Based on the analysis of 96K+ creators.
Top 50 creators with digital products
Key findings
• 96,837 creators use social media to promote and sell their digital products.
• Lifestyle (50.6%) is the top creator niche that sells digital products, followed by Arts & Entertainment (39.4%) and Business (33.3%).
• The most sold digital products are courses with 35.7%, followed by ebooks (7.3%) and cookbooks (3.8%).
Why is this important for creator companies?
By understanding the characteristics of creators that sell digital products, and the broader creator market, creator companies can better identify and work with successful creators, which in turn drives growth and revenue for the company.
Creator companies can use this information to identify new opportunities for product development, inform their business and marketing strategy like targeting, approach and outreach, and help them form long-term partnerships with creators.
What is a digital product?
A digital product is a product created and distributed electronically. They can be sold or distributed for free, and are often purchased or downloaded online. For this report, we took into consideration the following products:
- Courses
- Ebooks
- Cookbooks
- Recipes
- Audiobooks
- Kindle books
- Templates
- Brushes
- Spreadsheets
- Digital workbooks
- Printables
- Stock videos/images/audios
- Website themes
- Guides
- Checklists
- Image presets
- Graphic design elements
What are the top platforms for selling their digital products?
For this, we analyzed 19 creator platforms for selling digital products.
The most-used platform for selling digital products is Teachable with 2,486 creators using it. Close behind are Kajabi with 2,434 creators and Gumroad with 2,393. Next in line are Etsy with 1,449 creators, and Payhip with 1,442.
Which are the most sold digital products?
The most sold digital products by creators are courses, with 35,7% of creators selling them.
As for other digital products, ebooks come in second place with 7.3%, followed by cookbooks with 3.8%, printables with 3.6%, and templates with 1.3%.
Which creator niche sells the most digital products?
The most dominant niche of creators that sell digital products is Lifestyle with a whopping 50.6%. Creators in this category are more personality-based, meaning their content is not confined to a specific topic.
Next are the Arts & Entertainment niche with 39.4% and the Business niche with 33.3%.
See the stats for each niche and sub-niche in the image below.
How much does the top digital product make up each niche?
The #1 digital products are courses and they make up 20.2% of the Lifestyle niche, 10.9% of the Education niche, 10.8% of the Business niche, 9.9% of the Public Services niche, and 6.9% of the Arts & Entertainment niche.
Which are the most used hashtags by creators that sell digital products?
The top 5 hashtags by creators are #art, #digitalart, #love, #artist, and #illiustration.
Seems like artists are the niche of creators that use hashtags the most.
Methodology
We found 96,837 creators that sell digital products on social media by searching for creators that have specific keywords that correspond to digital products, and an external link to their online store in their bio or in their link-in-bio.
We identified 27 keywords and 19 domains of platforms for selling digital products.
The process for the niches and sub-niches is separated into two parts, determining the primary niche for every user and later determining a more concrete and specific sub-niche.
The types of classification that are used for primary niche classification are:
- Classification using the categories that every user can choose for themselves;
- Classification using the same categories as keywords;
- Classification using keywords (similar words and synonyms).
- Classification using natural language processing.
The types of classification that are used for sub-niche classification are:
- Classification using natural language processing.
For hashtags, we analyze the creators’ bio descriptions and captions on their last 12-15 posts. Then, we further analyze to get statistics on the number of profiles, posts, captions, and comments associated with that hashtag.
