Top 10+ Influencer Programs

For you if: You want new strategy to scale your current program.

Dennis Ksendzov

Founder · June 25, 2026 · 9 min read

For you if:

You want new strategy to scale your current program

Start with people who already love the product

1. Gymshark: send product to people your buyers admire

The play: In 2012 Gymshark sent stringers to bodybuilders it admired; Lex Griffin, Matt Ogus and Chris Lavado liked them, shared them, and became its first athletes.

Result: Once bodybuilders started sharing them, the site went from £300 a day to £30,000 in 30 minutes at BodyPower.

So, kind of like fanmail, those early Gymshark stringers were sent to our bodybuilding heroes in hope that they'd like them. Read it: Gymshark
Read it: General Atlantic, 2020

How it works:

Women athletes: Signed women from fitness, like Nikki Blackketter, Robin Gallant and Jazmine Garcia.
Pay per sale: An affiliate program on Awin pays commission on sales within 30 days of a click.
Open to anyone: Anyone can post a Gymshark66 pledge on TikTok or Instagram to try out.

2. WHOOP: get elite athletes wearing it because it helps

The play: Will Ahmed built WHOOP's brand by getting the world's best athletes to wear it, betting they would love it enough to pay for it themselves.

And on the flip side the opportunity I saw was if we could get the world's best athletes to wear WHOOP we could in turn build our own brand around performance and around an aspirational product
Hear it: Whoop Founder: How I Built A $3.6 BILLION Company & BEAT Apple! Will Ahmed | E189

How it works:

First users: Two of WHOOP's first hundred users, in 2014, were LeBron James and Michael Phelps.
Leagues: In April 2017 the NFL Players Association made WHOOP its official recovery wearable.
Make them investors: Athletes now invest as ambassadors: Cristiano Ronaldo joined in 2024, beside Patrick Mahomes.

3. Bloom Nutrition: ask creators to feature it, then send more

The play: Bloom moved its creator search to TikTok and asked influencers to include its greens in a couple of videos, then scaled up what worked.

Result: About half of its viral videos came from that ask, the founders say.

And I would say probably half of the videos that go up or go viral about our product are encouraged from us and when I say encourage we give no creative direction or very little right very little creative direction we just say hey if you like this product please include it in your content and we'll send you more
Hear it: The Story of Bloom Nutrition, Building Your Dream Life, Financial Success, Grit, Failure & Sacrifice

How it works:

Pick everyday creators: Creators range from moms to students to nurses, including the most famous grandmother on TikTok.
Spend: About 75% of its marketing budget goes to creators.
Payoff: That spend helped bring in nearly $170 million of revenue in 2023, Llewellyn says.

4. Alo Yoga: make ambassadors out of people who wear it

The play: Alo's ambassadors are yoga, fashion and beauty influencers, and its CMO Angelic Vendette says most became ambassadors organically because they love the brand.

And then after that we have ambassadorships right whether that be via yogi influencers holistic wealth influencers fashion influencers beauty you name it um and the majority of them are organic they become ambassadors because they again love the brand
Hear it: How Alo Yoga Became a Household Name | CMO Angelic Vendette Shares Brand & Community Strategy

How it works:

Discount for pros: Certified yoga teachers, trainers, creators can apply to Alo Pro for 25% off full-priced gear.
Anyone can join: Its affiliate program sets no requirements to join and pays a commission on sales.
Crowd over team: Its CMO counts more than 4,000 people marketing Alo, against a team of 53.

5. Glossier: turn your most engaged customers into paid reps

The play: Glossier gave engaged customers codes for store credit, then paid eleven women a sales commission as reps with their own page and picks.

Result: No sales figure was published for the rep program itself.

What’s very motivating to us is this idea of every single woman being an influencer
Read it: Quartz, 2016

How it works:

Host your fans: About 150 of its most active customers chatted in Slack channels Glossier set up.
Pay real commission: One rep says her link gave new buyers 10% off and paid her a commission.
Pay beyond money: Glossier's VP of growth said reps were rewarded more by social currency than by money.

Next, pay creators to talk about it, then keep the ones that work

6. LMNT: sign podcast hosts early, pay cash or equity

The play: LMNT's co-founder pitched podcasters he knew, paying some in cash and some in a little equity, signing many before they were famous.

Result: LMNT grew past $200 million in yearly revenue on about $6 million raised.

It was a mix between do you want to help us and we also pay you either with money or in some cases with a little bit of equity. And so people like the idea and so they got on board. Hear it: They Made $100M Selling Salt - LMNT Founder
Read it: The Food Stack, Mar 12, 2026

How it works:

Hosts explain it: On shows like Huberman Lab and Modern Wisdom, hosts explain the science of sodium.
The offer: A free sample pack of 8 flavors is added to listeners' cart automatically.

7. Manscaped: pick creators on audience, rebook the good ones

The play: Manscaped's team of about six checks that a creator's audience is mostly US men 18 to 35, then engagement, before booking them again.

Result: Paul Tran said revenue went from $3 million to nearly $300 million in three years.

People that are already manscape customers or people that have some kind of experience with the brand we're definitely looking for people that can continually champion the brand and a lot of times if an influencer does a great job for us we'll continue to work with them and give them more opportunities Hear it: Launching socials for Manscaped: Tyler Wentworth Read it: ThoughtLeaders
Read it: BeautyMatter, Nov 29, 2021

How it works:

One offer everywhere**:** Its reads kept one offer across channels: 20% off and free shipping.
Booking again: Six of its ten most watched sponsored videos came from Patty Mayo, sponsored 14 times.
Personal codes now: Each creator now has a personal code for 15% off and free shipping, like FOOTY.

8. AG1: keep hundreds of hosts, try never to cancel

The play: AG1 works with hundreds of podcasters at a time, run by a five-person partnerships team, and tries never to cancel a host.

Result: Revenue went from $160 million in 2021 to about $600 million in 2024.

“What we don’t want to do is cancel anything,” Corne said. “We want to make sure that we stay, because we want to continue to build more and more relationships.” Read it: Marketing Brew, Sep 15, 2022
Read it: Wikipedia

How it works:

Pick familiar shows: Its CRO first pitched hosts he listened to, then chose shows on health, money, relationships.
Track loosely: Each show gets its own vanity URL with UTM tags, treated as a low reading.
Ease off instead: Once a show's performance levels off, AG1 changes how often it runs, rather than cancelling.

9. Poppi: put money into creators before worrying about profit

The play: Allison Ellsworth says Poppi didn't measure ROI for its first 3 years, spending heavily on creators instead of chasing profit.

We invested heavy in marketing and creators way over worrying about being profitable. There is we probably could have been profitable a year or two earlier, but we made that decision to reinvest into the brand.
Hear it: Allison Ellsworth Founder of Poppi Soda discusses her BILLION $ Exit! Exclusive Interview on ERN!

How it works:

Show the founder: Allison Ellsworth danced and made taco videos before finding her founder story worked best.
Gift on invitation: It ships free cans on invitation, getting around 500 wedding invites a month.
Creators in the campaign: Its 2025 Super Bowl ad campaign used creators partnered with Poppi, including investor Alix Earle.

From there, hand creators the big moments

10. e.l.f.: give creators a song and challenge to run

The play: e.l.f. commissioned its own song for a TikTok hashtag challenge, then partnered with Simon Cowell on a TikTok rock band with its own challenge.

Result: Tarang Amin says the Simon Cowell TikTok challenge did 15 billion views.

Did a hashtag challenge. I think got something like three or four billion views. By the time people were copying us on Tik Tok, we were already partnering with Simon Cowell, the co-founder of American Idol, to create a rock band on Tik Tok.
Hear it: Hailey Bieber, AI & fast launches: how e.l.f. Beauty is winning (CEO Tarang Amin) | Rapid Response

How it works:

Own the song: e.l.f. made #eyeslipsface with a Brooklyn agency, later a full track with songwriter iLL Wayno.
Paid push: e.l.f. paid to promote its video, the first paid ad to hold TikTok's top hashtag.
Make fans compete: For Eyes. Lips. Famous., top TikTok influencers asked fans to post why they should win.

11. Feastables: give college creators free rein and bars

The play: MrBeast launched Feastables on campus through Friends of Feastables, a college creator program giving creators averaging over 2M followers total creative freedom.

Result: The content got over 26 million impressions.

Student creators were given total creative freedom and generous resources to bring their big ideas to life and get chocolate bars into the hands of students.
Read it: Archrival

How it works:

Skip the script: Instead of a script, creators got prompts to think big in their own style.
The stunts: They made giant chocolate heads, took ice baths, and used helicopters to reach students.
Output: Over one semester the creators made 206 pieces of content, with 2M engagements.

12. Celsius: put its biggest creators inside real events

The play: Celsius signed Jake Paul, putting its brand on his fight gear and inside his show, and held a celebrity pickleball tournament at David Dobrik's home.

Result: The pickleball tournament alone got more than 3 billion media impressions and more than 31 million social impressions, Celsius says.

The event saw more than 3 billion media impressions and more than 31 million social impressions, including over 400 tagged mentions, according to Celsius.
Read it: Marketing Brew, Sep 22, 2023

How it works:

Athletes first: By January 2022 its athlete partners included Dustin Poirier, Suni Lee and Hunter Woodhall.
Owned events: At events it owns, Celsius wants brand photos and national press, not just social posts.
Anyone can apply: It runs an open ambassador program: people apply and are picked on enthusiasm and involvement.

Then make the best creators owners

13. Liquid I.V.: raise money from celebrities who work on it

The play: Brandin Cohen raised from celebrities on the basis that each would do something in the business; Scooter Braun invested, and it made flavors with Justin Bieber and Kygo.

Result: Unilever bought Liquid I.V., which is now in 80,000 retail stores.

We sort of have this vision of you know doing this investor around with celebrities which in the past like people had done it but not the way we did it where they all were going to do something in the business Hear it: Drinkin' Bros Podcast Episode #810 - Special Guest Liquid IV Founder Brandin Cohen
Read it: The Food Stack, Mar 12, 2026

How it works:

Bring in names: In July 2019 a $5 million round added investors like Demi Lovato and Justin Bieber.
Always say yes: When celebrities and athletes want free product, Cohen just says yes.
Boost what works: Creators' TikToks ran as Spark Ads; return on ad spend rose 48% from Q2 to Q3, 2021.

14. Neutonic: make the creators the founders

The play: Neutonic was founded in 2023 by fitness creator James Smith and podcast host Chris Williamson; Smith gave away 5,000 branded rash guards.

Result: It expects to pass $25 million in 2026, after doubling from 2024 to 2025.

I can send out some free cans of Neutonic, and end up with a customer for life.
Read it: BeverageDaily, Apr 28, 2026

How it works:

Gifting at scale: Outside creators come through agency Gymfluencers; best posts earn paid campaigns or an affiliate spot.
Prize is access: For its creatine sachets, top prizes included a 30-minute call with James Smith and mentorship.
Creator investors: Creators Kayla Itsines and Mike Thurston put money in too.