How Adobe Helps Creators Create (HBBIP #84)

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After an eventful few weeks, that includes particular visitor appearances from buddies at YouTube, a customized Coachella evaluation, and a recap of CreatorIQ Join Europe, I for one am prepared for a return to our commonly scheduled programming. 

Don’t get me mistaken: I like the brand new options we’ve been working these days, all of which have expanded HBBIP’s scope and launched some stylistic improvements to our humble little publication. However typically I simply need my graphs, you already know? Sure, they usually present a reasonably linear up-and-to-the-right development, bar after bar after bar, however they’ve develop into a calling card for HBBIP, and I’ve developed a gentle spot for them. Plus, it’s been so lengthy since I’ve put them collectively! Weeks and week! (For these conserving rating at house, that’s a complete of three weeks. But it surely’s a lengthy three weeks.)

So with the information that there’s extra HBBIP innovation to come back—keep tuned!—let’s get again to that good ol’ Traditional HBBIP™: a single model spotlight! Bar charts! The occasional little bit of humor! 

And who do we now have lined up this week for a return to type? Why, it’s none aside from a model that I exploit with a good diploma of frequency. Give it up for everybody’s favourite plucky multinational inventive software program conglomerate…

The highest model of all time (of the week): Adobe

For those who’ve ever touched up a photograph, edited a graphic, finished something in any respect with vectors, no matter these are, or processed both phrases or photos (does that embody studying this text proper now? Perhaps!), then chances are high you’re conversant in our good pal Adobe. For those who’re additionally into constructing buildings with sun-dried clay bricks, then you definitely’re additionally conversant in adobe, and doubtless miffed that the software program of us blew up your spot.

It’s secure to say that Adobe performs a front-and-center position in fashionable workplace work, and due to this fact the trendy world at massive, however what I wish to know is that this: do they even do creator advertising and marketing? Don’t most individuals find out about Adobe already? What does an ‘Adobe influencer’ even appear like?

Nicely boy, do they ever. (In the event that they didn’t, this might be a really brief publication.) However the query stays: what does that appear like for Adobe, precisely?

Let’s go to a graph!

Adobe EMV: 2018 – 2024 

In case you couldn’t inform, no Adobe merchandise have been utilized within the making of this graph. However I like it anyway—that’s the basic HBBIP type that I’ve been jonesing for!

As you may see, there are many causes for Adobe to like it too. Uninterrupted, year-after-year development; a giant surge in 2024; an total improve of almost 3x in six years. Does Adobe do creator advertising and marketing? The reply is clearly sure.

We’ll get to precisely what that creator advertising and marketing seems like in a second, however first, there are some attention-grabbing dynamics at work in Adobe’s knowledge once we look throughout all their stats. For instance, creator depend and put up depend—two carefully linked metrics—preserve broadly comparable patterns, underscoring a slight dip that Adobe took between 2020 and 2021, together with the model’s gradual restoration from this setback.

Adobe Creator Rely: 2018 – 2024

As with EMV, the general margins listed below are almost 3x’ed in six years…

Adobe Submit Rely: 2018 – 2024

In the meantime, for put up depend, Adobe recovered a bit extra rapidly, underscoring the model’s capacity to draw lively, recurring creators.

However engagements and impressions are the place we start to see different patterns emerge, which makes these metrics significantly attention-grabbing to me. Let’s begin with engagements.

Adobe Engagements: 2018 – 2024

That is basically an amplification of the trendline we noticed for creator depend and put up depend, however with the timeline shifted. Adobe garnered an anomalously excessive quantity of engagements in 2021, to the purpose that it took two years for the model to catch as much as its personal highwater mark. Nevertheless, Adobe smashed previous that mark in 2024, demonstrating that its latest development in these stats stems from deeper resonance with social media customers.

Adobe Impressions: 2018 – 2024

In the meantime, with impressions, 2024 merely dwarfs every part that got here earlier than it. So these new creators that Adobe began working with weren’t merely resonating with their current followers—they have been serving to to amplify Adobe’s message extra broadly with wider audiences.

Alright, so Adobe is aware of methods to play the sport. However who have been these creators that helped the model explode in 2024? What methods did Adobe use to spark such spectacular development?

I took a have a look at Adobe’s metrics from Might 2024 to April 2025, and particularly how their group dynamics in comparison with the prior 12 months. Whenever you evaluate these two time durations—Might 23 to April 24, and Might 24 to April 25—creators who posted concerning the model throughout each stretches generated roughly the identical quantity of EMV: $89.9M EMV within the former, $92.2M EMV within the latter.

One huge distinction got here from newcomers to Adobe’s group—creators who talked about the model between Might 2024 and April 2025, however not in the course of the prior 12 months. This cohort was answerable for a large $48.2M EMV. What’s extra, many of those incoming creators performed a starring position in Adobe’s greatest initiatives in the course of the time interval. What’s even extra, most of those incoming creators have been primarily lively on—you guessed it—TikTok.

Take Lucia Liu, aka TikTok’s very personal @luseeyalu. A powerhouse creator with 6.5M followers on TikTok, Lucia shared a sponsored put up wherein she put Adobe’s Firefly Video Mannequin to the take a look at by producing customized greenscreens for her movies. She additionally touted her attendance at Adobe MAX, Adobe’s creativity convention, and profiled the information and profession development she gained on the occasion. Thanks to those considerate, substantive endorsements, which allowed creators to place their very own spin on content material whereas nonetheless giving shoutouts to Adobe, Lucia ranked as Adobe’s high EMV-driver amongst incoming creators, producing $909.4k EMV throughout 32 posts from Might 2024 to April 2025.

However Adobe wasn’t simply going after powerhouse creators like Lucia. The model additionally properly focused smaller-scale creators like Amanda Belawski of Amandabfilms (@moes.queso on TikTok), a micro-creator with 82.7k TikTok followers. Amanda shared a video of her fast, straightforward, on-the-go modifying course of due to the Adobe Lightroom app—an ideal tutorial for creators who’re, you already know, attempting to do the entire ‘creating’ factor. After not posting about Adobe from Might 2023 to April 2024, Amanda ranked as one in every of Adobe’s high 40 EMV-drivers from Might 2024 to April 2025, inspiring $467.2k EMV throughout simply eight posts.

That was when it hit me: I’d been occupied with this all mistaken. Adobe wasn’t just a few faceless company software program that may have bother connecting with creators—it was a set of instruments that may assist creators do their jobs. Clearly the message got here by: you don’t garner this type of engagement except you’re serving to creators communicate on to different creators concerning the inventive course of, which is precisely what Adobe is doing.

Earlier than I get too far into Xzibit meme territory, let’s return to the numbers. From Might 2024 to April 2025, Adobe noticed $48.6M EMV from TikTok, a 64% YoY development. This went together with 2.4B impressions, an 89% YoY surge. Do not forget that impressions graph, and all that progress in 2024? That is why. TikTok noticed far better development in these classes than some other social channel, underscoring precisely the place Adobe’s momentum is coming from.

So I tip my cap to you, Adobe. You’ve acknowledged that for as a lot as creators like endorsing a variety of manufacturers, all of them want a set of instruments in an effort to do the work of being a creator. By continuously enhancing these instruments, and letting creators present their experience with them, you’ve created a profitable system for creator advertising and marketing. 

That’s proper, dang it—I’m enthusiastic about Adobe! And if the numbers are any indication, I’m not the one one.

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