Gen Z: your advertising budget goes to creators, not to platforms
The most measurable difference between Gen Z and older generations is not the platform it uses, it is that it trusts people rather than brands or institutions. The Pew Research Center measures that 38% of adults under 30 regularly get news from creators, versus 23% of those aged 30 to 49.
- The budget goes to creators rather than to ad placements. It is a change in the nature of the spend, not an adjustment of targeting.
- Eight in ten adults aged 18 to 29 use Instagram, and about half open TikTok every day, versus 5% of those 65 and older.
- A partnership with a creator is contracted, measured and renewed like a media buy, with a price negotiation and a results clause.
- The available public figures are American. Transposing them to Quebec without caution is the most common mistake on this subject.
- A brand absent from search stays absent: young buyers check what a creator claims before buying.
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Generation Z
Generation Z covers people born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s, today teenagers or young adults. Its commercial particularity is not a platform preference, which changes fast, but a structure of trust: it gives more credit to an identifiable person than to a brand or an institution. For a company, this shifts the spend from buying placement toward a relationship with a creator, with the contractual obligations that entails.
What the data actually shows
Most articles on this subject sell an intuition. Yet there are serious measurements, and they all point in the same direction.
The Pew Research Center, in its survey of social media use published in November 2025, observes that the youngest adults stand out clearly on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Reddit. Eight in ten adults aged 18 to 29 use Instagram. About half of those aged 18 to 29 open TikTok at least once a day, versus 5% of those 65 and older.
The figure that changes a budget decision is elsewhere. In its analysis of young adults' news habits, Pew measures that 38% of adults under 30 regularly get news from creators, those people with a large audience who comment on current events or social issues. The proportion falls to 23% among those aged 30 to 49 and keeps dropping with age.
In other words, the entry point is not a platform you buy, it is a person you negotiate with. This transforms the nature of the spend: a placement is reserved, a relationship is contracted, renewed and can be broken.
What to settle before funding a campaign aimed at this audience
The creator budget is the one that least resembles a classic media buy and is the hardest to control. It is also where reputation risk is most concentrated, since it sits in a person you do not direct.
- What share of our sales actually comes from this age group, and for how long?
- Is a partnership with a person contracted like a media buy, with a price, a term and an exit clause?
- Who, on our side, approves what will be said, and within what time frame?
- Is our offer verifiable in thirty seconds by a buyer who doubts?
- If the cost per customer acquired exceeds that of our current channels after two quarters, what do we stop?
A solid answer treats the partnership as a costed contract and first checks that this audience buys from you. A weak answer sells a presence on a fashionable platform, promises reach with no cost per customer, or talks about authenticity with no contractual clause.
Deciding whether this audience deserves a separate budget, and in what form, is settled on the real share it holds in your sales. A 90-minute consultation settles it, with a written summary your team can execute.
What it changes for the budget
Three differences from a classic media buy, and each one translates into a line of the contract.
| Point | Classic media buy | Partnership with a creator |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A volume of impressions | A personal recommendation |
| Control of the message | Total | Shared, to frame by contract |
| Risk | Budget poorly spent | Budget poorly spent and reputation exposed |
| Measurement | Cost per click and per customer | Cost per customer, with a code or dedicated page |
| Renewal | Automatic | Negotiated, with a price that rises if it works |
The last row often surprises a management team. A partnership that produces sees its price rise at renewal, unlike an ad placement whose cost follows the market. So you have to budget the increase from the start, or accept starting over every year with someone else. The break-even calculation stays the same as elsewhere, and it is detailed in Google Ads ROI.
What stays in-house: the real share of this audience in your sales, the margin on what it buys, what you allow an outside person to say in your name, and the approval time. What gets delegated: spotting relevant creators, the negotiation, tracking by code or dedicated page, producing supporting content and measurement. A company that first checks what this audience already buys from it spends better than a company that opens an account on a platform.
The limits of the available figures
This has to be said clearly, because almost no one does in this market: the figures cited here come from surveys of American adults. There is no public Quebec equivalent of comparable quality on these precise questions.
Transposing them calls for caution. Platform usage probably looks similar, so does the structure of trust, but creator ecosystems are largely national and linguistic. A creator followed by young francophone Quebecers is neither an American creator nor a French one, and the price of a partnership does not follow the same benchmarks.
An agency that presents American figures as local data, without saying so, sells you a certainty it does not have. Always ask for the source and the sample. It is the fastest test of a vendor's rigour, and it costs nothing to ask.
Platform usage is covered in TikTok for businesses and in organic social media. Building brand preference is developed in branding, and the trade-off between capturing and preparing demand in growth marketing.
This point sits inside the plan described in the marketing plan and its budget.
Reaching an audience you do not yet reach is at the heart of the Develop a new market goal.
Already running a marketing team? See how we plug in as reinforcement on paid advertising.
Frequently asked questions about Gen Z marketing
Which platform should you prioritize?
The question of the channel comes before that of the platform. Pew measures that 38% of adults under 30 regularly get news from creators, versus 23% of those aged 30 to 49. The entry point is therefore a person. Instagram and TikTok dominate usage among those aged 18 to 29, but the choice is made on who reaches them, not on where.
Is a partnership with a creator managed like a media buy?
In form yes, in substance no. It is contracted with a price, a term, an exit clause and measurement by code or dedicated page. What differs is control of the message, which is shared, and the price at renewal, which rises when the partnership produces. Both must be planned from the start.
Do these figures apply to Quebec?
With caution. The data cited come from surveys of American adults, for lack of a comparable public Quebec equivalent. Platform usage and the structure of trust probably transpose, but creator ecosystems are national and linguistic, and prices do not follow the same benchmarks.
Should you abandon search for this audience?
No. A young buyer checks what a creator claims before spending. A company that is recommended but cannot be found in search loses the sale at the verification stage. The recommendation opens the door, the online presence closes it.
- Pew Research Center, Americans' Social Media Use 2025, survey of 5,022 American adults, February to June 2025, published November 20, 2025.
- Pew Research Center, Pew-Knight Initiative, Young Adults and the Future of News, December 2025.
- Pew Research Center, Social Media and News Fact Sheet, August 2025 survey, accessed July 2026.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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