Part 3, top takeaways for influencer advice that actually works, not generic B.S fluff

What is in here

Read this if

Rston on building a brand with clarity

Anyone looking to build a brand or create content should read this to understand the importance of clarity and a strategic framework.

Ryan Hughes on Ghost, built by influencers, A-B story

The best single account here of a supplement brand's influencer programme said out loud by the person who ran it: who they launched with, that they underpaid them, that contracts today carry no posting requirement, and why he thinks the code and the timed post stopped working.

8-figure business growth strategies

Entrepreneurs looking to scale their business can learn about essential growth strategies and leverage concepts.

Bucked Up CEO on affiliate network path to $300M

Read this for the ambassador model: ninety thousand ambassadors built out of an affiliate network, deliberately starting with micro creators and small athletes rather than one big name, paid on coupon codes. His line that heavy influencer spend belonged to the top line era and that buyers now price on EBITDA is the single most useful sentence for anyone selling creator programmes to a supplement brand today.

3-Part Offer Framework Every DTC Brand Should Know With Andrew Faris

Read it for the offer framework, the subscription CAC trap, and the two clearest creator points: that a retail-heavy brand's first growth hire should be an affiliate and creator activator working for retail halo, and that Jones Road put a million dollars a year into physical sampling against its own measurement instinct.

Danger Jones founder's journey to entrepreneurship

Anyone interested in the entrepreneurial journey and the path to founding a beauty brand will find this insightful.

Caleb Rston on content strategy for creators

Anyone looking to improve their content strategy and grow their audience should read this to learn about the 'accordion method' and the 'brand journey framework'.

entrepreneurial worthiness and burnout

entrepreneurs and high achievers who struggle with work-life balance and self-worth tied to productivity

Creative Strategy and How AI Is Changing the Game for Growth Teams - with Reza Khadjavi, Motion CEO

Worth reading for the eight category creative taxonomy, the specific finding that brands under-index on messaging angle while over-rotating on visual format, and the worked examples of building a different message per creator's own audience rather than repeating the brand story.

Poppi co-founder on nine years to a PepsiCo exit

Anyone selling to functional drinks brands should read this for the fashion and badge positioning that Poppi built its creator work on, the fact that Shark Tank gave them nothing until the rebrand, the exact founding costs, and how a farmers market sampling booth became a Whole Foods listing.

Thesis founder on supplements paired with ADHD medication

Useful for anyone selling a supplement into a medicated audience: it shows the research spend a brand can claim as a moat, and it is a live example of a podcast sponsorship where the founder interview and the ad read are the same placement.

Ridge, HexClad and Jones Road on Q4 and Black Friday planning

Read it if you are pitching a brand anywhere near their holiday planning: it gives you the exact calendar, when the inventory buy is locked, when the offer is locked, and when the marketing lead stops thinking about anything else. The creator material is small but specific, an influencer dinner turned into a landing page, an ambassador recommendation page, and celebrity intro hooks reused rather than reshot.

Entrepreneurial upbringing and risk tolerance

Anyone interested in the mindset of entrepreneurs and the influence of family on career choices will find this insightful.

E044: Hiring: How To Build and Structure Your Team For Success

The most concrete public account of how nine figure DTC marketing teams are actually staffed: real headcounts by function, where influencer and partnerships sit, when a function gets a person versus a dashboard, and how they screen for candidates who care.

Tonal's consumer psychology and brand building

Anyone interested in consumer psychology, brand building, and the challenges of hardware businesses will find this insightful.

Grüns executive on the Unilevel acquisition and five brands

Read it if you sell to supplement and wellness brands: it is the clearest account anywhere of how a nine-figure gummy brand structures a five-brand portfolio, and it says plainly that influencer sits shared across brands on tiny budgets, that seeded creator content that looks awful outperforms in the ad account, that the seeding trick has stopped working for the flagship, and that the new pre-workout brand is expected to be the influencer-led one.

David Protein founder on the six month Bella Hadid launch

Short but directly useful on creator and celebrity seeding: a founder describing a six month leak campaign he ran himself, and confirming that the highest profile moment in it came from sending free product to a model who already liked the brand, with no deal, no brief and no tip-off to the photographers.

Wellness Company CEO on cash-only telemedicine model

Read it for a rare case of a supplement CEO describing a creator platform sponsorship out loud: an annual Rumble deal bought explicitly to reach creators, audience selected on ideology rather than demographics, and doctors used as both the medical authority and the media personalities.

NativePath co-founder on collagen, politics radio sponsor

Read it as a worked example of a supplement brand buying a whole podcast episode rather than a spot: the founder answers health questions for thirty minutes and never pitches, while two scripted host reads carry the offer. Also a clean set of objection handling lines on collagen type, sourcing and third party testing.

Olipop CEO on $50M raise, tariffs, clinical research

Read it for a functional beverage CEO stating that seventy percent of the creators he pays are first time creators and why, plus a measured awareness lift from television against social.

Anastasia Beverly Hills founder's journey

Anyone interested in entrepreneurship and the beauty industry can learn from Anastasia Suare's inspiring story of building a successful brand from humble beginnings.

Rston on building a brand with clarity

Open Residency · 10 Jul 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8i0FYcJEAE

Where the buyers are

**1. **YouTube is considered the best platform for creators due to its ability to build trust, despite having the highest barrier to entry. 77:21

But I think by and large YouTube is going to be the best. It does have the highest barrier to entry for sure, but I agree with everything that you said. The more time that people spend with you, the more likely they are to trust you.

The brief and the content

**2. **Putting out an origin story is important for content creators, similar to how Peter Parker's or Superman's backgrounds inform their actions. 31:23

How important is putting your origin story out there into the world? I think knowing that Peter Parker had this traumatic event with Uncle Ben and got bit by the spider the way he did informs all of the amazing action sequences that we see, all of the highlights. I think knowing Superman's background and knowing Batman's background is super important.

Who moved the category

**3. **There's an emerging trend of 'comfort creators' who give advice in a softer tone, appealing to lifestyle, as an answer to oversaturation of 'hardass' content. 26:48

Another one that I really like is there's an emerging trend right now of these comfort creators. They're more like doing this new style of vlogs that are emerging that you've probably seen. Comfort creators are kind of the answer to that. I think a lot of people got tired of being yelled at or being told what they're doing is wrong, blah blah blah. These are individuals that are still giving advice but in a softer tone.

**4. **Alex Earl's explosion in popularity came from her vulnerability about acne issues, which most other creators at the time were not vulnerable about. 33:55

I think Alex Earl, her explosion came because she was vulnerable with something that most people online at that time were not vulnerable about, right? She shared her journey of walking through some some uh acne issues that she had and she was very public. She didn't try to hide it like a lot of creators, which I understand why they would, but she didn't.

Fits none of the categories

**5. **When consuming content, if all a creator shares are 'W's' (wins), an 'alarm' goes off because it's not relatable. 33:27

I think we have that same kind of filter or alarm go off when we're consuming content from somebody and all they're sharing is W's.

**6. **The speaker watched friends who were influencers shill out many different products, a new one every month, none related to the next, which caused their engagement to fall. 112:21

And I watched a lot of my friends who were these influencers shill out a fuckload of different products, a new one every month, none of them related to the next one. Very quickly, their engagement started to fall.

Ryan Hughes on Ghost, built by influencers, A-B story

Josiah Novak · 05 Mar 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRu4Z8tZho8

Who they pick

**7. **Ghost's launch was an influencer launch, five or six of them, and every one was already a friend from the founders' previous careers. 5:29

But when we started, I mean the five or six influencers that we launched the brand with were friends, right?

**8. **He rejects the idea that the affiliate model was a plan. The selection criterion was people they liked, and the reach was a side effect. 6:29

It was like, "Hey, let's get a collection of our favorite people and friends around and let's build something sick." Then, as you expand, you obviously bring on more people.

**9. **Every new creator came through an existing one, and he describes it as a ripple effect rather than recruitment. 7:03

So, I mean, we've just had the ripple effect of that happen over the years. You fast forward to today, influencer marketing has kind of evolved.

What they pay and the terms

**10. **Ghost paid below both market rate and competitor rates at launch and the creators took the deal anyway, on belief rather than money. 6:10

They jumped in for a lot less cash and with a lot less certainty on what tomorrow looks like, and they believed in the vision.

**11. **Their current contracts have no posting requirements written into them at all, which is unusual for a brand this size. 7:21

And for us, in a lot of our influencer agreement contracts and stuff, we don't even have posting commitments and stuff like that.

Seeding and gifting

**12. **Ghost seeded a podcaster's live events with shakers and samples for years with no measurable return, on the basis that upside cannot be predicted. 1:08

I mean, upside's an interesting thing. There's never upside till there's upside. So, for us it's been less about the upside and more about a great dude. Always enjoy talking.

Codes and affiliates

**13. **He calls out the timed post with a code as the format people no longer want, and says it worked for a long time and does not any more. 7:47

They don't want to be told, "Hey, you have to have this product at this time. Use my code." [laughter] I mean, that existed for a long time, right?

The brief and the content

**14. **The brief to a creator is to take the product and share it however it fits their own community, and Ghost accepts whatever that turns out to be. 7:25

It's always been, if you love the brand, if you take the product, just share it in any way that makes sense for you, that's digestible to your community. And we're good with that.

8-figure business growth strategies

Matthew Larsen · 12 Apr 2024

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

Where the buyers are

**15. **Reach out to people who have the attention of your target audience, you know YouTubers, podcasters, newsletters, blogs, speaking at events. 13:07

You should also be reaching out to the people who have the attention of your target audience: YouTubers, podcasters, newsletters, blogs, speaking at events, that kind of stuff.

**16. **You can essentially leverage their audience for your own purposes in addition to or instead of building an audience for yourself. 13:20

You can essentially leverage their audience for your own purposes, in addition to or instead of building an audience for yourself.

Bucked Up CEO on affiliate network path to $300M

Finally Ready To Grow · 29 Jul 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DoXSYup-2o

Where the buyers are

**17. **His central warning to creator-led brands: an influencer is only one part, and the distribution problem is the real one. 21:38

No, it's not as easy as most people think. I mean, you have to have a distribution network. You have to know how that works, how to take it to the market. There are a lot of other things involved in just having an influencer.

**18. **The most important market read in the interview: heavy influencer spend was a top line era tactic, and buyers no longer reward it. 41:46

They would go out and get all these influencers, and they just want as many marketing spots as possible to grow the top line. Now, companies aren't like that. They're like, "Hey, we're going after Evida."

Who they pick

**19. **They now gate the programme on follower count and a posting commitment, which they did not do at the start. 18:07

Now, we do have requirements where they have to have a certain amount of followers. They're willing to post a certain number of times, things like that.

**20. **They started with micro influencers and small athletes, and only moved up to names like Bryce Hall, Alex Eubank, Conor McGregor and Bryson Dambo once the business was large. 18:52

We decided not to do it that way. We decided, hey, let's start out with the micro influencers, the small athletes, and then evolve to this point. Now, we're going out and getting to people like Bryce Hall and Alex Eubanks and Conor McGregor and Bryson Dambo. We're doing bigger bigger things now.

Codes and affiliates

**21. **The ambassador programme was built directly out of their affiliate network experience, and it now has over ninety thousand people in it. 17:47

Well, okay. So, at the first, I mean, we used the experience that we had with our affiliate network and we applied that to ambassadors that we have today. We have over 90,000 ambassadors today. At the very first, we let anybody become an ambassador.

**22. **They built the ambassador programme without knowing anyone else ran one, and the mechanic was simply coupon codes. 19:31

No, we just developed our own, and we didn't even know that there were other people who had one. We just said, "Hey, let's start an ambassador program. Let's get people who have some influence and start utilizing them by giving them coupon codes and things like that to make it work."

3-Part Offer Framework Every DTC Brand Should Know With Andrew Faris

Marketing Operators · Andrew Faris · 07 May 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAJ55R0GeU0

Where the buyers are

**23. **The reason he wants that hire is the halo effect: the organic reach creators generate is what moves retail sell-through, not the website. 28:33

You do that kind of person with the assumption that the halo effect of all that organic reach they're going to get is actually going to be the huge thing that drives a bunch of value in your retail sell-through. That's actually probably where you're going to do a lot of the eating.

Seeding and gifting

**24. **Cody committed roughly a million dollars a year to physical sampling as a seeding play, against his own instinct to measure everything. 49:28

We should spend a million this year on samples and getting samples in people's hands. Don't even, obviously, we'll try to measure it, but the opportunity of what we're missing out on is so big. That wasn't my instinct. I'm normally like, hey, every dollar, I need to know where it's going.

Codes and affiliates

**25. **Connor's instinct was somebody who can build a system activating a thousand affiliates at scale. 27:25

Then the last one is content development, which is where my mind initially went. It's like, "If I need to hire my first person, I'm going to figure out who can build a system where I'm activating a thousand affiliates at scale or whatever."

What the ads may claim

**26. **The GLP-1 company is reportedly spinning up 80 whitelisted doctor pages, some with no real doctor, an FTC violation waiting to happen. 6:15

But they're spinning up like 80 different white-listed pages of doctors and running some of them, and not doctors. So it's an FTC violation waiting to happen.

Who runs it

**27. **Faris agrees that for a brand selling mostly through convenience stores the right hire is a creator, influencer or affiliate activator. 28:23

Maybe it's something like a bunch of, yeah, it's like creator, influencer, activator type, like you said, affiliate type or whatever. However you structure that, there's a few ways you could do that.

The right hire changes with how a brand sells, in store it tends to be a creator or affiliate activator, online it can be someone chasing that same halo effect through content. If you are not ready to hire for it yet, we can run that creator side for your brand while you decide.

Danger Jones founder's journey to entrepreneurship

Starting Small · 04 Apr 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB0zIpNTnUE

Who they pick

**28. **Taught stylists how to be great at Instagram, leading to them creating great content. 11:44

And I taught my stylists how to be great at Instagram. They were creating such great content that we became the second most followed hair salon in the world.

**29. **They invited social media influencers to their salon to create content, which helped them reach faster and further than larger companies. 17:22

So, I had all these social media influencers who became friends of mine because they were following us totally on social media. I brought them all out to my salon, and I had all the hair color out there. We brought in videographers with GoPros, and we said, "Let's create basically the mother of all music videos, except it's hairstylists working on beautiful models and doing these major transformations." We started to pump this out on social media, and it captured the attention of the beauty community of artists.

**30. **Their coordinated effort between many influential people allowed them to reach faster and further than companies like L'Oréal and Paul Mitchell. 17:55

So, with our phones, we were reaching faster and further than companies like L'Oréal and Paul Mitchell ever could because it was a coordinated effort between a lot of influential people working together.

**31. **The focus should be on people with integrity and loyalty who truly believe in the brand, becoming star makers. 35:43

And start focusing a lot more on people who have more integrity, who are more loyal, who really do believe in your brand. You become more of a star maker. You find that person with the it quality who really cares about your brand, who's well-spoken, who has talent with their phones, and then you help make them, turn them into stars.

What they pay and the terms

**32. **The founder gave envelopes of money to hair stylists who helped grow the company but didn't have equity. 26:06

And then, from there, the next day I flew to Paris to be introduced to the whole L'Oreal world as the new acquisition, the first hair color company they bought in decades uh as the as the person who was going to run the company within L'Oreal. Wow. So, I mean, at that time, how long did you stay working within L'Oreal for Pulp Riot then?

I'm curious. I stayed for 3 years. For 3 years, I built I scaled and grew Pulp Riot. And there was the ups and downs that you hear about. Um and I knew going into it this is what it would be. There's personally the struggle of I just gave up my baby. I was just climbing up the staircase, and now my foot's reaching out, and I don't know what the next step is.

There's nothing there for the first time. No mountain big enough to climb. I slayed the dragon. What what what's next? And then there's the little by little L'Oreal. The early years were amazing. I was a rock star within L'Oreal. There's hardly any founders left. And it was I had them behind me. I felt like a made man in the mafia.

Doors opened for me. I mean, I owned the brand that L'Oreal bought. But then, over time, as you can imagine, the beast starts closing in on you little by little, and your baby starts to change. And pretty soon, it feels like that band you started, that's those songs you wrote, that a Croatian cover band is covering them, but somebody added a horn section.

Just little by little, it changes into something that wasn't your vision. And eventually, I looked at Alexis and I said, "We've accomplished everything we could possibly accomplish within this brand. What are we doing here? It's time for us to leave and find our next step." And so, at the height of its success, 3 years after we sold it to L'Oreal, Alexis and I left the company with no clear future.

Mhm. I did see, before we get into, yeah, danger zones, there's danger zones. There's like a 7-year gap here. So, at that time, what did you you and your wife do? Was that more like relaxing? It was actually not that long. So, it was after the 3 years of running L'Oreal, we we actually took 1 year off. That's it. >> And we traveled the world.

We went to all the continents except Antarctica. And we traveled without computers. And that's pretty cool, to be honest with you. And for a moment, it was actually quite fulfilling because we weren't just traveling, as you could imagine, we were traveling in style. It was kind of a victory lap. It was a Let's see what this feels like to be able to spend the fruits of our labor.

So, while doing that though, you start learning a lot about yourself and what do you really want? And I I can't turn off my head and I'm getting a lot of your listeners are also. Anybody who's got an entrepreneurial spirit to them have the affliction of always thinking long-term. What do I want? Where am I headed? And they get restless if you're not having upward momentum.

And I wasn't. I was coasting. So, after coasting for about a year, something happened. Those people that I built Pulp Riot with, who I was so close to, who were so talented, 10 of them on the same day got fired. And actually, they they call it released or let go, so that's what I'm going to call it. They were released. And they had messaged me and said that uh that they were released and all of a sudden I felt like I knew what I needed to do.

I want to create a hair product company that is built differently. Not a rocket ship, but a cathedral built stone by stone with stained glass. Something that wasn't built to sell, but the company itself was the win. Where I can use it to make a mark. Where I can use it as a vehicle to share the ideals that I believe in. To create not a separation between business and life, but something that's fused together, where I'm creating a universe and I'm inviting people that I love to be part of the universe.

Where the goal is to make an impact not on just the individuals who help us grow, but figure out how to make an impact on the world. Because the truth is is when you're building a brand, there's no more creative endeavor. None. So, people talk about art as being I'm creating a masterpiece on canvas or I'm writing a song or creating a movie.

That's all creative for sure. But when you're building a brand, a million decisions come together by million like hundreds of people to form one unique thing called brand. And I thought what a great way to live. What I had before was amazing. But what if now I didn't have brand or freedom? I had both. So I created a company called Danger Jones.

And this time we were going to build with intention and build prove that people matter more than profits and that it doesn't have to sell. So that's what we created was a brand called Danger Jones. If you can kind of share with the listeners, so you had a a few of your old colleagues um from Pulp Riot at the time, they joined you in the early stages.

What's the the foundation like the name behind Danger Jones and then also what did that founding core team look like for you? Yeah, thank you. Great questions. And by the way, I do want to say something really quickly and say that L'Oreal is a great company and even though they released these people, it doesn't mean that they're not a great company.

They have so like people talk about the acquirer as if they're the big bad guy. I have so much respect for so many people within that organization and we don't have a viewpoint when they manage 40 brands on this decision affected this decision which affected that decision. So that's what happens in the giant corporations.

Sure. When they were released, I did feel this kind of savior complex where I felt like I need to step up and I need to help these people out. That was kind of a feeling. But also it was a I love these people. We built something great before. What if we build something a little bit different this time with different feeling?

So we sit around at the beginning, a glass dining table in my home, and we just kind of mapped out the future of what Danger Jones would be. So it's starting with the name, Danger Jones. It's an interesting name. It makes you sit up and say what's that? It kind of sounds like a secret agent, Danger Jones. The truth is is danger is an evocative word.

It's like it's kind of scary. It punches you in the face. It captures your attention. It's dangerous, danger. And then Jones is a proper English name. It's like something dependable, something you can count on. And I think that's who I am. Tattooed hands is danger. Mhm. Sitting in business class in a suit, that's Jones. It's the dichotomy that's really interesting.

Danger is our products that are a little bit more the vivid, it appeals to the counterculture. Jones are the products that appeal to people who are into blonding and naturals. Mhm. So, with Danger Jones, the goal was the goal is don't create something niche like before. In order for us to keep climbing, we need a bigger dragon to slay.

Let's go right after the heart of Goliath and go much broader and create a company that's going to be successful in the blonding, toning, and natural color space. Mhm. Because that's dominated by the corporations. There's And what we're doing is becoming not just a scrappy newcomer, but the only serious global alternative to the giant corporations.

Mhm. So, there's these corporations, there's one brand that stands alone, that's in control of its own destiny, and that's Danger Jones. Mhm. So, with that founding team, it was magic from the start. We picked off right where we where we left off. We already had built-in chemistry, and you already had culture. And that's such an important thing, because when you add other people in, it does help to have a base of culture that's impenetrable, and that's what we had.

Yeah. I love that. Looking at um your consumers today, like what is what works well for marketing? I know like when we go back to Pulp Riot like Instagram takeoff was just really booming for the company's rocket. What does that look like today as as you look to market? Karin, great question. You know, want to know why? Because not everybody realizes this.

I think a lot of brands are trying to write play use the same playbook that works in like 2018 to 2021. It's crazy. Even when we left Pulp Riot, took a year off, came back with Danger Jones, the the landscape shifted. And to try to run the same playbook is like trying to use a map of Los Angeles from 1950 to run use it in Detroit.

Everything kind of changed. For sure. >> So what I think happened over the time was that social media influencers started started getting courted by a lot of brands. And they started influencing for a lot of brands. And there's the law of diminishing influence. The more you influence, the less influential you are because the audience has figured it out.

So, now you don't go after anymore and try to get this social media influencer with a billion followers because I don't think they have influence. They're good for brand awareness, maybe nothing more. Mhm. >> And start focusing a lot more on people who have more integrity, who are more loyal, who really do believe in your brand, and you become more of a star maker.

You find that person with the it quality that really cares about your brand, who's well-spoken, who has talent with their phones, and then you help make them turn them into stars. And now you've got somebody with a lot more credibility talking about your brand. I think that's really important when it comes to marketing. And you have more channels now and you need to hit all the channels cuz you've got TikTok and YouTube and you need to focus on all those, but it's all still done through your phones.

That hasn't changed. It's just finding people where they're at, coming up with messages which are unique.

The founder was the creator

**33. **The founder connected their circle to other influential people's circles, a strategy they call 'the power of many', before the term 'social media influencer' was common. 16:41

So, I connected my circle to a lot of other influential people's circles. This was before the term social media influencer was even a thing. I saw there were certain stylists out there who were educating on social media. They were creating trends, and they were having influence. I thought, "What if I link my circle to their circles, and my audience gets to see their audience and vice versa?" This is kind of the secret to my success all through the years, what I call the power of many.

Caleb Rston on content strategy for creators

Jay Clouse · 06 May 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U33bAgqIZAU

The brief and the content

**34. **It's recommended to have 80% of content focused on a core topic and the other 20% on ancillary interests to make the creator an 'interesting human' and avoid burnout. 7:40

And so what I would encourage people to do is actually figure out several different topics that you speak to. Have 80% of your content be about your core thing, and use the other 20% to make yourself an interesting human, right?

entrepreneurial worthiness and burnout

Behind Her Empire with Yasmin Nouri · Lauren Kleinman · 31 Aug 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKmyQyCVDL8

Who they pick

**35. **A big influencer can be a reason for an editor to open an email.

What is going to help them accomplish their goals of getting clicks and eyeballs to the article? It's often a number. It's what is culturally relevant. It's a celebrity, a big influencer, someone who has used your product and loves it. Something timely and topical. Maybe it's a sale, a special promo for their audience.

Codes and affiliates

**36. **Working with influencers in an affiliate capacity or a blended upfront fee plus affiliate capacity is common.

This also happens on platforms like ShopMy or Like to Know It, or when you're working with influencers in an affiliate capacity, or even a blended upfront fee plus affiliate capacity.

Paid amplification

**37. **The founder did a lot of whitelisting with BuzzFeed and other top-tier publishers.

Commerce and affiliate revenue. And so, that led to coining performance PR in 2019 with Dream Day. The other kind of aha moment and insight was we did a lot of whitelisting with BuzzFeed and other top-tier publishers.

**38. **Whitelisting is when a brand uses its media spend behind a third-party handle, such as a creator or influencer.

So, it's when a brand is using their media spend, meaning their advertising dollars that they're putting on Meta or TikTok, behind a third-party handle, whether that's a creator or an influencer or a publication.

Community and advocates

**39. **Brands should forge mutually beneficial relationships with publications and creators by rewarding them when they are mentioned.

You want to forge mutually beneficial relationships with the publications so that when they do mention you, they're being rewarded. And that goes for influencers, creators, or anyone else you're working with.

**40. **Compensation and making it worth someone's while are key to forging long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships with those who mention your brand.

Why should someone want to mention you? Yes, part of that is out of the goodness of their heart and because they love your product and brand, but the other part of that is how can you compensate them and make it worth their while and forge those long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships.

Creative Strategy and How AI Is Changing the Game for Growth Teams - with Reza Khadjavi, Motion CEO

Marketing Operators · Reza Khadjavi · 21 Oct 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7auIZw3M0s

The brief and the content

**41. **Hexclad's head of content is personally refining partnership concepts before pitching a partner, rather than handing it to a creative partner. 41:22

We're working with a partner, but he's spending a lot of time with this guy refining the concepts before going and pitching it to this partner.

**42. **Hexclad now begins creative planning by asking what comes from the brand versus from a creator or influencer. 54:22

What are the differences between the brand stuff versus from the creator, like from an influencer or a creator that's not from the brand? Like, are we starting there versus starting with this arbitrary number we're trying to hit?

**43. **Hexclad respins its core message per creator and per persona rather than using one narrative. 62:48

But we're starting to, as we dig into different personas and different creators, we'll basically respin that, right?

**44. **Another creator led with non-stick because omelettes are what her audience already watches her make. 63:40

Same thing with some of the other creators we're working with. She cooked an omelette, and that's what her audience sees a lot. So she led with nonstick, and wow, look at how good that omelette looks and how easily it slid right off the pan.

**45. **The rule is to personalise the value proposition to which creator is on screen and which persona is being targeted. 63:53

We're trying to take that narrative and personalize it depending on what ad we're showing, which creator we're showing, and the persona we're going after.

**46. **Hexclad has got much better at positioning value props to a creator's own audience rather than telling the general brand story. 64:41

We've gotten a lot better in the last couple of years at getting away from that general hybrid story, which we still lean on a lot, and just creating more persona-like positioning, our value props to speak to a certain persona or a certain creator's audience.

Poppi co-founder on nine years to a PepsiCo exit

Austin Next · 03 Sep 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkUNn-7GuOU

The brief and the content

**47. **The strategic reason creator content works for Poppy is that it was designed from early on to be a badge people are proud to be seen with. 26:06

But it was it was very intentional from an early from from very early on that we wanted to make Poppy a badge, something that people were proud to be seen with

**48. **He treats the whole positioning as fashion rather than beverage, which is what the influencer work is built on. 25:54

We show up in the right places. We build these great relationships with creators, influencers, or celebrities. I think that has an impact on that as well, right? We've always viewed Poppi as fashion, which is interesting because it's a beverage.

Celebrities and athletes

**49. **He names relationships with creators, influencers and celebrities as one of the things that made the brand feel cool. 25:45

We build these great relationships with creators, influencers, or celebrities. I think that has an impact on that as well, right?

**50. **A celebrity or influencer holding the can is what pulls in people who were not already shopping for better for you products. 34:42

So being seen with a Poppi is cool, right? It makes it even easier for the people that weren't necessarily thinking about better-for-you choices. It makes them more likely to go grab one because it's like, oh, they're doing it and they're cool or they're a celebrity or they're an influencer.

Fits none of the categories

**51. **Asked how a brand avoids being a fad when it is riding influencer marketing, his answer is that fads shout and durable brands solve a quiet problem. 35:52

I think fads are loud and flashy, screaming at you, "You need this, you need this, you need this." I think sustaining brands or sustaining trends are really brands that are solving those quiet but very real problems that people have.

Thesis founder on supplements paired with ADHD medication

ADHD Chatter Podcast · Dan Freed · 17 Dec 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IXThDLsR-I

Podcast reads

**52. **The interview itself is a paid placement: Stasis is the mid-roll sponsor, and the host reads an ad about ADHD friends whose stimulant meds cause crashes and irritability.

Well, thank you for reminding me. A word from our sponsor Stasis. I talked to a lot of my fellow ADHD friends that take the prescribed stimulants like Adderall or Vyvanse, and they always say the same thing: that the afternoon energy crashes, sleep interruptions, and irritability these meds cause can really deter them from enjoying the benefits that these stimulants provide.

Community and advocates

**53. **Customer reviews are treated as an internal asset, collected into a company channel and read out loud in interviews.

We have at the company a channel where we put in positive customer reviews. There was this one that came in this week that, when I read it, regardless of what investors think, regardless of how the business is doing, no matter what's happening in the world, it just melts me.

The founder was the creator

**54. **The founder is not on social media at all, so the brand's public voice is podcasts and customer reviews rather than his own channels.

I hear ADHD myths all the time. Some of the most common are that, God, I don't have social media, so I don't get into it. Otherwise, I would be one of these guys having wars with people.

A paid read that describes what someone's medication does to them right before naming the product sits close to a health claim, and catching that line before it airs is the kind of check we run on every script.

Ridge, HexClad and Jones Road on Q4 and Black Friday planning

Marketing Operators · Cody · 27 Aug 2024

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

The brief and the content

**55. **HexClad held an influencer holiday dinner and turned it into a recipe led landing page. 28:54

So we had one Lander. We held this influencer holiday dinner, and that Lander was just very aesthetically driven. It had recipes on it. It was just kind of a fun, engaging page.

**56. **A second holiday landing page was built entirely on what their brand ambassadors recommend, with a photo and a line of copy each. 29:08

We had a second Lander that was through the angle of, "Here's what our brand ambassadors recommend." So we basically had an image and a line of copy. It was like, "So and so likes to do this, this, and that, and these are the products they use for it."

**57. **Those pages were put directly under the homepage hero as a carousel of cards so the influencer content got prominent placement. 29:51

We had, right below our hero section, a little module with a card for each. You could carousel through them and click into the landing page. They were merchandised super prominently.

**58. **For holiday creative they cut new intro hooks with their celebrity partner and other influencers rather than shooting whole new ads. 44:24

Last year, we did some new intro hooks with Gordon and some other influencers, so it's certainly a combination of things.

**59. **Even with that celebrity and influencer content, evergreen creative outperforms the seasonal work. 44:29

Honestly, the Evergreen stuff typically performs the best, so I'm trying, it's like I have to almost stop myself from going overboard on producing too much net new holiday-oriented. We just don't need to.

Entrepreneurial upbringing and risk tolerance

Behind Her Empire with Yasmin Nouri · Andrea · 19 Jan 2026

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

Seeding and gifting

**60. **They purchased 750 bottles of product and shipped it to their garage, then sent it to bloggers (referred to as 'mommy bloggers' at the time) who had started Instagram accounts, asking them to try the product. 17:05

So, we purchased 750 bottles of product, shipped it out to our garage, and I had worked in social media, so I knew a lot of bloggers. They weren't really called influencers at the time. They were more like mommy bloggers, is what you had called them, who had just started an Instagram account. We shipped product to anyone we knew who had any sort of influence online and asked them to try the product.

**61. **They sent 700 bottles from their garage to mommy bloggers, now called influencers, to generate word-of-mouth organic growth. 28:33

Starting out, you guys bought 700 bottles from your garage. You sent them to mommy bloggers, now called influencers. It was getting word-of-mouth organic growth.

**62. **The brand invested all of its marketing budget in influencer gifting for the first three years. 35:14

We didn't run a paid ad for three plus years. So any paid ads, and then for three more years, I would say our ad budget was tight just because we invested all of our marketing in influencer gifting. A lot of that had to do with the fact that I don't like sitting in the ad dashboard.

**63. **The brand's marketing strategy for the first three years was influencer gifting. 35:05

We didn't run a paid ad for three plus years. So any paid ads, and then for three more years, I would say our ad budget was tight just because we invested all of our marketing in influencer gifting.

Paid amplification

**64. **The brand's hero product, Allover Ointment, was boosted by TikTokers and reviews. 34:47

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

Community and advocates

**65. **Nearly 100% of the people they sent product to loved the experience and wanted to talk about it, which built their marketing agenda, strategy, and the Tubby Todd Mama community. 17:27

We knew we couldn't pay them, so we weren't sure if they would talk about it. But what we found was that almost 100% of the people we shipped it to loved the experience of using it so much that they wanted to talk about it on their blog or in a social post. And that really built our entire marketing agenda and also our strategy and the Tubby Todd Mama community.

E044: Hiring: How To Build and Structure Your Team For Success

Marketing Operators · 28 Jan 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNG_tBz467I

The brief and the content

**66. **The influencer manager's brief was project based rather than key result based, and he still did not deliver. 63:40

Very explicitly outlined the projects that he needed to be completing. It wasn't even key result oriented; it was all key initiative project based. He just continued to not do it, and we were like, listen. He was a manager level but was leading that team at the time, so we ended up firing him.

How they measure it

**67. **Their attribution tool measures YouTube partnership clicks the same way it measures Meta, Snap and TikTok. 12:52

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.

Who runs it

**68. **HexClad's growth team owns influencer and affiliate alongside paid, retention, CRO, SEO and community. 14:10

At 15, we're between 15 and 18 right now on the growth team, and that's cross-paid retention, CRO, influencer, affiliate, SEO, community. I think that's everything on growth teams. Yeah, so we're about 15 to 18, which is up from zero starting at the last day of 2022. What are your guys' headcounts right now?

**69. **At Jones Road influencer sits under brand rather than growth, with social, copy and project management. 17:23

Kind of all stacked laterally. So we have brand and growth. Technically, our brand is influencer, social, copy, project management. That's all under one person who's Brand, and all the brand rolls up into them. All the growth rolls up and reports to me. So growth, creative strategy, e-com, and retention all report to me.

**70. **Ridge has dedicated partnership managers as a named function in the marketing directors layer. 18:07

We have partnership managers currently, and then we have our creative director who sits on top of designers, our photographer, copywriting, etc.

**71. **Ridge restructured the partnership team last year and is holding it deliberately lean until the VP arrives. 47:50

This senior director underneath me said, "Yeah, I need managers." Right now, we had to restructure our partnership team last year, and it is as lean as it's ever been. I'm very deliberately wanting to bring in the VP of marketing before making other personnel decisions on the partnership team, trying to avoid that exact...

Tonal's consumer psychology and brand building

Omar Waseem · 19 Aug 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ShqgK2rZ0

Celebrities and athletes

**72. **Tonal was contacted by athletes or their managers and agents requesting to be moved to the front of the line for product delivery. 5:41

We were suddenly being flooded by calls from athletes or their managers or their agents saying, "Hey, can you cut us to the front of the line?"

**73. **Tonal established a VIP program for athletes. 5:50

At the same time that consumers were flooding us and delivery times were like 14, 16, 18 weeks to get a Tonal delivered to someone's home, we were suddenly being flooded by calls by athletes or their managers or their agents saying, "Hey, can you cut us to the front of the line?" We actually had to set up a VIP program just for athletes.

**74. **Deals with athletes are more organic than artificial. 8:29

In my sense, with every deal we've ever done with any athlete, and we've done multiple, it was always more organic than artificial.

**75. **Founders seeking celebrity deals without prior connection or conviction are unlikely to succeed and will face unaffordable numbers. 8:40

And in fact, I would tell you I've had founders come up to me and be like, "Oh, I think it would completely change my company if I could just get a deal with," and they'll name some celebrity. Yeah. And I'm like, "You're never going to get that deal."

**76. **For an athlete deal to work, the athlete must want to work with the brand so badly that they significantly reduce their asking price. 9:05

Because if they don't already know you, if they don't already believe in your business, if there isn't some sort of conviction, if it's not natural, if it's not organic, you're never going to be able to afford the number that their manager throws at you. You need them to basically want to work with you so badly that they cut the number almost all the way.

An association nobody bought

**77. **The relationship with LeBron James progressed organically, starting with his trainer, then Maverick Carter, and eventually leading to an investment. 8:09

There was the product in the hands of his trainer, and then that turned into a relationship with his trainer and then with Maverick Carter. Then that turned into an investment. It wasn't this thing where one day we called them up or called up an agent and said, "Hey, can we?" It was a buildup towards it.

Grüns executive on the Unilevel acquisition and five brands

Marketing Operators · 11 Aug 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiWsNWyPFp4

What they pay and the terms

**78. **Influencer budgets on the emerging brands are deliberately tiny: they are not trying to get into CTV, and what little budget exists goes to core seeding rather than paid partnerships. 61:53

We're not trying to get into CTV or influencer marketing. We have super small budgets, and we're not really prioritizing those as much as we are just core influencer seeding and creative.

Seeding and gifting

**79. **The influencer seeding machine at Gruns was built by her as Chief of Staff out of Zapier and a stack of duct-taped tools, and it is still running. 30:25

I put that as one of the funny things that I owned in the chief of staff days that I still get pinged about today because every once in a while the Zap will fail or something will. I don't even want to know how many Zaps we have running in the background right now.

**80. **That ugly-seeded-content effect has stopped working for the main Gruns brand but they deliberately keep the process alive for the early stage brands. 60:48

So it's just like that but that type of stuff like generally isn't working anymore for Groom's but we need to you know keep that process alive for these early stage brands.

Paid amplification

**81. **The seeded creator content that looked worst to the internal team was the top performer once it went into the ad account. 60:40

Like we learned that early on with Groom's like we had some of the seeding content that would come through that like we'd look at and we're like this is the worst content we've ever seen. We put it in the ad account it's the top performer.

How they measure it

**82. **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. 12:50

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

Who runs it

**83. **On the emerging brands influencer sits in the pod alongside email and retention, shared across several brands rather than dedicated to one. 56:54

And where we landed, as you mentioned, was on this pod structure where we had a paid media specialist, a head of CRO, head of creative, and then we generally had email and retention as well as influencer kind of split across multiple brands.

David Protein founder on the six month Bella Hadid launch

TheBestOneYetClips · 01 Jun 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJTRK2OxAlc

Who they pick

**84. **His reasoning for picking Bella Hadid is that she's already the queen of cans, the most photographed person holding one. 4:53

Yes. Well, I think Bella Hadid is like she's the queen of queen of cans, yeah. So

Seeding and gifting

**85. **He denies tipping off the paparazzi and says the whole intervention was the gifting. 4:49

No. We just sent her the product.

**86. **He admits the photographs were the hoped-for outcome of the seeding. 4:51

But you hoped that the paparazzi captured it? Yes. Well, I think Bella Hadid is like the queen of, uh, queen of queens, yeah. So

An association nobody bought

**87. **There was no deal and no brief: Bella was already a fan, and they simply sent her product. 4:13

And then with Bella, she is a fan, and we sent her some product. Yeah, we're going to have an amazing outcome there.

Wellness Company CEO on cash-only telemedicine model

Finding Freedom with John Odermatt · Peter Gillooly · 22 Mar 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2t62ONUJqQ

Where the buyers are

**88. **They signed a large annual advertising deal with Rumble whose stated purpose is reaching the creators on the platform, not the platform's general audience.

So yeah, we signed a large annual advertising deal with Rumble to connect with creators on their platform. It's been great to work with them.

**89. **He frames the platform choice as a values story: after the last 10 years of creators being deplatformed and demonetized, Rumble gave them freedom to work, and that's the sponsorship pitch.

I mean, after everything that happened over the last 10 years, and so many content creators were deplatformed and demonetized, it's just amazing that Rumble has been there to support them and to give them the freedom to do their work.

Who they pick

**90. **He says working with the deal has meant discovering individual voices, which is how a platform deal turns into creator relationships.

And it's been really fun to get involved and learn about all these voices that are out there trying to make us change the world.

What they pay and the terms

**91. **They are one of several sponsors buying at that size on Rumble, so this is a competitive sponsorship market rather than an exclusive.

Connect with creators on their platform. It's been great to work with them. We're one of several sponsors right now that have deals like the magnitude that we did, and it's been really fun to get involved and learn about all these voices that are out there trying to make us.

Community and advocates

**92. **Members get private fireside chats with the doctors, which is a creator style content product sold as a membership benefit.

We have private fireside chats with our doctors. We do a lot of extra, above and beyond education and things for our members.

NativePath co-founder on collagen, politics radio sponsor

P.A.S. Report | American Politics · Dr. Chad Walding · 15 Oct 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G8DXVxcki0

How they measure it

**93. **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 can trust. They offer an 800 number for any questions you may have, and you'll speak to a real person who is 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.

Podcast reads

**94. **This whole interview is a sponsorship: the host introduces Dr Walding, co-founder of NativePath, declares it an advertiser, then frames the episode around fixing America's healthcare.

I have Dr. Chad Walding. He is the co-founder of NativePath. If you don't know, NativePath is an advertiser on the show. But more importantly, we have to figure out what is wrong with America's healthcare.

**95. **The format is the interview as the ad: two identical scripted ad breaks read by the host tout NativePath's type one and three collagen, 90% of the body's total.

Discover NativePath collagen made with only type one and three collagen fibers. These are the two most important types that make up 90% of the collagen found in your cartilage, bone, skin, hair, nails, and gut.

**96. **NativePath's price positioning in the read is bundle deals at a fraction of the price of other brands, so the discount is built into the pack size rather than into a creator code.

It doesn't clump; it absorbs fast thanks to its peptide formula. The best part is NativePath offers amazing bundle deals at a fraction of the price of other brands. 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 can trust.

Olipop CEO on $50M raise, tariffs, clinical research

Cheddar · 18 Mar 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9VvQlL-6-8

Who they pick

**97. **70% of the content creators they work with are first-time creators, a deliberate choice made mindfully. 9:11

We've obviously used influencers really mindfully. Actually, 70% of the kind of content creators we work with are first-time creators.

**98. **His reasoning is authenticity and reach into everyday communities, and an explicit refusal to keep paying the same well funded creators. 9:17

First-time creators, so finding a way to integrate with those online communities in a way that's more authentic, that kind of utilizes and resonates with more of your everyday person, versus getting to this weird world where you're spending money with the same old folks that probably have too much inflow of money.

Anastasia Beverly Hills founder's journey

Nancy Twine · 12 Feb 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmGGZeZmm-c

Who they pick

**99. **The founder advises that influencers today need to be good photographers and videographers. 17:16

Stay in front of the window. The light should be in front of you, so step by step. Because now, if you're an influencer, you have to be a good photographer and videographer. At those days, at the beginning, they didn't know. Then my daughter found a Sony camera that had Wi-Fi, so the quality of the pictures was amazing and they could

Seeding and gifting

**100. **The brand sent ring lights to influencers to help them create better content. 16:57

And later on, you would send the ring lights to the influencers so they could create better content. Yes, yes, because the light was very important.

**101. **The brand bought and sent Sony cameras with Wi-Fi to influencers to improve their content quality. 17:25

Then my daughter found a Sony camera that had Wi-Fi, so the quality of the pictures was amazing and they could download on iPhone. We used to buy them and send them the camera.

The founder was the creator

**102. **The brand started sending products to people who posted makeup content in their closets, marking the beginning of the influencer era. 16:24

We started sending them products. It was the beginning of the influencer era, and we used to send them products without asking them to do anything. They could talk about whatever they wanted, whatever they liked.

Every founder in here worked out seeding, codes and who to pick mostly through years of trial and error, and if you would rather skip that part, we can run the whole creator and affiliate program for your brand, from picking who to work with to setting how they get paid.