Sponsored hauls lose share as brands rethink creator briefs
New Traackr and CreatorIQ data shows sponsored hauls and unboxings are losing share as brands ask creators for deeper product stories.
Haul and unboxing videos once gave brands an uncomplicated creator brief: send products, show the haul, and let the excitement do the work. New data reported on November 13 suggests sponsored creators and their advertisers are changing that formula.
In Business Insider's reporting, data from influencer-marketing platform Traackr shows that hauls accounted for 1.2% of sponsored posts from January through September 2026, compared with 2.4% in the same period of 2025. The share for sponsored unboxings slipped from 1.3% to 0.7%. The figures describe the formats' shrinking share of paid creator content, not their disappearance.
The format is losing share, even as paid creator volume grows
The distinction is important. Traackr told Business Insider that the absolute number of haul and unboxing posts increased in 2026 because sponsored content overall was growing. These formats occupy a smaller slice of a larger market. Calling the data a collapse in the number of unboxings would misrepresent it.
Another data series points toward a performance challenge. CreatorIQ figures prepared for Business Insider put average monthly engagements per sponsored haul post at 1,780 in January through October 2026, down from 2,633 in 2025. The comparable figure for 2022 was 5,900. Engagements are not sales, and an average across posts does not reveal what happened to a particular brand or category, but the direction raises a legitimate question about format fatigue.
The two providers also measured different things: Traackr tracked the proportion of sponsored posts using each format, while CreatorIQ reported engagement patterns. The results support a useful editorial observation about changing creator advertising, not a single controlled experiment proving that an unboxing causes weaker outcomes.
Brands are asking creators to show why a product matters
Business Insider's interviews describe a parallel change inside brand briefs. Fohr executive Grace Murray Vazquez said her team was commissioning fewer haul and unboxing videos. Talent representatives described brands moving from displays of many purchases toward the usefulness and meaning of one product.
Those briefs ask more of a creator than holding up packaging. A wardrobe creator might demonstrate several ways to wear the same garment, explain cost per wear, or show how a product fits a normal week. A beauty creator might test a single product in a routine. These are creative directions described by practitioners in the original reporting; the data does not establish which will win for every advertiser.
Luxury creator Julia Comil told Business Insider that brands had asked her for more storytelling rather than traditional hauls. In one Longchamp bag collaboration she followed a day of activities to show the bag's versatility. She also said the richer videos required more expensive production. That is a material budget implication: asking for a stronger narrative may mean paying creators for shooting, scripting, editing, and usage rights, not just more polished captions.
A successful brand-creator relationship needs room for the creator's own perspective. Prescribing a rigid script could remove the familiarity that makes the format appealing, while excessive freedom without product or disclosure guidance can create approval risk. The practical answer is a specific job to be done with clear evidence requirements, alongside latitude in how the creator demonstrates it.
What should change in a creator campaign brief?
For an upcoming campaign, marketers can make the brief more useful by separating the product's appearance from the product's promised benefit. A pile of purchases may communicate novelty. A demonstration or lived-in review can address questions a prospective buyer needs answered before acting.
- Define the audience's question. Is the creator helping someone decide on fit, quality, price, everyday usefulness, or a specific purchase occasion? Let that answer guide the format.
- Budget for the production work. Story-led content can involve more filming, editing, locations, and revisions. Agree on deliverables and licensing before judging cost per post.
- Keep disclosures clear. Paid partnerships and gifted products should be identified according to applicable platform and market rules, regardless of whether the creative feels like an advertisement.
- Retain a controlled comparison. Test a product showcase against a product-in-use story with similar creator tiers, objectives, distribution support, and measurement windows rather than abandoning one format on instinct.
The best format also depends on category. A collection launch or mystery-box product can give an unboxing genuine informational or entertainment value. A high-consideration purchase might benefit more from repeated use and a fuller explanation. One industry average should not erase that difference.
Measure creative effectiveness, not just changing tastes
Creator teams should compare more than likes and views. If the objective is discovery, examine qualified reach, watch time, retention, and what audiences actually discuss. If the objective is sales, review tracked visits, conversion quality, and attribution limits. Separate organic from paid amplification and report production fees alongside media spending.
There is a useful distinction between format and compensation, too. A haul can be sponsored or organic; a demonstration can be gifted, paid, or independently created. ContentGrip's earlier analysis of the Digiday creator study examined large differences between sponsored and gifted posts, while cautioning against attributing that gap to payment alone. The same caution applies here: creative formats are bundled with creator selection, amplification, and product appeal.
When evaluating a test, look for the same audience, similar product, and comparable distribution. A story-led video that receives more boosted impressions or uses a creator with a different audience may appear to outperform a haul for reasons unrelated to the storytelling approach. Even strong engagement is not proof of incremental sales.
The holiday season is the next stress test
The holiday shopping period is particularly revealing because product roundups, gift guides, and shopping reveals naturally return to feeds. Business Insider quoted CreatorIQ research director Alex Rawitz describing seasonal performance as an important test for these formats, which historically have a stronger role in shopping months.
Marketers should therefore avoid treating the latest numbers as a blanket instruction to ban unboxings. For some campaigns, the first reveal is part of the value. For others, explaining what happens after the packaging is gone will be more useful. The question is whether the content makes a brand's relevance clearer to its intended audience.
The broader signal is that creator marketing is asking for more from the relationship. Brands may still pay for exposure, but a creator who can explain a product's place in a real routine offers something more durable than a quick inventory of purchases. The challenge is to test that value carefully, compensate for the work, and avoid claiming a guaranteed performance uplift that the current research does not demonstrate.
