerships like these.
Talent Tracker
Maggie Milnamow joined Betches Media as chief commercial officer. Previously, she was chief revenue officer of Business Insider and vice president of sales operations at the New York Times. The female-focused digital media company was acquired by LBG Media, the UK owner of social media publisher LADbible Group, for $24 million in 2023.
Sam Berger is now senior director of artist partnerships at AI music app Suno. Previously, he led music strategy at Patreon, which acquired his livestreaming and digital events startup for musicians called Moment House.
Paige Kelly is influencer marketing firm Later’s new general manager of creator. Previously, she spent 14 years at Wayfair, most recently as head of the housewares vertical, branded product strategy and global supplier acquisition and onboarding.
