The full playbook for whitelisting, usage rights and ad money behind creator videos

The short version: the questions brands ask

1. Step 1 · What it is, and does it fit you. From Behind Her Empire, August 2026.
2. Step 2 · Set it up and get the creator. From Meta's help page on partnership ads.
3. Step 3 · Get the creative that works as an ad. From Common Thread Collective, March 2025.
4. Step 4 · What it costs and what to expect. From Marketing Operators, December 2025.
5. Step 5 · Scale it, for brands already running paid ads. From Marketing Operators, February 2026.

Why it is worth doing

HexClad puts 90% of the budget behind the ad, not the fee

Click to enlarge

• HexClad's head of growth puts 90% of the influencer budget into the whitelisted content and only 10% into the organic fee.
• If they spend 10K on an influencer, they spend 100K on whitelisting, because that stretches so much further.
• The goal is just to break even on the organic content.

The promise: your creators' best posts, running as ads

Click to enlarge

Proof: Ridge whitelists MKBHD's own post for about $10,000 a month

Click to enlarge

• "I know someone that you said to whitelist through them, it was like 10k a month." From Ridge CEO Sean Frank on the MKBHD deal and 5,000 creator sponsorships, Marketing Operators, 2024-09-03.

Who we are

Click to enlarge

The questions, step by step

Step 1: What it is, and does it fit you

• Once this step is done, you know what whitelisting is, why it works, and whether it fits your brand.

1.1 · What exactly is whitelisting, and how is it different from a boosted post?

• Your ad dollars on Meta or TikTok go behind a third party's handle: a creator, an influencer or a publication.
• On Meta, partnership ads are the official version of whitelisting.
• A boosted post on its own gets eyes on it, but it has no money at the end of it.

Heard on Behind Her Empire with Yasmin Nouri, on Ecomm Cowboy at 13:38, and on Business GSpot Podcast at 1:01:36.

What changes when a brand puts ad dollars behind a creator's own post

A creator's post only reaches so far without help. These lines say what paid spend adds and how it differs from plain creator content.

• An influencer posts a video on the influencer's own profile, then the brand uses ad dollars to run it as Meta ads. Picture a talented performer in Times Square, where amplifying the video puts that performer in a bigger stadium.
• A lot of the time organic content does not reach much of the audience the influencer has, and it tapers off. Putting paid spend behind it is a great way to boost it, and that is commonly known as whitelisting.
• Social is now pay for play if a brand really wants reach, because Meta, TikTok and Snapchat know that they have the attention.
• Whitelisting is different from user generated content. With user generated content the brand gets the video and runs it from the brand's own ad account, while whitelisting takes that same video and runs it under the creator's page.

Heard on Net influencer at 8:34 and 9:17, and on eCommerce Uncensored at 7:27. From my channel.

The three ways an ad on Meta can run from a handle that is not the brand's own

Meta has three setups for this today. Knowing which one you are looking at tells you how much work it takes to set up.

• There are three types of third party or whitelisting ads on Meta today. The three are partnership ads, third party positioning and old school whitelisting.
• A partnership ad is Meta's new version of branded content. The brand searches for the creator in ads manager, Meta sends the creator a request, and the creator has to accept it.
• Third party positioning runs the ad through a third party identity, such as a page focused on one problem and persona, or a publisher. It is free if done internally, because a brand can set these pages up itself.
• Old school whitelisting runs the ad through an identity that is not the brand's, usually a big celebrity or a big influencer. The brand has to go and get access to that person's assets, which is much more complex than partnership ads.
• Before partnership ads, a brand connected to a creator's Instagram account through the creator's Facebook page and ran the ads on the creator's behalf. Meta stepped in because those connections were really hard to get and creators had questions about legal and copyrights.

Heard on D2C Diaries at 13:53, 14:01, 17:01 and 22:18, and on Ecomm Cowboy at 13:52.

Whitelisting was done with publishers too, and a publication's page can still carry the ad

The handle does not have to belong to a creator. These two lines show a publisher's name on a brand's ad.

• One PR founder did a lot of whitelisting with BuzzFeed and other top tier publishers.
• On 8 August 2026 the Meta Ad Library showed an Omni Creatine ad running from the New York Post's page.

Heard on Behind Her Empire with Yasmin Nouri. From our read of the Meta Ad Library on 8 August 2026.

1.2 · Why run the ad from a creator's handle instead of my own?

Click to enlarge

• It's because they get better signal when there's two handles on it.
• They get better targeting when there's two handles on it.
• The AI algorithm prefers it.
• A partnership ad combines both audiences, the brand's and the creator's.
• People engage with creators they already know and follow.

Heard on Open Residency at 42:59, on Ecomm Cowboy at 15:14, and on Marketing Operators at 44:17.

A brand praising itself is not believed, so these brands run the ad from the person in it

People wave off a brand that calls itself the best. The same message from the creator's own handle is seen as more real.

• Whitelisting is part of the process when the company behind Nectar delivers mattresses and bed frames to creators. The company gets whitelisted with whoever the creator is, or whoever gave the content.
• Ketone IQ's CEO would rather an ad with Jon Jones comes from Jon Jones's own handle than from the brand account. The end customer sees it as more real when it comes from the actual person in the ad.
• One company that automated whitelisting back in 2017 found that the same creative coming from the influencer sometimes beat the brand handle by twice or by three times.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:04:50 and 1:04:56, on Open Residency at 16:55, and on Ecomm Cowboy at 14:11.

How a creator's handle helps Meta find people the brand's own account has not reached

A brand's own account keeps reaching the same people. A creator's handle gives Meta a different audience to start from.

• A brand that has a hard time reaching net new audiences, or its best performing audience, is likely to get there more effectively and efficiently through a creator. The reason given is Meta's Andromeda algorithm, which targets by persona.
• A partnership ad starts with the creator's seed audience of diehard fans, then builds lookalike audiences from those fans. That is really valuable for a brand spending a few million dollars every single month, which keeps reaching the same people over and over.
• One Marketing Operators host thinks that when a creator does a lot of brand partnerships and a lot of spend has gone behind the handle, Meta sees a paid ad from that handle and already knows who to serve it to.

• Ridge is seeing a lot of success with women creators promoting wedding bands through partnership ads on Meta, some of the best performance Ridge has seen. The spend on those ads goes more to women than it does on other ads.

Heard on Dara Denney at 2:05 and 2:39, and on Marketing Operators at 1:09:23, 1:09:40 and 44:28.

What the ad account tells you about a creator that an organic post never will

An organic post gives the brand screenshots. Running the video as an ad gives the numbers that say where each influencer belongs in the funnel.

• With organic posts alone, the brand only gets the screenshots the influencer gives it. Whitelisting gives the brand the data Meta ads or TikTok ads hold on each video, such as video completion times, CPM and CPA.

Heard on Net influencer at 9:27.

How much of the Meta budget brands now put on partner ads

These brands do not treat partner ads as a side test. Each one says it is a large part of what the brand spends on Meta.

• Ridge's founder says partner ads are working better for everyone he talks to, and that Meta is prioritizing partner ads. Some ads do not make sense to run as partner ads, but it would not surprise him if half of Ridge's money goes on partner ads in Q4.
• Ketone IQ's CEO says partnership ads are a big percent of Ketone IQ's Meta ads. He cannot say the exact number, but it is significant.
• One podcast host hears of a ton of brands where a third or even half of all of the spend goes toward partnership ads.

Heard on Open Residency at 42:59 and 16:55, and on Ecomm Cowboy at 13:25.

1.3 · Does the creator need to be famous?

• Ads from famous golfers, actors and musicians did not perform much better than a random account the brand created and owns.
• Most of one brand's partnership ads now run from very small creators it may have just gifted the product to, because that is how people watch social today.
• The other side: one brand's cheap micro creators missed its hit rate, and it rose once it partnered with much larger creators.

Heard on Open Residency at 44:17, and on Marketing Operators at 18:03 and 34:21.

Why follower count matters less than the content on Meta today

Meta now decides who sees an ad more by the content than by the size of the account. That is why a small handle can carry an ad.

• Follower count truly does not matter as much as it used to, because Meta's Andromeda algorithm is so personal to each viewer. Meta has admitted it is prioritizing great content coming out of new creators.
• UGC creators are the affiliate and performance based creators, which includes TikTok Shop. These creators do not really have much of a following of their own, and mostly make content they know performs.
• One brand finds that influencers with 10,000 followers or 20,000 followers perform really well and are very cost effective. The brand pays probably 1,000 bucks per month when it is sourcing new creative from them, and much less when it is not.

• A creator with too many ads running from their handle is one you should not be working with anyway.

Heard on Dara Denney at 3:51 and 4:11, on Marketing Operators at 1:05:33, and on Net influencer at 14:18. From framework for vetting.

Ridge runs partner ads from accounts it made and owns, often with its own content

If the name on the account does not change the result, a brand can own the account. Ridge does that, and borrows creator accounts too.

• Ridge also ends up running ads from the founder's account, and says it could run them from his wife's account too.
• A lot of times Ridge sends the creator the content just to post on the creator's account and run as an ad. Ridge gives the content and only uses the account to run it.

Heard on Open Residency at 44:41, 44:50 and 45:24.

1.4 · Does whitelisting make sense for my brand and budget?

• What they found is $3 to $5,000 per post, influencers can break even, be pretty profitable.
• Once you start getting into the 30 to 40k range, it becomes much of a gamble.
• One brand says it would never work with some of its influencers if the organic post alone had to be profitable.
• On emerging brands with tiny influencer budgets, the money goes to seeding creators, not paid partnerships.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 43:19 and 1:01:53.

What to have in place before you spend, and how to budget around a big name

These lines say when a new brand should hold off on ads, what comes before a celebrity, and where his own framework puts whitelisting after a retail launch.

• Before a brand even entertains big celebrities or big creators, it needs a strong influencer program that is already set as the foundation.

• If you have just landed a major retailer, Boxes and Scale lead, which means you seed hard around the launch window and then whitelist the best content to the areas where you are on shelf, because new retail placements have to prove sell-through fast or you risk losing the shelf.

Heard on Open Residency at 6:02, and on Net influencer at 13:15 and 14:21. From webinar pitch V4 (my flow, as a story).

How to pick the way you run a creator's content as an ad

Use this when you hold creator videos and must choose between a partnership ad and your own Ads Manager upload.

1. List your 3 options for paid social: ads from your brand account, ads from the creator's handle, and collaboration posts.
2. Choose a partnership ad over uploading the file whenever you can.
3. Keep the partnership ad in your own campaign, which you pay for, so the ad shows your handle and the creator's handle together.
4. Upload the creator's video to your own Ads Manager when you need full control and no permission problems. The ad then comes from your page.
5. Try collaboration posts as well. They show under both the brand and the creator, for organic and paid posts.

Watch out:

• Downloading a creator's video and loading it into your own ads tool is not allow listing. Run the ad through the creator's account instead.
• Old-style whitelisting sends weaker signals to Andromeda than partnership ads, one teacher's Meta reps say. Pick partnership ads.

Sources: Ben Heath, 24:44 · ethercycle, 18:06 · Ben Heath, 25:41, 26:11, 25:08 · ethercycle, 18:46 · Statusphere, 7:26 · D2C Diaries, 22:57

How to plan creator ads on Meta

Use this when you plan to run a creator's ad as one of your own ads.

1. Use several creators in 1 niche, because Facebook shows people more of what they already click on.
2. Treat the creator as your targeting. Meta's Andromeda update sunset lookalike and interest audiences.
3. Make each partnership ad a reel or a video. About 99% of partnership ads are, and a static one is rare.
4. Run the creator's content in Facebook ads as well as Instagram ads.

Watch out:

• A plain organic creator post reaches a small share of the creator's audience, for about 24 to 48 hours. Run the post as an ad instead.

Sources: Influencer Hero, 3:15, 15:22 · D2C Diaries, 4:46 · Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm, 17:51 · Ben Heath, 1:25, 19:54

Step 2: Set it up and get the creator

• Once this step is done, you have the creator's permission, you know how long it lasts, and the ad is labelled.

2.1 · What do I need from the creator: their login, or a permission?

• On Meta, you need permission from the partner whose handle the ad runs from, and they can take it back at any time.
• You send the request, and manage creator permissions, in Meta's Partnership Ads Hub.
• On TikTok, the creator taps the three dots on the video, then Ad settings, then Generate, and sends you the code.

From Meta's help page on partnership ads, Meta's help page on the Partnership Ads Hub and TikTok's Spark Ads guide.

What counts as whitelisting on Meta and what does not

There are two ways to use a creator's video as an ad, and only one of them runs from the creator's handle.

• You can run a creator's video as a partnership ad, or you can get the creative assets, upload them to your ads manager and run them through your own ad account as a normal ad.

Heard on Ben Heath at 24:44, and on Statusphere at 7:26.

How a Meta partnership ad gets its permission, step by step

This is the simpler route on Meta. The creator shares a code or accepts a request, and the post runs as it is.

• Partnership ads were formerly known as branded content ads. The creator shares an ad code for one post at a time, and the code is only tied to that specific post.
• First the creator needs a professional Instagram account and has to authorize partnerships on that account.
• Then the creator generates and shares a partnership ad code for that content. The brand creates the partnership ad, inputs the code and boosts the content as is.
• The other way in is the partnership ad selector in ads manager. You search for the creator there, and the platform sends that creator a request to accept.

Heard on Statusphere at 22:04, 22:47 and 22:59, on D2C Diaries at 14:19, and on Ben Heath at 27:48.

What a partnership ad does not let the brand do

The simple route has limits. Know them before you choose it over the older manual route that comes next.

• The partner has to accept the request, which one team running these ads thinks is relatively low friction. The second limit is that you cannot manually retarget the audience.

Heard on Statusphere at 22:29, and on D2C Diaries at 15:08.

The older manual route, where the creator gives your business access to the page

Here the brand builds the ads itself under the creator's handle. It takes more steps and gives the brand far more control.

• The creator opens Meta Business Suite and manually grants permission to use the Facebook page by sharing ad access with the brand.
• From the brand's side, you go into your business account, request access to a Facebook page, enter the creator's page URL and make the request. The creator then approves it.
• After that the brand can select the creator's handle as the ad identity, upload a brand new video under it, and create as many ads as it wants with full creative control.
• In ads manager you create the campaign, and at the very end you select which page the campaign runs through, the brand's page or the creator's page.

Heard on Statusphere at 19:19 and 19:33, on ethercycle at 20:08 and 20:45, and on eCommerce Uncensored at 7:06.

Why the manual route is harder to run and may not last

The control comes at a cost. The manual route is slow to set up, asks a lot of the creator, and Meta was planning to retire it.

• One team running Meta ads said this setup is much more complex than the partnership ads hub, and that Meta was planning to sunset the setup in early 2026.
• One team running Meta ads heard from its Meta reps that the signals the manual setup provides to Andromeda are not as great or as impactful as with partnership ads.
• The ability to manually retarget audiences can still be quite beneficial if you are working with big celebrities or people who have a large following.

Heard on Statusphere at 20:03 and 20:56, and on D2C Diaries at 22:34, 22:51 and 23:03.

2.2 · How long does the permission last, and what happens when it ends?

• Once a post does well, it runs as an ad for 14 days, or for 30.
• On TikTok you set how long the code lasts, to fit the campaign and keep costs down.
• A TikTok video running as a Spark Ad has to be un-authorized before the creator can delete it.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 56:58. From TikTok's Spark Ads page.

What goes wrong when the usage period is too short

A short window can end just as the ad starts to work. These are the ways brands have been caught out.

• What you do not want is to get some really good content, have it for maybe a week, watch it explode, and then not be able to use it anymore, diversify it or iterate on it.

• One brand launched its acquisition ads two, three months after the first email and SMS push, because it had to restock and did not want to burn the usage. It is now getting a lot out of the creator ads it sourced.

Heard on Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm at 24:00 and 24:45, and on Marketing Operators at 59:13 and 59:29.

How long to ask for, so a winning ad has time to scale

Ask for more than 30 days. Meta takes about that long to test and train, and a winner needs time after that.

• A lot of the time 30 days of usage rights is actually too short to scale a winning partnership ad.
• Negotiate 90 or 120 days of whitelisting rights, because 30 days alone is how much Meta typically takes to test and train the algorithm.
• One team that buys creator ads says typically 6 months is what it negotiates for.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 24:29. From my channel.

2.3 · How do I ask a creator for it without it feeling like a bigger ask?

• It's very rare that an influencer refuses partnership ads on their content outright.
• Even the big Emily deal started as a paid social deal only, and grew once it performed.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:11:08 and 48:41.

Pitch the ad spend as something the creator gains from

How you word the ask matters. Lead with what the creator gets out of it, and be ready to prove it.

• One answer to that fee is to prove the benefit in the scope of work. You monitor how the influencer's channel has grown and tell the influencer how many new followers were generated.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:10:16, 1:11:23 and 1:11:41.

Put the ad rights in the deal before the content is made

The rights talk is boring and it is one of the most important. Settle it up front, in the contract or the offer.

• One brand is going to put an option for whitelisting into its creator contracts, so it does not have to strike the deal from the beginning. It sees how the post does first.

• One example of the offer is $1,000 for two reels that feature the product, plus an extra $500 to be able to run them as an ad. Creators normally want a little bit extra, and it does not take any extra time for them.

Heard on Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm at 23:47, on Marketing Operators at 56:36 and 23:06, and on Ben Heath at 19:02 and 19:12.

How to ask a creator you have only sent product to

A gifted creator has no deal with you yet, so keep the ask small. Ask for a review and the rights to the video.

• Send the product and ask the creator to do a review, then say you want the rights to the video. That is even easier than trying to create relationships, and a creator who loves the product will do it.
• Once the product has gone out, you can start the conversation by asking to bring the creator's page into your ads manager and use the video. In return the creator keeps the product.
• One brand uses Youcan to DM creators a template offer with a flat fee. It started at 100 bucks and got a very low acceptance rate, went to 150, which was pretty low, and says 200 seems to be the sweet spot.

Heard on eCommerce Uncensored at 16:16 and 18:15, and on Marketing Operators at 47:25.

2.4 · Does a whitelisted ad need a paid partnership label?

• If you endorse a product on social media, the post has to make your relationship with the brand obvious, and the disclosure sits with the post itself.
• On YouTube, the creator selects the paid promotion button, which adds a label at the start of the video.
• When the FTC acts, its focus usually falls on the advertiser and its agencies.

From the FTC's guide for influencers, YouTube Help and the FTC's endorsement guides.

What the label looks like on Meta, and what the FTC asks for on top of it

A partnership ad carries the paid partnership tag. The FTC says a platform tool alone may not be enough.

• A partnership ad will always show the paid partnership tag. In one example on Instagram the ad is called paid partnership with Rent the Runway.
• The FTC says it is good that some platforms offer disclosure tools, but a platform offering the feature is no guarantee that it is an effective way for influencers to disclose their connection to a brand.
• In a video, the disclosure should be in the video and not just in the description uploaded with the video. Viewers are more likely to notice disclosures made in both audio and video.
• Do not use vague or confusing terms like sp, spon or collab, or stand alone terms like thanks or ambassador.

Heard on Statusphere at 22:23. From the FTC's endorsement guides and the FTC's guide for influencers.

2.5 · Where do the creators come from?

How Ridge fills its creator roster by gifting 100 wallets to find two creators

Ridge gifts first and pays second. The free wallet shows who makes good content before any money is spent.

• Ridge does a lot of gifting, and gifts out with Refunnel. A creator who gets a free wallet and no money and still makes good content is now in the Ridge UGC funnel, and Ridge pays that creator to make content.
• A brand the size of Ridge only needs a roster of 30 to 50 creators. Getting to 100 is a ton of UGC people, because you want to give them consistent work all the time.
• A lot of people do TikTok shops for this reason. You do a bunch of gifting, you find who makes good content, and those creators are now part of your UGC team.

Heard on Open Residency at 45:52, 46:01, 46:04 and 46:37.

Start with the creators who already post about you or already make your ads

The fastest roster is the one you already have. Look at who you seed, who makes your UGC and who posts a lot.

• When one brand sees someone from its product seeding posting a lot and likes the content, it reaches out and gets usage rights. Then it runs the content as a standalone ad, cuts it together in ads, or has the creator whitelist and do some ad reads.
• One founder's whole process is to start with a mass amount of gifting, then turn the winners into paid UGC creators, get the advertising rights and boost the content through whitelisting.

Heard on D2C Diaries at 31:40 and 32:14, and on Marketing Operators at 54:25. From my channel.

How many creators it takes to find the few worth putting ad money behind

Most creators you send product to will not make an ad you would pay to run. These numbers show how many it takes.

• One team samples 200 creators a week on TikTok Shop, about 800 creators minimum a month. Of those 800 samples it probably gets back 50 to 100 really good creators.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 10:56, and on Statusphere at 14:01.

Where to look for new creators, in the creator marketplace on Meta and in UGC marketplaces

The Meta tool sorts creators into lists that point at creators more open to an offer. UGC marketplaces sell videos with the usage rights included.

• In the creator marketplace on Meta, the recommendations tab breaks creators down by category, such as creators who have partnered with brands like yours. Those creators might be more open to offers, because this is something they are already doing.
• The interested creators list in the creator marketplace holds creators who really want to work with your brand, so they are probably going to be open to lower offers. Expect it to be much more important for larger brands.

• UGC marketplaces let you get fixed cost UGC videos from people on TikTok for your brand, and you get usage rights to put those videos in your Meta ad account.

Heard on Ben Heath at 4:42, 5:35 and 5:59, and on MentorPass at 7:54.

2.6 · How do I set the campaign up in the ad account?

Give whitelisted ads their own campaign with a 20% audience cap

This is the set up one paid social buyer calls the best performer across his whole portfolio.

• David Herrmann of Herrmann Digital runs creators' Facebook and Instagram pages as their own ASC entity. He sets the audience cap at 20% and tries to treat the campaign somewhat as middle of funnel and also as prospecting.
• Across David Herrmann's entire portfolio, whitelisting ads have just been the best performers, no question.

• Whitelisted creator ads can now run to Meta shops in sub accounts. Meta did not announce the change, and it normally could not be done because the shop had to be connected to Commerce Manager.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 50:24, 50:30, 50:42 and 50:57, and on Statusphere at 35:14.

Which handle the ad shows, the creator's alone or the creator's with the brand's

A partnership ad can deliver from the creator handle, the brand handle or both. Here is how three teams choose.

• You can set up dynamic delivery, so the ad delivers from the brand handle, the creator handle or a combination of both, depending on what the algorithm at Meta thinks will get the best action rate.
• One team tests the same partnership ad as the creator plus the brand, as the brand alone and as the creator alone.
• Ridge runs partnership ads from the single creator handle with no Ridge handle. Ridge sees no value in having the brand handle attached, because the ad then looks more like an ad, and a lot of the value of partnership ads is that they look less like ads.

Heard on D2C Diaries at 14:41, on Influencer Hero at 6:32, and on Marketing Operators at 26:36.

How one brand tests a new partnership ad before it scales the budget

A new creator ad gets a small daily budget and a set amount of spend before anyone judges it.

• One brand tests partnership ads in their own campaign at usually 250 bucks a day, with one concept and three variations.
• One brand lets a new partnership ad spend a thousand before it does anything, which is usually five days. If it sees any signs of life it starts scaling the budget up, and if the ad looks bad after a thousand it cuts the ad.
• One brand makes two or three variations of a partnership ad and not above that. It used to do six, which it now calls way overkill.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 18:45, 21:23 and 21:38.

Send each creator's ad to a landing page that tells that creator's story

The click should land on the person the ad showed. One brand builds a page for each ambassador and another tests it by creator size.

• IM8 has a landing page for each ambassador, one for Aryna Sabalenka and one for Ollie Bearman, the F1 driver. Someone who clicks on an ad that shows Aryna Sabalenka wants to listen to her story, so the page gives it.

• IM8 builds the same kind of landing page for what the product does, such as recovery and energy fatigue, because people want to see the specifics of their own persona.
• One brand is testing creator pages for partnership ads when the creator is above a certain tier. It says it is never going to do it below a certain size, maybe below a million, and so far it looks pretty good.

Heard on Foundr at 30:33, 30:50 and 30:56, and on Marketing Operators at 50:05.

Comment software cannot reach partnership ads, so the comments need a manual plan

Partnership ads bring in a lot of comments. The software brands use to answer comments does not work on them.

• The limitation is by Meta. With whitelisted ads the software does not get API inputs, and that is why it is not able to do it.

• When the comments start rolling in on whitelisting ads, one team jumps in and responds to questions as the company, and also has the influencer respond to some of the questions.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 58:38, 58:49, 59:02 and 59:32, and on eCommerce Uncensored at 19:58.

Two brands that ran their best posts as ads, and what the ads returned

One example ran on Meta and one on TikTok. Both put ad money behind posts that were already made.

• In one campaign run by the agency Kynship, the brand got the rights to its best posts and ran them as Meta ads, which brought the cost of a new customer to $38 against a $45 goal.
• Liquid I.V. used Spark Ads to boost its creators' own posts, and saw return on ad spend rise 48% from Q2 to Q3 of 2021.

From Kynship, the agency that ran it and TikTok for Business.

How to open Creator Marketplace in Meta Business Suite

Use this when you want to get into Creator Marketplace in Meta Business Suite.

1. Check you have a professional Instagram account, or an Instagram account connected to a Facebook page.
2. Open Meta Business Suite, pick Creator Marketplace from the left menu and click Get Started.
3. Request access to the marketplace if you are asked to, then wait. It can take a little while.

Sources: Ben Heath, 0:36, 1:35, 0:46

How to set up a creator campaign that asks for boost permission

Use this when you want creators to give you permission to run their content as an ad.

1. Go to Campaigns, choose Get Started and pick a goal. For most brands the goal is increase sales.
2. Set visibility to discoverable by creators, which is the default, or to invite only.
3. Leave Fixed offer turned off.
4. Set creator filters for gender, age range and follower count if you want to limit who sees the campaign.
5. Set target audience filters for the creator's audience: gender, age and country.
6. Read the reach number the tool shows as you set filters, to see how many creators could see the campaign.
7. Set a register interest by date so creators know when to reply. Invite only campaigns skip this date.
8. Set the date range to boost the content, so creators know your timeline for the work.

Watch out:

• Discoverable campaigns bring some creators who say your set price is too low. Pick invite only if you want pay to be easier.

Sources: Ben Heath, 19:02, 12:47, 12:54, 13:46, 15:38, 16:21, 16:32, 18:09, 18:02, 18:55

How to run a Meta partnership ad by sending the creator a request

Use this when you want a partnership ad and the creator can accept a request from Meta.

Watch out:

• The creator must accept the request first, so ask them to. You can't manually retarget the audience or put set spend on the creator's own followers.

Sources: D2C Diaries, 14:19 · Ben Heath, 27:48 · D2C Diaries, 14:41 · Statusphere, 37:47 · D2C Diaries, 15:11

How to run an Instagram partnership ad with a creator's ad code

Use this when you want to boost one creator post on Instagram as it is.

1. Ask the creator to generate a partnership ad code for the content and share it with you.
2. Turn on Partnership ad on your ad, enter the creator's code and boost the post as it is.

Watch out:

• Codes come post by post, not for all of a creator's posts, so ask for a code each time. Targeting options are fewer than with manual allow listing.

Sources: Statusphere, 22:10, 22:56, 22:52 · Ben Heath, 28:14 · Statusphere, 23:37

How to put creators you already work with into partnership ads

Use this when you want creator ads where the rights are clear and you don't write captions or edit.

1. Pick 3 creators you already work with and set up partnership ads, or build an angle that fits each one.
2. Limit the ad to show only your brand handle if the creator is nervous about being tied to the brand. Otherwise let Meta choose the display.
3. Put a proper contract in place before manual allow listing, and tell the creator how much control they hand you.

Sources: Statusphere, 23:26 · D2C Diaries, 37:54, 31:45 · eCommerce Uncensored, 18:15 · D2C Diaries, 16:14 · Statusphere, 21:29

How to set up manual allow listing through a creator's Facebook page

Use this when you want to run ads on a creator's page from your own ad account.

1. Set up a business account on Meta for the brand, run through Meta Business Suite.
2. Check the creator is on a business account too, not a personal one.
3. Check you have access to the correct assets from the creator's account once they approve.
4. Create a campaign in Ads Manager and set the audience. You can now use the creator's audience.
5. Choose the creator's page, not the brand's page, as the page the campaign runs through.
6. Upload any new edited video under the creator's handle. There is no limit on the number of ads.

Watch out:

• Manual allow listing is slow. You get on a call with each creator and set permissions one by one, so plan the time before adding more creators.

Sources: eCommerce Uncensored, 6:27 · ethercycle, 19:15, 19:20, 20:03, 20:16, 20:27 · eCommerce Uncensored, 7:06 · ethercycle, 20:40, 20:45 · Statusphere, 19:33 · eCommerce Uncensored, 7:18 · Statusphere, 20:56

Step 3: Get the creative that works as an ad

• Once this step is done, you know which creator content to run and how many ads to cut from it.

3.1 · Does a post that did well organically make a good ad? (for bigger brands)

Click to enlarge

• Even paid influencer work run as a partnership ad showed no good correlation with how it did as an organic reel.
• Seeding content one team called the worst it had ever seen went into the ad account and became the top performer.
• Creator content nobody briefed did just as well as briefed content once it ran as paid.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 46:06, 1:00:40 and 5:54.

The other view, that the post with the most organic reach is the one to boost

One whitelisting webinar and two brands treat a strong organic result as the signal to spend, the opposite of the bullets above.

• The same webinar says that if a post did good in organic, nine times out of 10 it is going to do amazing with paid ads. Its example is an ad that got about 5,000 views while everything else got a couple hundred, and with media behind it that ad can be generating tens of thousands, if not millions, and getting millions of views.
• One brand runs a flywheel every single week where its best performing organic posts go into paid. Its two best ads by a long shot are just its best performing Instagram posts, and 70% of its best paid ads are its best performing organic posts.
• Ridge's founder Sean Frank calls organic the proving ground for getting stuff into paid. If people like a post, they will like it as an ad, so all of your ads should go through a gauntlet of organic before justifying being paid.
• Ridge decides which affiliate videos to move from TikTok Shop into its Meta ad account on a mix of two signals. A video that performs well in GMV Max is one, and people going through the videos to find interesting ones is the other. Ridge would rather err on the side of getting more ad content into the ad account.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 8:38 and 9:02, on Open Residency at 30:34 and 30:51, and on Marketing Operators at 23:58.

When to put paid money behind a post that is taking off

The timing depends on the post. A post on 30 day rights is run as an ad at once, and a viral moment waits about a week.

• If you are constrained to 30 day rights, run the post as an ad immediately, as soon as you identify it is a winning organic piece of content, instead of later. That will happen within 24 hours, because the post gets an abnormal spike in views.
• True Classic could not turn its UFC and other sports partnership content into a direct response ad. What worked was taking the content that did so well organically and boosting it. Bryan Cano, who led marketing at True Classic, would let the post have its viral moment and come in with paid after about a week.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 59:45 and 59:58. From my channel.

3.2 · What kind of creator content works best as an ad?

• The winning creator ad was a classic native iPhone product review, and the content itself was not that unique.
• Brands often have the creator record a new voiceover that puts the product and its value first.
• Evergreen creative typically performs best, even next to holiday content.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 46:29, 47:48 and 44:29.

• Ketone-IQ: four full-time editors keep chopping up partner shoots into ads.
• Neuro Gum: Meta told them to bring great stories that don't look like ads, and Meta takes care of the targeting.

Heard on Open Residency at 9:54, and on The BarberShop with Shantanu at 41:59.

UGC scales to high spend nearly two times as often as a standard ad

Common Thread Collective looked across its data set at which ads reach scale, and UGC came out ahead of standard ads.

• Across Common Thread Collective's data set, an individual UGC ad is nearly two times more likely to become a high spend winner than a standard ad. A high spend winner is an ad that reaches the spend threshold that counts as scale for that specific brand.
• In the same data, the efficiency of video on Meta held constant year over year and slightly increased, while the efficiency of static dropped more substantially.

Heard on Common Thread Collective at 17:07, 17:33 and 18:40.

A polished production often loses to a phone video, as Liquid Death found

Spending more on production does not buy a better ad, though Grüns says rough seeding content is not working for it anymore.

• Liquid Death worked with a little ad agency and spent 60 grand on a high production video, when it had never spent more than five grand before. On Instagram that video performed at one tenth of a video the team shot with an iPhone the week before.

• One whitelisting webinar says unfiltered video ads filmed on a smartphone are 63% more likely to lead to purchases than high production value videos. It adds that the most beautiful product shots tend to be a red flag that makes people not want to look at the content.

Heard on Mike Cessario's channel at 44:36 and 44:46, on Statusphere at 12:38, and on Marketing Operators at 1:00:50.

Creators who explain the product make better ads, which is why affiliate content works

A creator using an affiliate link has a reason to explain the product, and Ridge's numbers show what that content does as a Meta ad.

• A creator who posts with an affiliate link is much more likely to make content that works as an ad, one host of Marketing Operators says. A creator using an affiliate link is probably trying to explain the product and its selling points, and that is the type of content that performs well in ads.

• Over 30 days, about 15% of Ridge's Meta ad spend was behind creative made by its TikTok Shop affiliates. At comparable ROAS, those ads had a 15% lower CPM and 2x the click through rate of Ridge's other ads.
• Those affiliate ads were twice as likely to land in Instagram Reels or Facebook Stories, the short form vertical video placements, and reached a much younger audience. Ridge's biggest age group is otherwise 35 to 44, and on the affiliate ads the biggest was 25 to 34.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 21:08, 21:24, 16:41 and 49:54.

3.3 · How many ads should I cut from one creator's video? (for bigger brands)

• One creator, two hooks, an unboxing and a try-on, and three headlines on each: six ads.
• Caption the creator's voiceover video as ad number one, then cut it into three to five more with different hooks, formats or headlines.
• Ketone-IQ: one ad read partnership, chopped up 16 jillion different ways.

Heard on Common Thread Collective at 7:13 and 9:52, on Marketing Operators at 18:45, and on Open Residency at 10:02.

Ask for raw footage, because the point is to recut it with your own editors

How many ads come out of one video depends on who cuts it, so the raw footage and the editors come first.

• On the same episode, internal editors are called the biggest unlock a brand can possibly have. A lot of brands do not even need more content right now, because they have a bunch of content that is just edited badly.
• One brand that is a bit smaller than Ridge has six editors, hired overseas, and says you cannot over index enough on editors.
• Sean Frank's advice on where to hire is Latin America, which he says has some of the best editors on earth. He names Argentina and Brazil.

Heard on Open Residency at 47:31, 47:41, 48:08 and 48:21.

What to change in each cut, starting with the hook

A sponsored video rarely works as an ad untouched. The first five seconds decide it, so each cut gets its own hook.

• You can't just take a sponsored video and run it as an ad most of the time. You typically need to redo the hook to target different avatars, put in CTAs and make sure there are some rehooks.
• Ridge's CEO says a successful ad read is when people watch 5 seconds of it. Most people do not watch 5 seconds of an ad. People give it 3 seconds, maybe a thumb stop, and skip right over it.
• Even with a four minute ad, most click through interactions happen within the first five seconds, so the first few seconds make or break the ad.
• An artist who is a big figure in the art space ran a whitelisted collaborative ad with Do Not Age, and the hook relates specifically to artists. If you do this for every category, a programmer, a firefighter, and narrow it by occupation, it is a great way to expand.
• Grüns runs creator page ads with copy written for one audience, saying its gummies are ideal for supporting your nutrition on a GLP-1 plan. We read that in the Meta Ad Library on 8 August 2026.

Heard on LegendsNLeaders at 19:35, and on Statusphere at 27:34. From my channel, my channel and our read of the Meta Ad Library on 8 August 2026.

One proven hook can also run from many creators' handles

The reverse of cutting many hooks from one creator is keeping one hook that works and changing the face that says it.

• MUD WTR uses the same hook in basically most of its 400 plus ads, that coffee gives you jitters. You use the same hook but bring in influencers who have reach and run it through their accounts, so that people recognize their face.
• Grüns opens ads on more than one creator page with the same line, that its gummies deliver 21 vitamins and minerals, plus prebiotics in one tasty bite. We read that in the Meta Ad Library on 8 August 2026.

From my channel and our read of the Meta Ad Library on 8 August 2026.

Why 25 creator videos can count as one ad, and the mix that fixes it

Many creators saying the same thing is not variety in Meta's eyes, so plan different kinds of ads around one persona.

• One brand's hypothesis was to test an ad set built around one persona with 12 to 15 diverse ads in it, in place of an ad set with three ads. For a mom persona that means 12 ads that are very different, some partnership ads, some UGC, some static, run to pages that match.
• One brand's big unlock was a combination of top of funnel messaging about a persona, partnership ads, and landing pages that are very specific to it. Its persona funnels had names like five reasons why moms love this, with mostly partnership ads going to them.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:09:06, 59:29 and 55:38.

3.4 · What do I put in the brief for the creator?

A refilm costs more than a clear ask, so hand over the hooks and shots up front

Getting the right footage the first time is the expensive part to miss, and brands keep a written document for it.

• The biggest problem is making sure the influencer gets the right content, because it is much more expensive to have the influencer refilm, as with any UGC creator.
• One brand gives each creator a long PDF, an SOP, that lists the 50 hooks and the three or four B rolls it wants. It gets all of the raw content back and its internal editing team does the split testing, because going back to ask a creator for something is a lot.
• Ridge sorts its launches into tiers. When it has a partner on a tier one launch, it is typically doing partnership ad reads, so that launch gets a partner ad read doc.

Heard on Open Residency at 47:08, and on Marketing Operators at 22:36. From my channel.

Keep the rest of the brief light, as HexClad did with one big creator

Brands that used to tell a creator exactly what to create now give less input and get ads back that are more authentic.

• One brand says who comes up with the concept has really moved from the strategist to the creator. In place of telling a creator exactly what to create, it asks the creator to talk about the product in a way that is authentic, and does that 100 times.

• The one thing HexClad still spells out is the why behind picking that creator. A mom or dad style creator will hit different value props, like how quick the pan heats up and cleans up, than a 33 year old buff guy who is cooking a lot of steak.
• HexClad did not send an overly prescribed brief to a Bravo TV personality whose audience is there for her product reviews. What came back was single shot, barely edited stuff, and by the end of the term HexClad had spent 7 to 8 times what it paid her on those ads and got a huge return.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 20:15, 24:10, 29:04, 34:34 and 35:09.

How to collect creator content you can run as ads

Use this when creators post about your product and none of that content gets reused in ads.

1. Have creators post the content on their own accounts, then get permission to run it as an ad.
2. Ask for Reels in the content section, because Reels are usually the best format to run as ads later.
3. Get about 100 creators posting, then choose your 10 favorites to turn into ads.
4. Check that trending content uses royalty-free music before you boost it.

Sources: Statusphere, 13:31 · Ben Heath, 24:29, 17:05 · Statusphere, 14:01, 28:09

How to pick which creator videos to put ad money behind

Use this when many creators have posted and one video got far more views than the rest.

1. Choose raw, iPhone-style creator videos. Beautiful product shots can make people skip the ad.
2. Promote videos with a strong hook, because 50% of a TikTok ad's impact happens in the first 2 seconds.
3. Look for hooks that ask if the product lives up to the hype, test a new viral item, or say the creator was surprised.
4. Keep Spark Ads under 15 seconds. TikTok says they give a 38% higher sales lift than longer ads.

Watch out:

• Don't pass on rough content because it looks imperfect. One panel's top performer was a video with a ripped box.

Sources: Influencer Hero, 9:17, 8:38 · Statusphere, 12:14, 26:35, 26:50, 27:11, 30:12

How to test creator ads and find the winner

Use this when your creator ads are ready and you can't guess which video will hit.

1. Find the winner in each group of 3 to 5 ads, then put the rest of the budget behind it.
2. Use different creators so each ad gets its own entity ID on Meta. 3 creators on one product count as 3 different ads.
3. Place partnership ads at the top of the funnel, where they tend to work best at finding new people.

Watch out:

• Meta groups ads with the same hook, person, background, lighting and first three seconds as one ad, so ten similar ads count as one. Change those things between ads.

Sources: Statusphere, 39:01, 29:21, 29:41 · Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm, 10:16, 6:51, 10:51

Step 4: What it costs and what to expect

• Once this step is done, you know what to pay for the rights, how to pay the creator, and what results to expect.

4.1 · What does it cost, and is it on top of the creator's fee?

• One agency puts 20% of the influencer cost toward 30 days of ad rights: 20k of a 100k deal.
• A creator with 3 million followers is probably 4 to 8k a month for whitelisting.
• One brand ran no paid behind Benny Blanco, because his likeness and handle would have cost three or four times the deal.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 40:18, 1:11:23 and 13:32.

Two ways brands buy creator content for ads, with an organic post or without one

Before the price comes what you are buying. Some brands pay for a post plus the rights, others only for content to run as ads.

• Emily Austen, founder of the PR agency Emerge, is seeing a lot of spend change from faces of a brand to just people making content. Brands do not even need them to post on their social feeds, so they become almost freelance content creators for brands.
• Jones Road does two things with influencers. One is a UGC pipeline that is whitelisting with no organic influencer posts, just getting content and whitelisting it.
• Probably double the amount of budget at Jones Road goes to people posting on their own IG, a reel or a story, with Jones Road getting rights to that as part of the deal. Which style performs better is still to be decided, but it seems like both work.
• One brand pays micro influencers $1,000 to $2,000 just for ad content. That deal does not even require them to post, because the brand only wants to use them in paid media.

Heard on Secret Leaders at 1:11:39, and on Marketing Operators at 51:31, 51:51 and 14:06.

What brands pay for a video they can run from the creator's handle

The price depends on the size of the creator. These lines give the figures brands said out loud, from the cheapest up.

• Ridge pays $100 a video, $80 a video or $200 a video, something like that, for briefs it sends out to creators. Ridge says 95% plus of its volume content is made this way, and counts that as an internal process.
• One brand has maybe 50 to 100 creators that are not gifted and pays them per video, like 100 or 200 bucks, largely for content. The brand then gets access to their pages to run partnership ads.
• Zach Stuck's sweet spot is a lot of deals somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 a month for one video and then 30 days of whitelisting access. He says that is pretty expensive compared to a normal UGC deal.
• One brand has Nancy Silverton on a bigger brand ambassador deal worth multiple six figures. Doing only paid ads with her would probably still cost 25, 30, 40 or 50K a month, though the speaker does not know exactly.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 56:46, 18:55, 46:28 and 14:36.

Ask for the ad rights inside the deal instead of paying for them later

Several brands do not pay a separate fee for the rights. The rights are written into the deal the brand is already paying for.

• Ridge is trying to do fewer YouTuber deals and be way more involved in each one. With MKBHD, Ridge will be on 20 of his videos this year, gets ad rights to that content and gets to whitelist that content.
• Ridge has a roster of probably 50 people who make UGC. Part of paying for UGC is that Ridge also gets access to their whitelisting.
• One brand negotiates a lot of its deals so that it gets the partnership content at no additional cost. If the ads work, the brand can take some of that cost and reallocate it.

Heard on Open Residency at 46:43 and 54:32, and on Marketing Operators at 13:44, 23:27 and 41:51.

Where the rights do cost extra, and why a month of ads can be cheaper than one post

Agencies and creators price usage in different ways. These two lines show a markup on one side and a bargain on the other.

• With a creative agency, a brand might typically pay say 20 to 30% more for usage rights to run the content on Meta and TikTok. The content is also time bound, so the brand can only use it for 3 to 6 months.
• One marketer tells of an influencer who charges $10,000 for a story post, one video, and 5,000 for an entire month of whitelisting the page plus 30 creatives to run as ads. He calls that undervalued, because influencers do not know how to price for ads.

Heard on Jordan Kilgour Business at 20:17, and on BAD Marketing at 48:42.

How to work out what a paid usage deal has to earn back

A big deal rarely pays for itself on the post alone. These lines show how brands set the fee against the ad spend it needs.

• One brand takes a deal of 30 grand for a story or two stories plus 30 days of whitelisting. If the creator makes 10 grand, the brand calls the cost of content 20 and does not expect to be profitable on that number.
• One brand tries to put 10 times the content cost into media spend. On a 30 grand deal that brought zero revenue the brand has to spend 300 grand on the content, and if the deal brought 10 grand it has to spend 200 grand.
• Jones Road budgets 10% of media spend on creative and backs the fee out from that. If a creator is 10K a month, Jones Road has to spend 100k a month on that creator's assets.
• One brand splits the cost by what it gets. Content that is not posted at all goes 100% to the ad creative bucket, and a YouTube deal with no rights goes to the influencer bucket.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 42:39, 43:07, 45:48 and 13:08.

4.2 · How should I pay the creator for it?

• A small percentage of ad spend paid to the creator got them excited about the brand, and new-customer CPAs came in 20% to 30% lower.
• Or guarantee a minimum ad spend on the creator's page, plus an affiliate commission on top; it works for both sides, but takes time.
• A good rule of thumb is 30 days of whitelisting, the cost would be split 80% to influencer and 20% to creative.
• Ketone-IQ: a partner gets a portion of the spend behind their whitelisted ads.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 44:30, on Dennis Ksendzov at 7:21, and on Open Residency at 17:30.

What share of the ad spend creators are paid, and what the top ones now ask for

A share of spend is a common way to pay for whitelisting. These lines give the going rates and what happens when a creator asks for more.

• Zach Stuck's example is paying 3% of ad spend to a creator and saying the brand spent 300 grand on the ad last month, so here is a $15,000 check. The creator then wants to shoot more content for the brand.
• At Hollow, Zach Stuck has four creators signed and spends about 20,000 a month on creator fees. He bets that by Jan 1 Hollow will have 10 creators, all at 5k a month with some type of performance bonus.
• One team generally sees a creator fee of two to five percent of ad spend, whether for TikTok Shop or for Meta ads. Top creators are wanting up to 10% of ad spend, which can be very expensive.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 47:10 and 47:45, and on Influencer Hero at 24:50 and 25:26.

How to set up the pay so the creator stays and the bill does not surprise you

The structure matters as much as the rate. These lines cover the order to try things in, a guarantee, and one trap.

• A share of 10% is still pretty high. In the two or three, maybe even 5% range, the creator is incentivized to win just as much as the brand, and starts making volumes of videos and focusing on quality.

• HexClad used to sign a 12 month deal with organic deliverables, paid deliverables, all the whitelisting, event appearances and studio days. HexClad now does the bare minimum it knows will perform over a much shorter period, tests that with 3 to 6 month usage, and goes into a bigger deal if it works.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 14:15, 26:36 and 26:51, on Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm at 24:57, and on Marketing Operators at 33:54.

4.3 · What results can I expect, and how fast?

• Launching an ad from a creator's handle taps a new audience almost immediately.
• One brand has already put close to $200,000 behind a single creator's assets and expects a huge ROI.
• Posts with the creator in them beat one brand's other buys, but not at the 100% success rate it expected.
• Ridge has tested whitelisting many times over the years and never matched its other purchase campaigns, though it may be more incremental.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:00:22, 1:09:30, 1:00:31 and 47:42.

What the creator's own post returns, and where the value of the deal sits

Do not expect the organic post to pay for the deal. Jones Road finds most of the worth in the asset and the whitelisting.

• Jones Road has seen very little value in the distribution, which is how the creator's post performs in and of itself, and definitely not anything close to a break even CPA on it. Jones Road thinks the majority of the worth is in the asset and the whitelisting.
• Where Jones Road does get more value is one large creator who is now going to be the face of a campaign, a kind of ambassador. She will continue to post and put the brand in multiple places, and that value accrues over time, though it is hard to measure from a direct response view.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 12:02 and 12:12.

What brands have seen when the ad runs from a creator instead of the brand

The lift is an average and not a promise. The last line shows what one brand ran into when most of its ads leaned on influencers.

• One team sees, on average and in aggregate, about a 15% increase in conversion efficiency when campaigns come from the creator's handle versus the brand's handle. The team says that does not mean this is what your brand will see.
• One person who runs Meta ads has seen so many examples where a business at say a 2x return on ad spend performs at a 6x with an influencer ad, same offer, same product. The reason given is that someone recognizable in the industry is one of the best scroll stoppers.
• Two hosts who run their own businesses, without big followings, noticed increases in sales when ads ran under a personal name instead of the brand name.

Heard on ethercycle at 17:49, on Ben Heath at 2:32, on eCommerce Uncensored at 15:26, and on Ronak Shah at 10:43.

How fast to scale an ad that works, and how to judge it when the creator takes a share

Speed comes from spend. These lines say when to raise the budget and what to watch once a share of spend is owed.

• Once the ad is running, raise daily spend as quickly as possible to train the algorithm as quickly as possible. You do this just by increasing the amount of budget that you spend.

• Do not be afraid to spend on a creator's ad either, because some of these creator ads could end up being the top performing ads. The ads may need different KPIs, because that 10% of ad spend has to be factored in.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 25:54 and 26:16. From my channel.

How to agree the usage rights with a creator before the work starts

Use this when you're about to pay a creator and want to keep running and reworking their content if the ad wins.

1. Raise whitelisting and raw asset rights with the creator before any work starts.
2. Set the usage rights period in the deal. 6 months is the usual length.
3. Write your own creator agreement if you run your own community, and include permission to use the content on Meta and TikTok.

Watch out:

• A creator can ask you to pull an ad 7 days after it goes live, as it starts working. Lock the usage rights first.
• Pay per day or per ad spend can bring a big surprise bill at month end while the ad is still up. Fix the terms first.

Sources: Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm, 24:00, 23:44, 23:48 · Influencer Hero, 24:29 · Jordan Kilgour Business, 21:42 · Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm, 24:45, 24:59

How to price the right to run a creator's content as ads

Use this when a creator wants more pay because you plan to run their content as ads.

1. Aim for a percentage of 2, 3 or maybe 5% of ad spend, so the creator wants the ad to win too.
2. Tell the person who buys your media how much you pay each creator, and stop spending on a creator ad that isn't working.

Watch out:

• Top creators ask for up to 10% of ad spend, which gets very expensive. The usual fee is 2 to 5%.

Sources: Statusphere, 14:54 · Ben Heath, 19:20 · Influencer Hero, 26:36, 26:56, 25:32, 26:05, 25:47

Step 5: Scale it (brands already running paid)

• Once this step is done, you know what to judge whitelisting on and how much of your spend it can carry.

5.1 · What should I judge whitelisted ads on? (for bigger brands)

• One team shut off whitelisting videos at a 0.5 ROAS next to statics at 1, though the video could be way more incremental.
• One CMO wants to accept 20% less ROAS on whitelisted videos, because they do the top of funnel work.
• Run two cells side by side, one with no partnership ads and one at 40%, and compare.
• Jones Road: tested partnership ads against none, expecting the same ROAS with better reach.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 45:12, 47:32 and 33:49.

Hold creator ads to a different standard than bottom of funnel ads, and check who they reach

Attribution numbers alone would have stopped these brands scaling creator ads. These lines show what the brands look at beside them.

• One brand's statics look so strong in its last month report that anyone would ask why the brand does not run only statics. The statics are way more bottom of funnel and depend on all the video content in the account, which has a much higher percent net new visit rate.
• One brand looks at the ad set level when it launches partnership ads and asks whether this creator is reaching new audiences. That is a big part of the goal with the larger macro creators, and it helps to underwrite those ads, because the attribution metrics would not always have let the brand scale into them.
• One brand has not gotten partnership or whitelisting ads to work, and says the ads do not outperform in Meta's ads platform or in the brand's first party data. The brand thinks there is a chance the ads have a higher incremental impact, so it is in the midst of a geo lift hold out for whitelisting ads specifically.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 38:12, 38:50, 1:10:36 and 46:30.

How long to run a whitelisted ad before judging it, and how to tell which creators deliver

An ad cut too soon was never tested. These lines give a spend floor for each ad and a way to compare one creator with the next.

• If the ad has no purchases at $300, look at the click through rate and the add to carts for something to hold on to. One whitelisting webinar says an ad that reaches $400 with still no purchase probably gets cut, and that any one ad should run to at least three to 5x the CPA target.
• Track partnership ad performance separately from the other ads, and look at which creators are the ones delivering.
• Do not stop at saying all the partnership ads are doing well. Ask which creator brings the lower CPAs, the higher click through rates and more engagement, then get rid of what did not work and keep what did.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 44:46 and 45:08, and on Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm at 30:03 and 30:18.

5.2 · What share of my ad spend should run through partner ads? (for bigger brands)

• Across the five brands one host interviewed about ad spend, partnership ads were 40 to 60% of spend.
• In most healthy ad accounts, creator-style assets are 30 to 70% of the total media mix.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:10:55, on Common Thread Collective at 1:29, and on Open Residency at 42:59.

• Jones Road: 30 to 40% of its Meta account runs on partnership ads, at very similar efficiency.
• Obvi: 75% of its ads were influencer content whitelisted on Facebook and Instagram.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 59:07, and on Ronak Shah at 10:38.

Jones Road leans hard on partnership ads, and one media buyer has brands at 50% of budget

These lines add how much Jones Road and one media buyer's brands put behind creator ads, and why the whole budget should not go there.

• Jones Road is very heavy on partnership ads right now. Direct response UGC has almost never worked in the Jones Road account, while partnership ads work incredibly well.
• One media buyer has brands that spend 50% of the budget on creator ads, and brands that put the entire budget there.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 1:10:20, and on Influencer Hero at 29:31 and 29:36.

How to find your own share when you spend little or nothing on creator ads today

There is no magic number. Start with a small share of the budget, check it at month end, and put in more where the account says it is working.

• A lot of brands put paid spend behind creator content, but they do not do it at the right scale.

• If creator ads are working really well, do not stop investing there. Double down on that.
• One brand does a pulse check at month end on the share of spend going to each asset type. If UGC showed a huge month over month lift while UGC was only 20% of the account, the brand would go and source more UGC for the next two months, because it is lifting up the entire account.
• That brand does not set a goal for the percentage of spend on each asset type. The month end check gives direction and action items, not a fixed amount to put into statics or into videos.

Heard on Influencer Hero at 28:26 and 28:40, and on Marketing Operators at 1:11:39 and 1:11:58. From my channel.

5.3 · How do I keep a winning creator ad running, and when do I refresh it?

Force real spend behind an expensive partner, because a slow launch wastes the 30 days of rights

Paying a lot for a partner's content and then hoping the campaign spends on it is the mistake. These lines show the spend problem and one way to fix it.

• Jones Road's largest partner was 30 grand a month just on content. Jones Road does not want to put that in ASC and hope it gets spent, so partnership ads sit in a campaign of their own where some spend is forced to them.

• When a winner comes with 30 days rights, the brand wants to scale it as fast as possible. Launching at 500 bucks a day or 250 bucks a day and doubling that for a few days in a row still does not spend meaningfully.
• The choices at that point are to double or triple the budget where the ad is, to relaunch it at five grand a day and see how it does, or to try to scale it into other campaigns, where it does not always perform the same.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 23:33, 41:48, 41:54, 42:23 and 43:34.

A hero whitelisted ad can run for years, so new winners get a scale campaign of their own

An old winner holds so much history that new ads struggle to get spend beside it. One brand moves its recent winners into a separate campaign.

• One brand's hero whitelisted ad has been running for 2 and 1/2 years. The brand does not have high confidence that a winning creative from the last 3 months can go and compete with it.
• When that brand launches an ad from creative testing into its primary scale campaign, the ad sometimes will not spend, because it is competing with a bunch of other ads that have tons of historical data.

• In our read of the Meta Ad Library on 26 September 2026, a Grüns ad running from Whatkaidoes's handle had started running on Jun 1, 2026.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 45:37, 45:53 and 46:18. From our read of the Meta Ad Library on 26 September 2026.

Most winning ads tire within weeks, so keep new creator content waiting in the queue

People stop seeing an ad once it has been shown to them enough times. These lines say how fast that happens and what to set up before it does.

• Ad fatigue is when someone sees the same exact ad creative enough times to almost become blind to it. Most creatives start to show fatigue after a few weeks, though there is always one outlier that goes six months, or at best a year, without it.

• Have more content waiting in the queue, so that when an ad starts to come down the new ones can be added in.

Heard on Statusphere at 36:57, 37:45 and 38:15. From webinar pitch V4 (my flow, as a story).

Plan the next angle while the winner is still working

A winner will not win forever. These lines say how much to keep testing beside it and where Jones Road wants to take a creator ad that performs.

• Keep 10, 20 or 30% going to new styles and structures of content, because winning videos will not be winning forever. To make up for the creative fatigue of a winning creative, find a different market segment or a different avatar.
• Partnership ads and professional content both work well for Jones Road, so one of its goals is to combine them. When Jones Road finds a larger creator partnership ad that performs, the plan is to do more of an in house production with that creator and turn it into a larger campaign.

Heard on Jordan Kilgour Business at 4:11 and 29:40, and on Marketing Operators at 1:10:44.

How to run creator ads with manual allow listing

Use this when you want lookalike audiences built from a creator's followers.

1. Build a lookalike audience from the creator's followers, for example 10,000 followers grown to 500,000 people.
2. Study the data in the creator's ad account to learn your best products, video length and captions.

Watch out:

• Partnership ads don't let the brand edit the content, change the caption or reply to comments, and the paid partnership tag always shows. Plan for that before choosing them.
• Don't turn off your other ads to run only partnership ads. The 19% drop in CPA only shows up when they are part of your full creative mix.

Sources: Statusphere, 18:48, 19:00, 20:32 · eCommerce Uncensored, 19:58 · Statusphere, 22:29 · Social Paradigm Group - Social Nucleus x Paradigm, 17:27

How to keep creator ads from wearing out

Use this when a creator ad has run for a few weeks and ad fatigue starts.

1. Refresh TikTok creatives every 7 days, as TikTok recommends. TikTok ads tend to tire faster than Instagram ads.
2. Keep a queue of new content ready, so you can add the next ads when an ad's results drop.
3. Run an always-on testing group next to your proven creators to feed your pipeline.

Sources: Statusphere, 37:27, 37:40, 38:17 · Influencer Hero, 31:08

How to build a third-party identity for your ads

Use this when you want more creative variety than new angles and formats alone can give.

1. Research keywords on PPC and Google, covering long-tail searches, problems and comparisons, to find third-party identity ideas.
2. Build a swipe file from the ad libraries of Pet Lab Co, Space Goods, Trip, Mindful Chef, Heights and IM8.
3. Build the identity around one persona, like menopausal moms, or one credible niche, like styling tips.
4. Make a third-party page on your winning angle or keyword once you know it.
5. Run the third-party top-of-funnel ads on a bestseller, the product whose data shows the best chance of a high conversion rate.
6. Open the ad with an authentic UGC comment reply as the hook, so it feels native.

Sources: D2C Diaries, 10:51, 33:48, 30:01, 19:22, 18:11, 30:20, 26:48, 26:40

How to build the pages a creator ad leads to

Use this when your top identities are getting clicks and you want more of those clicks to buy.

1. Build the post-click blog or advertorial from the same identity as your winning ad.
2. Send people who click to an educational pre-sale page first, then to a sales page.
3. Write the advertorial to answer a question, teach about a problem, take on a failed past solution or common objection, or compare against competitors.
4. Write a top-five article with your product ranked first for long-tail searches like best memory supplements.
5. Keep the same identity, angle and headline from the ad to the pre-sale page to the product page.

Sources: D2C Diaries, 38:58, 32:48, 25:50, 20:36, 21:38, 25:08

Step 6: Run it on TikTok and YouTube

6.1 · What is a Spark Ad?

A Spark Ad is a creator's own TikTok post run as an ad under the creator's name

TikTok has one way to run an ad from a creator's handle. These lines say what the viewer sees and who keeps the follows.

• TikTok only has one type of allow listing and it is called Spark Ads. Creators share video codes with brands to turn organic videos into ads, each code is unique to a specific post, and the ad runs under the creator's handle with a general sponsored label.
• Spark Ads are run through the creator's account, similar to what is called allow listing on Meta. The viewer sees the creator's name, and the call to action goes to the brand's website or TikTok Shop.
• A Spark Ad looks and acts like an organic TikTok post. The handle and the follow button both go to the creator, and the call to action links out to the brand's landing page.
• Spark Ads use posts from organic TikTok accounts, so all the views, comments, shares, likes and follows gained from boosting the video are attributed to the organic post.
• On a Spark Ad the viewer can click the profile photo to go to the video owner's profile page, and click the plus sign on the profile photo to follow the account.

Heard on Statusphere at 23:55, 39:34 and 39:55. From TikTok's help page on Spark Ads.

6.2 · How do I get the Spark code from a creator?

The steps for the creator and for the brand to turn a post into a Spark Ad

The creator makes a code for one post and the brand enters it. These lines give the taps and the other way in.

• The creator authorizes the ad partnership on the creator's account and generates the ad code. The brand then creates a new ad in the brand's account and inputs that ad code.
• A brand can batch authorize up to 20 video codes at a time.
• A code is not the only way in. When creating a campaign, a brand can link to a creator's TikTok account and select from the available creatives of the identities the brand is authorized on.

Heard on Statusphere at 24:26. From TikTok's help page on creating Spark Ads.

How one fishing line brand collects a spark code from every creator it samples

Some creators let any brand run ads on a tagged video and some do not. This brand asks every one of them for the code.

• Some creators do not have mass ad authorization turned on, so the brand has to reach out, get the spark code and put it in its ad library. One fishing line brand says most big creators at this point have it turned on.

• One fishing line brand has a VA that follows up on all the samples the brand sends, asking for spark codes every single day. A Google sheet keeps track of all those spark codes in case the brand needs them.

• The spark code does not go into TikTok Shop or into the campaign. The brand copies and pastes the code into the ads library inside the TikTok ads manager, a separate platform, and then the video can be put into the GMV Max ads.

Heard on Helium 10 at 20:32, 20:45, 21:42, 22:04 and 23:41.

How spark codes feed a TikTok Shop GMV Max campaign

GMV Max chooses which videos get the ad spend. A creator's video can only be chosen once the creator has given permission.

• The GMV Max campaign targets the product, so any video that tags that product gets put in, from the brand account or from an affiliate. For affiliates the brand has to have permission, through a spark code or through mass ad authorization.

• One webinar speaker tells creators that GMV Max picks up the videos that convert best. The more videos a creator puts out with automatic authorization or a spark code, the more likely the creator is to get ad spend on them.

Heard on Helium 10 at 11:00 and 11:26, and on Finaloop ecommerce accounting at 50:03 and 50:29.

6.3 · How long does a Spark code last?

The creator picks how many days the code works, so ask for the longest one

A spark code runs out. These lines give the lengths on offer, what to ask for and what it takes to end one.

• The creator sets the time frame of the code. The presets are 7 days, 30 days, 60 days and 365 days, and the creator gives whatever was agreed in the agreement with the brand.

• When a brand adds posts by their codes, there is an authorization period beneath each post for the brand to review.
• A video code can only be deleted when all the ads that use the video are deleted in TikTok Ads Manager.

Heard on Statusphere at 24:31, and on Helium 10 at 24:41. From TikTok's help page on creating Spark Ads.

6.4 · What does it cost to set up Spark Ads?

What a spark code costs the brand in creator fees, labor and commission

The code is not free and somebody has to collect it. These lines cover the creator's charge, the labor and the commission.

• Creators are going to charge for letting the brand run the post and for giving the code, so the brand has to negotiate that with the creator as well.
• Collecting spark codes and pasting them into the ads library is something any low rate VA can do. One fishing line brand says a brand can pay three bucks an hour or five bucks an hour for it.

• One webinar speaker does not promise creators full commission on sales that come through ads. With a 40% affiliate rate and the brand also running ads it is very difficult to make money, because that high commission rate is for the creator to do the work to go viral.

Heard on Statusphere at 43:00, on Helium 10 at 21:02 and 24:26, and on Finaloop ecommerce accounting at 50:59.

TikTok can lose money on its own and still pay back on other channels

One hemp drink founder does not judge TikTok by its own profit. The founder counts the sales TikTok sends to other channels.

• BREZ's founder says TikTok is actually a pretty unprofitable channel for most people. It is such a good demand engine that it leads to overflow into DTC sales, Amazon sales and retail sales.
• BREZ hired a bunch of affiliates on TikTok Shop right out of the gate by mass sending emails to TikTok creators. BREZ then hired a bunch of creators to make videos about the product, put ad spend behind the videos, and the videos blew up really quickly.

Heard on Limited Supply at 13:08 and 13:29.

6.5 · How do I set up the Spark Ad once I have the code?

The goal to choose, how many posts to test and which posts to pick

TikTok gives its own numbers on what works. These lines cover the goal, the count of posts in an ad group and the length.

• Spark Ads support the Reach, Traffic, Video Views, Conversions, Lead generation and Sales objectives, among others.

• Ad creatives made specifically for TikTok by creators result in the highest ad recall and performance, according to TikTok. Repurposing content from another platform can work, but it is always best to use content that was created for that one platform.

Heard on Statusphere at 26:35, 27:08, 28:48 and 29:21. From TikTok's help page on Spark Ads.

6.6 · What goes wrong with Spark Ads?

What gets locked or exposed once a creator's post is authorized as a Spark Ad

A post changes once it becomes an ad. Settle the caption, the privacy setting and the music before the creator makes the code.

• A post's caption cannot be edited after the post has been authorized as an ad, so make sure the caption is the final version first.
• A private video becomes public once it is used in a campaign, and the video's privacy status cannot be changed during promotion.
• There is a 10 minute maximum on videos that can be sparked.

Heard on Statusphere at 28:06. From TikTok's help page on creating Spark Ads and TikTok's help page on Spark Ads.

What a brand cannot edit, target or see on a Spark Ad

A Spark Ad is simpler than running a creator's handle on Meta. The price is less control and, for sales, sometimes a weaker ad.

• On a Spark Ad, brands cannot edit the captions or create custom influencer audiences based on the data. A brand does not get all the customization it can get with manual allow listing on Meta.
• The ad's display name and text reflect the chosen organic post and cannot be edited while the ad is created in TikTok Ads Manager.

• Spark Ads carry no public badge, and TikTok's Commercial Content Library covers only the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. A US brand that amplifies hard on TikTok reads as a clean gap in every tool, so a competitor's Spark Ads cannot be counted from outside.

Heard on Statusphere at 24:18, and on DTC House at 22:41. From TikTok's help page on Spark Ads and our notes on what the ad libraries can show.

6.7 · Can I run a creator's video as a YouTube ad?

HexClad's best YouTube ads are long cooking videos that were made for the organic channel

A video made to be watched can beat a video made to sell. These lines show what worked as a YouTube ad for two brands.

• HexClad's Gordon Ramsay how to cook a steak video is an 8 minute video that HexClad first produced just to live on its organic YouTube as a fun recipe piece. It is HexClad's highest return on ad spend ad this year on one day click and one day view.
• Two different how to cook steak videos have been two of HexClad's top three performing YouTube ads. The second best performing ad is Chef Daphne talking the viewer through how to cook a steak, which is much less direct response than it is narrative storytelling.
• HexClad's YouTube ads that work really well all feel very premium, with high production value, clearly shot in a studio on a set. That is very different from what HexClad puts in its Facebook accounts.
• If HexClad thinks an organic YouTube video has the chance to be a good ad, HexClad puts paid media behind it. The goal is performance on a one day click and view basis, not impressions or views.
• One brand with Marques Brownlee content in its YouTube ads says those ads were getting a better one day click ROAS than Meta. The brand is extremely confident that these YouTube campaigns have a two or three X incrementality factor relative to Meta.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 15:51, 23:55, 25:57, 54:14 and 55:44.

How the creator shares the video with the brand's Google Ads account

YouTube calls this brand partner access. The brand cannot use the creator's video in its advertising until the creator shares it.

• If the creator accepts the share request, the advertiser can view the video's organic performance metrics in Google Ads and use linked videos in its advertising.
• The creator can start it by selecting a reported brand deal during video upload or edit, by searching for a brand during video upload or edit, or by generating a code and sending it to the brand partner. The last two are only for creators in YouTube's partner program.
• A brand can also start it. After the video is uploaded, the brand can send a request to associate the brand's Google Ads account to that video.
• The creator can say no. YouTube tells creators it is entirely up to the creator whether or not to accept the advertiser's request to share the video to the brand's Google Ads account.
• Write the boost into the deal. YouTube says sharing access allows the brand to use the video in creator partnerships boost campaigns if boosting has been negotiated as part of the campaign.

From YouTube's help page on creator partnerships.

6.8 · How do I run ads from a creator's own YouTube channel?

Allow listing a creator's YouTube channel is new, and the first tests are mixed

YouTube now lets a brand run ads from a creator's page. These brands have barely started, and one early test lost to the brand page.

• HexClad tried allow listing once with a chef that does not have a ton of clout. It did not do as well as the Gordon, Chef Daphne and Chef Marcella ads that HexClad runs from its brand page.
• HexClad still thinks allow listing from YouTube is going to be huge for the brand. The content that has worked from HexClad's branded YouTube page is Gordon and other chefs with medium to high levels of clout.

• One brand that has Marques Brownlee content in its YouTube ads has run partnership ads from his handle on Meta, but has not done that on YouTube.
• One podcast host sees Google going the same direction as Meta on partnership ads, after Google bought BrandConnect. That host is very excited to test it with YouTube specific creators.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 32:58, 37:05, 56:36 and 1:01:53.

YouTube Shopping lets a creator tag the product so the video itself is shoppable

This is not an ad, but it sits beside one. A creator's video can sell the product with no link out to the brand's website.

• YouTube Shopping integrates directly with Shopify, so Marques tags Ridge products in his Shorts and the products are shoppable directly from there. Ridge says it has not been high volume.
• One Marketing Operators host has done a little bit of that through the new YouTube affiliate program. The host says it looks way sharper than linking out to the brand's website with an Awin link.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 38:04 and 38:26.

6.9 · How should the YouTube ad account be set up?

Why Ridge keeps YouTube in its own account, apart from search and shopping

Most people who see a YouTube ad search for the brand before they buy. These lines say where that sale gets counted and what Ridge does.

• Ridge has a separate YouTube account so that YouTube is not hindered at all by the search and shopping attribution. Ridge's host would think that is still best practice, but says not to hold him to that.
• Adding up the conversions from Ridge's YouTube account and its Google account would double count a ton of conversions. Ridge does not really use either platform as the source of truth, and keeps the accounts separate to send more signal back to YouTube.
• Ridge often launches YouTube campaigns with max conversions until the campaign gets enough learning, then makes adjustments from there. Ridge also gives the campaign two events to optimize with, a purchase event and an add to cart, which Ridge does not do on any other platform.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 29:47, 31:29 and 32:18.

How HexClad lays out its YouTube campaigns, and the small campaign with the best ROAS

HexClad calls its setup pretty basic. The surprise is a campaign set to get views, not sales.

• HexClad has a classic prospecting and remarketing setup on YouTube with all of its top performing creatives. Prospecting is pretty broad, all age ranges with a big interest stack, on target CPA and optimized for conversions.
• HexClad runs a view optimized campaign at a small share, about 10% of its budget for the year, and it is by far HexClad's best performing ROAS. That reading is per Northbeam.
• HexClad heard about the view optimized campaign from another marketer who said to try it out. HexClad's head of advertising launched it and it crushed.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 32:54, 32:58 and 33:41.

6.10 · Which audiences and creatives should I run on YouTube?

How Jones Road sets up its YouTube audiences across three campaigns

Jones Road keeps YouTube simple. These lines give its three campaigns and where the audiences for them come from.

• Jones Road has three campaigns live in its YouTube account. One is a Shorts campaign at pretty low spend, one is an in market campaign narrowed to female and in market for skin care and makeup, and one is an affinity campaign.
• Jones Road does not run any interests on Meta, but affinity on YouTube is the equivalent of interests on Meta. Jones Road goes into Google Analytics, sees its top affinities or audiences and tests them.
• All of Jones Road's YouTube campaigns are video action, which is YouTube's equivalent of sales. All are on maximize conversions, which is the equivalent of lowest cost.
• A brand can get a little bit more segmented on YouTube than on Meta and try to match the creative to the targeting. Jones Road would still prefer to keep it pretty consolidated.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 34:31, 34:50, 35:24 and 35:27.

How many new creatives YouTube needs, and which ad formats these brands run

YouTube asks for far fewer new ads than paid social. These lines give the pace at Jones Road and the formats Ridge and HexClad use.

• Jones Road does not creative test on YouTube. Jones Road keeps the two to three creatives that are performing well live and launches two new creatives every week or every other week, with no variants and no hook testing.
• Jones Road just lets a new creative run for a week and sees how it does. Jones Road launches whole creatives because YouTube does not need that many.
• Ridge has a lot of its short form vertical video going live on YouTube Shorts, which Ridge thinks is undervalued ad inventory. Ridge spends a lot more time editing slightly longer content for in stream, where the ad gets five non skippable seconds.
• HexClad is not running any Shorts ads. It is all pre roll and mid roll.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 14:21, 34:27, 36:02 and 36:25.

6.11 · How much can YouTube spend?

How much of the budget goes on YouTube, and how far one host thinks it can go

YouTube is a small line for some of these brands and a very large one for others. These lines give the numbers the hosts said.

• One Marketing Operators host says the brand could get really good at Reddit and never be able to spend a fraction of what it could on YouTube. The host thinks the brand can get YouTube to $50,000 a day relatively easily.
• HexClad does not spend a ton on YouTube because it has not felt totally able to validate it. YouTube has been about 1.5% of HexClad's total budget this year, which is still 250 or 300k for the year, and HexClad thinks it is going to go way up very soon.
• One Marketing Operators host names William Painter as a brand that scaled to like 15 million a year and spent like 80% of its entire budget on YouTube. The host says that had to have been 2018 or something.

Heard on Marketing Operators at 15:09, 25:17 and 38:41.

How to get a spark code from a creator

Use this when you want a creator to agree that you can run ads to their post.

1. Ask for the length you agreed in the contract: 7, 30, 60 or 365 days. One teacher says always ask for 365, the longest.
2. Negotiate the price of the spark code, since creators will charge to give it to you.

Sources: Helium 10, 22:04, 23:05 · Statusphere, 24:35 · Helium 10, 24:54 · Statusphere, 43:00

How to turn a creator's TikTok post into a Spark Ad

Use this when you sell on TikTok Shop, where most ads run through other people's profiles.

1. Have the creator post the video on their own TikTok account first, then boost that post.
2. Check the video feels like a TikTok, not an ad. Rework any video that could not live as an organic post.
3. Run the existing post as a Spark Ad, so the comments on the original post keep showing on the ad.

Sources: Finaloop ecommerce accounting, 4:38 · Statusphere, 11:20, 38:12, 40:53

What the best whitelisting programs look like

• No single brand publishes its whole program, so this one is built from several.

1. Grüns: 77 ads from 48 creator handles, of 289 ads read on August 8, 2026.
2. Cowboy Colostrum: 41 ads from 19 creator handles, of 107 ads read on August 8, 2026.
3. AG1: 27 ads from 12 creator handles, of 89 ads read on August 2, 2026.
4. Seed: 27 ads from 7 creator handles, of 85 ads read on August 2, 2026.
5. Create: 25 ads from 7 creator handles, of 117 ads read on August 8, 2026.

Click to enlarge

• Jessie James Decker with Grüns, Library ID 1039743252194339, started running on Aug 26, 2026.
• From the Meta Ad Library.

Click to enlarge

• katiemariedoan with Grüns, Library ID 1354836910138016, started running on Aug 20, 2026.
• From the Meta Ad Library.
• A few carry most of the ads: BobbyParrish ran 14 of Seed's 27, read on August 2, 2026.
• Celebrities beside everyday creators: Jessica Simpson and Jenna Bush Hager ran Grüns ads next to Fat Perez and Brilliantly Dumb, read on August 8, 2026.
• The money goes behind the ad: HexClad puts 90% of its influencer budget into running creator content as ads, and only 10% into the creator's fee.
• From your webinar pitch V4.
• Ridge whitelists through one creator for about 10k a month.
• From Marketing Operators, September 2024.

Next: the whole system

Bridge: the whole system, cheaper every time it turns

• That's the whole system: an anchor makes every other creator cheaper to sign, a box warms a cold name up, a community keeps the warmest ones posting for free, and whitelisting puts whatever any of them made in front of everyone else.
• The value that does accrue is ambassador value, turning one big creator into the face of a campaign who keeps posting.

More from these interviews on budgets, measurement and bigger deals

Gifting and affiliates fill the creator roster

The brand's hero product, Allover Ointment, was boosted by TikTokers and reviews.

So it has been a gift to us in so many um and the verality of it really was a turning point. I think it would be naive to say it wasn't for our brand because it really um made us what we call ourselves the internet's favorite skin care. So um you know like the Tik Tockers and the you know the um the reviews just really took it to the next level. So

Source: #1 Baby Skincare Brand on Amazon: Andrea Faulkner Williams, Co-Founder of Tubby Todd · Behind Her Empire with Yasmin Nouri · Andrea · 19 Jan 2026 · 34:47

How to set up whitelisted ads

Key tactics for the athletic apparel brand's influencer activation included developing a new product aligned with consumers and using influencers in ad creative and website assets to create continuity between the ad and landing page experience.

What they did here as the key tactics was develop a new product that aligned to their consumer, and then also used influencers within that ad creative and also in website assets to create continuity between the ad and the landing page experience, which is something that you see a lot of people do.

Source: How to Balance What Brands Want vs. What’s Likely · Common Thread Collective · 07 May 2025 · 10:07

Influencer can be a low spend or high spend

Budget influencer work as creative, starting at 80% on ad channels and 20% on creator stories

“Yeah, it can get very expensive, but I think about influencer marketing as creative. They're telling the stories you need to tell, stories you would have gone out and gotten video and static ads for. So if you think about it within your creative budget, I'd say at the start, 80/20: 80% of your marketing budget dollars at work on the ad channels, but 20% creating the stories you need to tell, so you can understand how it really fits into your business in a meaningful way.”

Who says so: Hilary Coles, co-founder of Hims & Hers, and Emily Boschwitz, its founding marketing hire

Do this:

• Allocate marketing budget as 80% on ad channels and 20% on creator storytelling at the start.
• Check whether a celebrity or creator partnership fits into their natural routine and daily use case before signing them.
• Set aside 20% of time and budget to test and iterate on how stories resonate before building attribution models.

On influencer budget, he has heard 1% of topline revenue and 10% of media budget, and treats 1% of topline as a starting point.

“Seeing how many people are reaching, what the cost is for that, what the CPM is for that. What percentage of revenue for influencer marketing is right? Man, that's a really hard question. I've heard 1% of your topline revenue. I've heard 10% of your overall media budget. I like to look at it in relation to our topline revenue. I think that 1% number is a decent starting point, but then you're probably going to have to flex it up or down. But again, it depends on whether or not, if you're selling a $30 product and it's an impulse buy product, you can probably treat performance influencers somewhat similarly to how you treat analyzing Meta on a one-day click basis, and scale up or down by comparing one-day click versus maybe last-click GA attributed revenue.”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 54:27

Influencer is under 1% of net revenue at Jones Road.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 57:58

Jones Road's rough budget shape: 30% of revenue on marketing, 25 points of that on paid media like digital, TV and direct mail, and 4 to 5 points on everything else.

“Influencer, a brand channel. I think in beauty I don't really know anyone who's considering influencer like a performance channel, so influencer's on our brand team. I'll say we spend. So let's say, hypothetically, we spend 30% of revenue on marketing. So paid media, which is like digital, TV, direct mail, is 25% of that, right? And then four to 5% of that might go to everything else. And one of those within it is influencer, so it's sub 1% of revenue, of net revenue.”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 57:58

The argument for influencer as a first channel is that it scales in units rather than needing a 50k TV-style production budget.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 59:54

The arbitrage is that COGS on the product is far cheaper than the value the recipient sees, and it scales from 10 boxes a month to 100 to 10,000.

“Influencers, it's scalable. If you're just launching your brand, I would get it in the hands of people. It has actually some of the best arbitrage you can have with CPMs, because your product COGS should obviously be much cheaper than the value that it's giving somebody if they get it. But it's scalable. You can send 10 boxes out a month, you can send 100, you can send 10,000 boxes a month. So to me, it's very scalable, and it's one of the better brand awareness methods that somebody can do if you're just starting out. Yeah, that's a great point. There's a way to grind it out with influencer, which, frankly, we don't have experience in. That could just be time and COGS, and you're getting free posts in exchange for that. Could be incredibly high ROI.”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 59:54

It used to take three to four views of a brand to buy, now it takes 9 to 12

It used to be that you had to see a brand three to four times to make a purchase decision. Now, from what we're seeing, I would say it's like 9 to 12 times.

Proof: Bubble found that offering a sample set for the cost of shipping reduced acquisition costs by more than the cost of the sample set itself. (Ben Goodwin, co-founder and CEO of Olipop, and Shai Eisenman, founder of Bubble Skincare)

Do this:

• Offer a sample set that customers pay only shipping for, then retarget them to buy at retail doors.
• Do outreach and conversations with customers through a community app to gather qualitative feedback since you lose direct data at scale.
• Run promotions as another way to engage and learn about consumers.

How to tell if it worked

They do see directly attributable revenue from influencer, just nowhere near what a conversion-oriented Meta campaign returns.

YouTube or streaming, like any paid media channel that I want to see a direct ROI on. That's probably different for a lot of brands out there. That's just the case for us, because we have such a long consideration period. We don't see a ton. We do see directly attributable revenue, but it's not even close to what we see in a conversion-oriented Meta campaign, for example.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 53:35

A 30 dollar impulse product can be judged on one-day click like Meta; a considered product cannot.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 53:35

They deliberately have no attribution multiplier for influencer because results differ too much by creator.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:03:44

Philip DeFranco posts daily, so results are compressed with no views after 24 hours, the opposite of evergreen.

“Whatever the click row is, it's probably double, or anything like that? No, we don't have a multiplier for it. I really don't feel confident, and it's so different by channel. You get super weird things, like Philip DeFranco posts a video every single day, so his results are really compressed. You don't get views after 24 hours. He has a news-based show, so it's the opposite of evergreen content. Then you have other history channels where it'll get views forever. We've seen, it's been a couple months since I looked at this, but if you look at all the revenue attributed to influencer in any given month, about 40% of that came from a video in a previous month. So all of a sudden there's these other videos that are just generating”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:03:52

The Smarter Every Day video last June brought almost half a million dollars, and topline revenue visibly jumped about 100 grand the day it went live.

“purchase survey that's asking where someone came from, so we really just try to triangulate. It's by far the hardest from an attribution standpoint, unless you have a big hit. We did Smarter Every Day last year, early June. It drove almost a half a million dollars in revenue, and you couldn't miss it. The video went live and topline revenue just immediately increased 100 grand or whatever. So yeah, that's how we were approaching it. So when you look at it, I would imagine, could be wrong, but like you said about YouTube, I would imagine a lot of the value doesn't come from a click based on that in their post. It's probably seeing it and searching it later. Do you have a multiplier? You're like, hey, whatever the click”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:03:14

Their director of influencer reports into the head of brand, and their main KPI is EMV measured in Tribe Dynamics.

So paid media, which is like digital, TV, direct mail, is 25% of that, right? And then four to 5% of that might go to everything else, and one of those within it is influencer, so it's sub 1% of revenue, of net revenue. We consider it a brand channel, so we have our director of influencer report to our head of brand, and our main KPI is EMV, earned media value. We use Tribe Dynamics.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 58:15

Jones Road does almost nothing performance-based, only a little sponsored content, looking instead at EMV.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 58:15

The influencer drop outperformed the model by 39%.

So it's also highlighting a very important point here, that finding the correct influencer that has a big enough audience that also has a really engaged audience that trusts that influencer enough to make a buying decision based on their recommendation. That's the most important point when you're partnering with an influencer.

And they were able to outperform the model by 39% in this example, which was huge for them. All right.

Source: How to Balance What Brands Want vs. What’s Likely · Common Thread Collective · 07 May 2025 · 13:11

Tracking the influencer program better was a concrete example of a data request, and the fix she reached for first was a post-purchase survey.

So one day it might be like, we really want to be able to track our influencer program better. And so how do we actually, what data points do we need? Do we need a integrate it, actually build out a post-purchase survey.

Source: 5 Emerging Brands, 1 Playbook: Inside Grüns’ Marketing Pod System · Marketing Operators · 11 Aug 2026 · 12:50

Influencer giveaway email and SMS captures get piped into their CDP so a revenue number can be attached to them.

Sometimes we're doing more influencer giveaways and email captures, event email and SMS capture. We'll pump that into Daasity so we can actually assign a revenue number.

Source: E017: The Sweepstakes Tactics To Create Tentpole Moments · Marketing Operators · 23 Jul 2024 · 34:55

Their attribution tool measures YouTube partnership clicks the same way it measures Meta, Snap and TikTok.

That user is measured in the exact same way between Meta and Snap and TikTok and YouTube Partnerships, if we're clicking through from there.

Source: E044: Hiring: How To Build and Structure Your Team For Success · Marketing Operators · 28 Jan 2025 · 12:52

The offer is a show specific landing page rather than a discount code, repeated twice per break, so attribution is by URL.

With over 4 million jars sold, 1 million happy customers, 8,000 five-star reviews, and a 365-day no-risk guarantee, NativePath is a brand you could trust. They offer an 800 number for any questions you may have, and then you'll speak to a real person who's there to help. Visit getnatath.com/pas and start your transformation today. That's getnatath.com/pas. Welcome back to the P.A.S. Report podcast.

Source: Fixing America’s Health Crisis with Dr. Chad Walding of NativePath · P.A.S. Report | American Politics · Dr. Chad Walding · 15 Oct 2025

The speaker advises an influencer to ask their affiliate partners if they will install the influencer's pixel on their page to improve ad attribution.

I would just ask. I'd be like, "Hey, I want to spend money to advertise your product. Can you install my pixel on your page?

Source: We get 34.2M Views a Month. Here's how (just copy me) · Alex Hormozi · 10 Sep 2025 · 1:20:30

An influencer can suggest that their affiliate partner clone the product page and install only the influencer's pixel on that cloned page to avoid data sharing concerns.

You can have them clone the page, right? So that's not like you're not getting their data or anything like that. So just clone the page and make it Karen's page, right? So GLP1/carin or whatever. And that page is only for you. And then you install only your pixel on that page. That way it's not like you're using their data or anything like that. So they'll probably be far more likely to do that with you.

Source: We get 34.2M Views a Month. Here's how (just copy me) · Alex Hormozi · 10 Sep 2025 · 1:20:50

The Hexclad marketing summary gives affiliates and influencer their own rows alongside email, SMS and paid social, and the head of growth comments on every row.

It's like email SMS is its own row, paid socials its own row, affiliates its own row, influencer. So I'm basically making comments across every single channel.

Source: E060: Go-To-Market Strategy: How 9-Figure Brands Plan, Execute, and Post-Mortem Product Launches · Marketing Operators · 28 May 2025 · 32:34

Hexclad's planned funnel board puts influencer posts and affiliate content at the top of the funnel alongside ads and publisher articles.

So, visually speaking at the top, you have your ads, you have your influencer post, you have your affiliate content, publisher articles that a little bit lower, you have your emails

Source: E060: Go-To-Market Strategy: How 9-Figure Brands Plan, Execute, and Post-Mortem Product Launches · Marketing Operators · 28 May 2025 · 1:05:40

Things have changed in 2017

They won on being easy to work with: paying on time and not imposing crazy brand guidelines.

“Like Joe Rogan peripheral characters, basically, was the initial strategy, and it was a huge, it was both the cost and awareness arbitrage, really affordable CPMs. It was a win-win for everybody because there was no other real advertiser demand. We were really easy to work with. We'd pay on time. We didn't give them crazy brand guidelines to work with. And what I always said was it was one of our most efficient channels, and it was really just a bodies game. So for a while, our influencer team was our biggest team, because we just had to do mass outreach, mass negotiation, mass in product. So it was our most efficient channel, and it was our best brand-building channel. Truly kind of created, tapped into communities. We had people creating memes about Anthony Fantano being a wallet salesman that reviewed music. So it was really”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:00:54

Influencer was their most efficient channel and their best brand-building channel at the same time.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:01:03

Average YouTube creator CPM has tracked the rise of the creator economy as a phrase, and the arbitrage has gone.

“reviewed music. So it was really, there was a lot of really funny stuff like that. It's just different now. There's way more demand for YouTube advertisers. I think the average CPM from a YouTube creator has correlated perfectly with the mentions of the creator economy. All of a sudden you've got people operationalizing, building businesses, really treating it like a business, and there's just less of an arbitrage opportunity. We still think of it as part performance. We look at everything through a performance lens. It's now one of our lower-performing channels from an ROI perspective.”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:01:42

The company goal was to be every creator's first sponsor: if you had 10,000 subscribers and never done a brand deal, they would give you $50 and teach you how to work with brands.

“Like, they all suck cuz all of the data is just so old and they those lists have just been destroyed and abandoned. YouTube's a a dynamic thing, right? Like an account that's big this year wasn't big last year. So, if somebody did created a database from 3 years ago, they're not even on that [ __ ] list. You want to be on like the best accounts and their best accounts typically are rising right now, right? So, we would try to find new YouTube accounts that we want we wanted to be everybody's first sponsor. That was like the goal of the company, right? So, if you had 10,000 subscribers and you've never done a brand deal before, we'll give you $50 and teach you how to work with brands, right?”

Source: Sean Frank, founder and CEO of Ridge · $200M CEO: How To Build and Scale Your Online Business in 2026 (Masterclass) · Open Residency · 05 Dec 2025 · 50:34

Where the value is now

Their current focus is a small number of large, deeper integrations rather than volume.

“business, and there's just less of an arbitrage opportunity. We still think of it as part performance. We look at everything through a performance lens. It's now one of our lower-performing channels from an ROI perspective, but there's a lot of brand value to create there. Especially right now, really just focused on large, deeper integration. So we had JerryRigEverything shoot wallets against a Cybertruck in March, and it drove just a ton of revenue. It was an awesome piece of content. We got ad rights that we've been pulling across channels.”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:02:01

He wants about a dozen big, deep integrations with ad rights this year, of which Smarter Every Day and JerryRig are the pattern.

“to create really good, memorable content that has some form of observable revenue. That's how I describe it. And to touch on Jeff's second point, opportunity in the influencer space, like I said, We're focused on big, deep integrations, getting ad rights, pulling that across more channels, making them more of moments. That's where we're focused. I want to do like a dozen of those this year. Smarter Every Day is an example. The JerryRig video is an example. There's so many more than that. Like I've mentioned, us screwing up TikTok Shops right now. There's clearly a lot of value to create there. Just the way people consume content is so much different than it was a couple years ago. It seems to be one of the more rapidly evolving spaces from a strategy standpoint. So if I were Jeff, I'd look”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:04:41

For Ridge, it is closer to a brand awareness impressions arbitrage than a media channel.

Click versus maybe last-click GA attributed revenue. If you're not, like we are, we don't really look at it that way, and we do use the performance attribution directionally. But I'm just seeing it way more as a brand awareness impressions arbitrage than I am looking at a Meta channel.

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 55:11

He points Jeff at TikTok Shop and longer-tail opportunities as where the value is now, because content consumption has changed.

“up TikTok Shops right now. There's clearly a lot of value to create there. Just the way people consume content is so much different than it was a couple years ago. It seems to be one of the more rapidly evolving spaces from a strategy standpoint. So if I were Jeff, I'd look at some of those newer or longer-tail opportunities. Connor, you also hit something that needs to be considered, like if your main channel is Meta. Because there's layers to influencer, right? There's the pure, are we getting good CPMs, impressions and attributed revenue from this influencer organic audience? But if you're thinking to yourself, well, I also am big on Meta, I don't have, I have a gap in this certain content bucket, and I think I can parlay this influencer market, this organic influencer”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:05:13

HexClad made custom Rogan products and seeded them off the back of a podcast ad buy, and it showed up on his feed for nothing.

“And all of a sudden she's cooking some dish on a HexClad product, and that was just from product seeding. That's not going to happen through a Meta ad, or we We went through all these loops to get custom Rogan products, and we just seeded it to him because we bought a podcast ad with her. Like, all right, maybe this will show up on his feed, probably not, but whatever. And it showed up on his feed. And I'm sitting at a bar playing pool one day, and one of our agency guys texts us, like, wow, nice work, guys, what'd you pay for this? I'm like, we didn't pay anything for that. We just made custom products and sent it to him, and he likes them. Sure, that's part of the scale of our brand now, that helps drive”

Source: E008: Your Questions Answered! Marketing Channel Expansion, Team Building & Influencer Marketing! · Marketing Operators · 21 May 2024 · 1:06:24

Deals that go past whitelisting

An athlete promised 50% off if he broke 50, and the site did over $4 million in 24 hours

You can go watch the video. He [Bryson] announced it beforehand: "If we break 50, it's 50% off Bucked Up's website for 24 hours." They broke 50, and over the next 24 hours we did over $4 million in revenue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mluOWlA6GGo

Do this:

• Ask the influencer directly what they can do to help grow the business rather than just booking a paid post.
• Have the influencer announce the offer publicly beforehand so the promotion is documented and verifiable.

Pay for the event, keep the media rights, then give the footage to broadcasters for free

They [Red Bull] put up the money for the event, they make the event, and they make sure they never relinquish media rights for any event. As a result, they've produced hundreds and hundreds of hours of material every year, from TV shows, radio stations, print. And then they'll go to other TV broadcasters, other radio stations, other newspapers and magazines, and give them their content for free.

Proof: Red Bull gave the Air Race World Series content to over 70 different television stations around the world at no charge, and outlets took it because they did not have to pay to produce it. (The host of Founders Podcast, reading from a Bloomberg piece on Red Bull's founder)

Do this:

• Put up the money for the event and make the event yourself instead of buying ad space at someone else's event.
• Write into every deal that you never relinquish the media rights to the event.
• Offer the finished footage to other TV broadcasters, radio stations, newspapers and magazines for free.
• Design events that are outrageous and unique enough that other media will want to cover them for free.

Don't sponsor the team, buy it and rename it after the brand

The crazy thing is, when he [Red Bull's founder] starts, he's essentially saying, I don't want to just sponsor, I want to own it, and then rename it to the company. So his soccer teams, they rename the teams the Red Bulls. That's the actual name, and the logo on the jerseys is the Red Bull logo.

Who says so: The host of Founders Podcast, reading from a Bloomberg piece on Red Bull's founder

Do this:

• Buy the team or franchise outright rather than paying only for sponsorship signage.
• Rename the team after the company so the brand name becomes the team's actual name.
• Take overall responsibility for the team rather than acting like an outside advertiser.
• Never give up media rights to events the brand creates and owns.

Part of the TikTok Shop affiliate playbook.