Influencer Advisory™Influencer Marketing Strategies by Revenue Level (50-100M, 100-500M, 1B-5B)
For you if: You run a D2C brand that sells its own physical product, and want to scale your existing influencer operation.
Founder · June 12, 2026 · 18 min read
For you if:
- You run a D2C brand that sells its own physical product, and want to scale your existing influencer operation.
$0 to $10 million
Skipped
$10 to $50 million
Skipped
$50 to $100 million
Opportunity: Get reach without paying cash up front
ButcherBox ran influencers alone to $50 million before it touched another channel, paying them a share of the customers they brought in.
The story of ButcherBox: Mike Salguero, Starting Small, 2024, 38:34
Problem: You may have no cash to pay creators up front.
The story of ButcherBox: Mike Salguero, Starting Small, 2024, 38:14
Solution:
Offer a share of new customer value instead of a flat fee. Ex. ButcherBox paid creators a residual on the customers they brought in.
Stay on the first channel that works before opening another.
Put the founder on camera teaching the product, no trends. Ex. Jones Road Beauty put founder Bobbi Brown on TikTok, hit more than 30% of revenue.
Opportunity: Book creators at high volume
2020: Ridge Wallet booked 3,000 videos from about 750 creators, the year it reached $50 million.
Father's Day: a thousand plus influencers went live.
Problem: Finding them is the work. You may have to approach about 1,000 creators a month just to sign 150 to 200.
OMG Commerce podcast, October 21, 2020
Solution:
Staff the search as well as the deals. Ex. Ridge Wallet approached about 1,000 creators a month to sign 150 to 200.
Set a flat rate per video and check every deal against it.
Book many creators around a single date to concentrate reach.
Give the product away free instead of paying a fee. Ex. Daniel Wellington gave away watches to thousands of bloggers, celebrities and influencers instead of ads.
$100 to $250 million
Opportunity: Book far more creators than smaller brands
Brands over $100 million book about 51 creators in 24 months, against 20 at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Our records: 44 brands over $100 million, against 65 doing $10 to $100 million.
Problem: Most never come back.
Only 42% get booked twice or more at brands over $100 million, against 57% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Test a creator on one video first. Ex. Olipop sends one case for one video first.
If it works, offer a three or six month deal.
Opportunity: Build a crowd that posts without being paid
Bubble Skincare: over 70,000 ambassadors who visit stores and post.
Lovesac: celebrities and influencers post about it without being paid.
Problem: Most of the crowd is new every year.
70% of videos come from new creators at brands over $100 million, against 53% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Give ambassadors a job: visiting stores that stock you and posting. Ex. Bubble Skincare's ambassador list began as 200 members of Gen Z.
Let some posts stay organic, without being paid. Ex. Lovesac's customers post about it without being paid.
Let the founder with the audience lead your content. Ex. Béis lets founder Shay Mitchell lead its marketing and creative.
Put your founders on their own accounts too. Ex. BRC's founders Evan Hafer and Mat Best post on their own accounts.
Opportunity: Sign an anchor ambassador and give them equity
HexClad: $170.7 million, with Gordon Ramsay as its lead ambassador.
Chubbies: $101.6 million the year it signed George Kittle.
CNBC Make It, September 6, 2023
Problem: Fewer relationships last months.
Only 28% get booked again more than 60 days later at brands over $100 million, against 40% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Sign one chef or expert as your lead ambassador. Ex. HexClad signed Gordon Ramsay as lead ambassador in 2021.
Give that ambassador a real stake in the brand.
Reach out to an athlete who already wears your product. Ex. Chubbies reached out to George Kittle, who had worn Chubbies since college.
Build a product line with them once it's working.
Opportunity: Put a real budget behind sampling and events
LMNT: $206.3 million in 2023, with $7.1 million spent on free product.
Rothy's: $211 million in 2024, hosting events instead of TikTok ads.
LMNT annual report to the SEC, April 2024
Problem: How much to spend is not settled. It runs from 5.8% up to 16.1% of revenue for the middle half of brands this size.
Annual reports, 14 public consumer brands
Solution:
Put product sampling in the budget as its own line. Ex. LMNT's sampling cost $7.1 million in 2023.
Sponsor an event a Substack writer hosts in your store. Ex. Rothy's sponsored an event at its Nolita store.
Count the store's foot traffic that day.
$250 to $500 million
Opportunity: Build a large ambassador program
FIGS made $263.11 million in net revenue in 2020, with 250 brand ambassadors.
Problem: Most of the roster turns over every year.
70% of videos came from new creators at brands over $100 million, against 53% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Our records: 44 brands over $100 million, against 65 doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Recruit ambassadors from the people who already use your product. Ex. FIGS recruits ambassadors from doctors, nurses and students who wear it at work.
Recruit ambassadors at every size, from nano creators to celebrities. Ex. Lulus signs nano and micro influencers, college ambassadors and celebrities.
Sign people who already wear and love it, as Lulus's ambassadors do.
Run influencer management in-house, from scripting to ad buying. Ex. Manscaped runs scripting, videography and ad buying in-house, its filing says.
Opportunity: Work with thousands of influencers
Rare Beauty expected $300 million in revenue in 2023, working with about 3,000 beauty influencers.
Problem: Each relationship still runs shallow.
The median brand gets about 2 videos per creator at brands over $100 million, against about 4 at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Work with influencers in the thousands, not the dozens. Ex. Rare Beauty works with about 3,000 beauty influencers.
Team with influencers known for the category you are growing. Ex. Solo Brands teamed with influencers to grow its new cooking line.
Host an event on the cause your brand stands for. Ex. Rare Beauty's summit brought together 150 thought leaders and creators.
Stream the event live for everyone who cannot attend in person. Ex. Nearly 50,000 people joined Rare Beauty's summit on TikTok.
Opportunity: Let a believer sell it for you
Stanley doubled its revenue to $402 million in 2022, credited to an influencer partnership with The Buy Guide.
Problem: Even the biggest partner stays a small slice.
It is 9% of the program at brands over $100 million, against 15% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Ask your staff who already recommends the product. Ex. Stanley's new president found The Buy Guide on a listening tour of staff.
Work with them on new colors and finishes. Ex. Stanley worked with The Buy Guide on Desert Sage and Cream.
Let a partner who believes in it sell it themselves. Ex. Stanley let The Buy Guide's purchase order for 5,000 Quenchers sell out.
$500 million to $1 billion
Opportunity: Buy reads across hundreds of podcasts at once
AG1 was a $600 million company by January 2025, built on influencers, celebrity endorsements and hundreds of podcasters.
Problem: Most podcasters never come back.
Only 42% get booked twice at brands over $100 million, against 57% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Our records: 44 brands over $100 million, against 65 doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Buy reads across many podcasts at once instead of a handful of creators. Ex. AG1 ranked third largest podcast advertiser by show count in 2022.
Layer celebrity endorsements on top of the podcast reads, not instead of them.
Expect most videos to come from creators new that year: 70% do, at $100 million and up.
Opportunity: Test and launch products with thousands of influencers
a.k.a. Brands made $611.7 million in 2022, and used about 25,000 influencers to test and launch new products.
Problem: Spread across thousands, most only show up once or twice.
Median: about 2 videos at brands over $100 million, against about 4 at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Send new products to influencers before launch and gather their feedback first. Ex. a.k.a. Brands does this with about 25,000 influencers.
Use the same influencers again to launch the product and find new customers.
Track which influencers get booked again: 42% do at this scale, so most do not.
Opportunity: Name the program, focus on one product
BellRing Brands made $854.4 million in the year to September 2019, and ran an influencer program called Premier Shakers.
Problem: Even your top name won't carry it alone.
Biggest creator: only 9% of videos at brands over $100 million, against 15% at brands doing $10 to $100 million.
Solution:
Give the program its own name, not just a generic influencer budget line. Ex. BellRing Brands named its program Premier Shakers.
Mix micro influencers, content creators and top tier influencers in one program.
Point the whole program at one product line instead of the full catalog. Ex. BellRing pointed the program at its Premier Protein line.
Opportunity: Pair a famous face with paid creators
Sol de Janeiro's sales rose 174% to $454 million in six months.
Problem: A famous face runs on a giant channel. But at this size only 25% of videos run on channels past 1 million subscribers.
Our records, 1,841 sponsored YouTube videos
Solution:
Pair one famous face with dozens of paid creators in the same push. Ex. Sol de Janeiro paired Barbie Ferreira with dozens of paid creators.
Measure the campaign's sales lift the way Sol de Janeiro reportedly did. Ex. Sol de Janeiro's campaign reportedly lifted sales 33%.
Keep posting organically too. Its co-founder says over 90% of growth came from social.
$1 billion and up
Opportunity: Build the brand with a creator as founder
Alani Nu, founded by fitness influencer Katy Hearn, added about $1 billion to Celsius's revenue in 2025, the year Celsius bought it.
Celsius Holdings, Inc., filed 2026 (FY2025 Form 10-K)
Problem: Even a founder with their own audience does not reach the biggest channels; only 18% of videos run past 1 million subscribers.
Our records, 3,023 sponsored YouTube videos
Solution:
Put a creator with a built-in audience in as the founder, not just a spokesperson. Ex. Alani Nu built the brand with fitness influencer Katy Hearn as its founder.
Keep the founder's own voice in the marketing even as the brand scales up.
Opportunity: Pair creators with a celebrity spokesperson
Celsius made $1.3 billion in 2023, and its annual report says it relies on social media influencers and celebrity spokespersons to create demand.
Problem: A celebrity spokesperson is not a blank check. Ad spend for the middle half of these brands runs 4.1 to 12.9% of revenue.
Annual reports, 19 public consumer brands
Solution:
Sign a celebrity spokesperson to anchor the brand instead of chasing mega influencers. Ex. Celsius relies on marketing by social media influencers and celebrity spokespersons to create demand.
Keep booking creators on mid-size channels; 48% of videos run on the 100,000 to 1 million tier.
Who does what
The creator lead owns all 11 duties
- Job ads reviewed: 160
- Duty steps found: 11, all under one role
Job ads for influencer, creator, affiliate and community roles in our records, split into 904 duty lines. At companies of 51 to 200 staff, 27 of 43 ads give that role the plan and the budget, and 2 give it to paid social.
What to do:
- Write the job to cover the steps these ads give it: the plan and budget, the brief, finding creators, outreach and rates, contracts, sending product, reviewing posts, running videos as ads, codes, re-booking and reports.
Who pitches the campaign direction
And then our creative director and copywriter will pitch that to to us to, you know, leadership and and about like, "This is where I think we should take this campaign."
The DTC Content Creation Process That Wins on Paid Social, Marketing Operators, 2026, 22:50
One of the things that we've like rolled into essentially the shot list for these these types of shoots is to just always get, if there's any sort of talent, we want him speaking to camera about the product
The DTC Content Creation Process That Wins on Paid Social, Marketing Operators, 2026, 24:48
What to do:
- Put any talent on a shoot speaking to camera about the product, the rule that team added to its shot list.
Cast ambassadors in your commercials
And we we like to talk about what we call here is circular investments. And so if if my creative director goes and films a commercial and doesn't use an ambassador from our community team, like he kind of didn't do his job right.
Brand Tracking That Matters and How Modern Teams Scale TV, Marketing Operators, 2025, 52:11
What to do:
- Cast ambassadors from your community team in the brand's own shoots, as that brand expects.
A nine-figure brand's director of influence
We have a director of paid media creative director of retention director of affiliate SEO director of influence so that the buck stops with them right like my in terms of collaboration I am collaborating with them on what the strategy should be and how we're going to like tactically achieve those strategies but it's up to them to go in and execute it and I obviously will will jump in and execute and get in the weeds here and there or where needed and help them troubleshoot but it's their they own the channel and the things that we're doing in that channel more recently now we're starting to build out under them so now we have a retention manager we have a a designer fulltime we have a full-time copywriter so we've started to bring retent our us retention is fully in-house now we have an e-commerce manager who oversees all things Ecom operations from Paid media creative to you know landing pages all of it um we have a retention manager who handles all relationships and you know task management within or sorry influencer manager excuse me within influencer we have an affiliate manager who helps you know like send product out to all these affiliates and whatnot
How 9-figure Brands Structure Their Organisations - Hiring, Delegating, Management & More, Marketing Operators, 2024, 45:20
Read the rest
Why one operator hired a head of partnerships
So in the next like in the next three months we're hiring a head of partnerships who will manage kind of this influencer stuff that I'm talking about because that's becoming such a big piece of our playbook. And then we'll probably hire a head of growth another operations person to start to to kind of work across the two top brands.
Zach Stuck on core marketing tactics as you scale, Marketing Operators, 2024, 62:45
Price the hire against seeding's impressions
We did the same thing with product seeding. We're like, hey, we've done we had 500 million impressions in the US in in the last 3 months. Like what would happen if we could add 10 to 50 million impressions per quarter. Like, okay, that pays for this this influencer hire just in that.
How AI Is Reshaping Ecommerce Growth Teams: HexClad & Jones Road, Marketing Operators, 2026, 44:31
What to do:
- Before the hire, work out what the extra impressions from seeding would be worth, as that team did.
What the head of creator owns
So, whether you are doing just seeding, whether you're doing paid influencer posting, whether you're doing TikTok shop, like just, you know, whatever the the avenue is. I I think that that person is kind of like responsible for that.
The Meta Ad Account Setup to Scale $500-$10k Per Day, Marketing Operators, 2026, 25:28
Yeah, so and where we are going to put it is our creative strategists are going to be under the head of creator
The Meta Ad Account Setup to Scale $500-$10k Per Day, Marketing Operators, 2026, 29:23
If I'm hiring a head of creator as my first role, what are their and I want to focus on organic distribution? What are my KPIs for them? It's still winning ads in the ad account. Like, that's what it comes down to.
The Meta Ad Account Setup to Scale $500-$10k Per Day, Marketing Operators, 2026, 33:27
What to do:
- Put seeding, paid posts and TikTok Shop under that one person, as the operator describes.
- Judge the role on winning ads, the measure the same operator gives it.
What each program costs
These are published price lists from software vendors, agencies and trade press, not audited deals.
What gifting and creator ad videos cost
Storika and Collabstr, 2025.
We'll go 500 samples per product.
Episode 100! The Big Rocks We’re Focusing on for 2026 Growth, Marketing Operators, 44:36
What to do:
- Put your cost per creator next to $30 to $80 of product for gifting and $198 for a UGC video.
What commission direct-to-consumer brands pay
- Most direct-to-consumer brands: 10 to 15% commission per sale
- Health and wellness brands: 8 to 15% commission per sale
ReferralCandy, 2026. On TikTok Shop it is 10 to 15% open to any creator and 18 to 30% for creators you pick, plus a 6% referral fee on the order, per ShortFormNation, 2026.
What to do:
- Add the 6% referral fee to the commission when you work out what a TikTok Shop sale costs you.
What a paid post costs
- Small creator, Instagram post: $150 to $500
- Mid-size creator, YouTube video: $5,000 to $20,000
- Big creator's campaign: $50,000 to $250,000 and up
Influencer Marketing Hub, 2026. The biggest YouTube deals run $200,000 to half a million per video, per Select Management in Digiday.
We always position an integration within the average watch time. That's a contractual obligation. So, if your average watch time, you have a 20-minute video, it's 15 minutes. You have to put your Hexlide, your Jones Road sponsorship within the 15 minutes that your audience is watching to optimize for the most views.
The Influencer Marketing Playbook - with Lily Comba, Founder & CEO of Superbloom, Marketing Operators, 2025, 58:12
What to do:
- Work out what you pay per 1,000 views for each creator, and put it next to a podcast host read, last measured at $21.37 CPM for a 60 second spot. Libsyn, via MillionPodcasts
- Write into the contract that the read sits inside the video's average watch time, as Superbloom does.
The extra fee to run a video ad
- Typical range: 20% to 30% added, per 30 days running
- Most deals: land at 25%
What agencies and software cost
- Agency fee: 15% to 40% of your creator spend
- Creator software: $15,588 a year for the median buyer
InfluencerFee and Vendr, 2025.
What to do:
- Add up what you pay an agency each year. At a 20% fee, a $90,000 in-house manager costs the same once creator spend reaches $450,000 a year. InfluencerFee
What ambassadors cost by fame
- Mid-size ambassador: $3,000 to $8,000 a month
- Nationally known, one field: $50,000 to $250,000
InfluencerFee, 2026 and Narrative Group. National names run $150,000 to $1,000,000.
Audit your program
Check your own numbers against the 493 D2C product brands in our records with 50 or more sponsored YouTube videos and at least one in the last 24 months.
The typical brand books 55% of its creators twice or more, and 45% at the 64 brands over $50 million
Our records of sponsored YouTube videos.
What to do:
- Pull every sponsored post from the last 24 months.
- Group the posts by creator, and count the creators with two or more.
- Divide that by all your creators. Under 36% is the worst quarter of brands.
The typical brand gets 3.7 videos from each creator, 27 days apart
Our records of sponsored YouTube videos.
What to do:
- Divide your videos by your creators. Under 2.3 means mostly one-off posts.
- Measure the days between each creator's videos for you. Over 36 is the worst quarter.
The biggest creator carries 16% of the typical brand's videos
Our records of sponsored YouTube videos.
What to do:
- Divide your biggest creator's videos by all your videos.
- Over 30% is the worst quarter of brands.
The typical brand keeps 36% of its creators from one year to the next, and 33% are still posting in its last 180 days
Our records of sponsored YouTube videos.
What to do:
- List the creators who posted for you last year and not this year.
- Divide by last year's creators. Under 19% kept is the worst quarter.
Can one strategy take a brand from $1 million to $1 billion?
What decides how brands book creators
A brand that takes the customer's money can tie a video to orders. Whoop has 1,100 staff and books creators like a D2C brand. It holds with a condition: retail brands do measure creators, with halo models and spillover tools rather than codes.
What to do:
- Count the share of your sales that happen on your own site, where a creator's code or link can be traced to an order.
Big does not mean more creators
All 86 big consumer brands in our records hold 2,502 sponsored videos between them. LMNT and Tiege Hanley hold 2,855, on 70 and 37 staff.
A creator relationship is worth about four videos at every size
Our records: 4.1, 4.3, 5.3 and 3.6 videos per creator from the smallest programs to the biggest.
What to do:
- Divide your sponsored videos by your creators, and put it next to about four.
How Squarespace keeps its creators
- Re-book rate: 90% of creators
- Affiliate program: open and paying for a decade
- Community: none around the program
Our records of sponsored YouTube videos.
Who scaled fast in supplements and wellness
Of the 37 brands on that shelf that got past 200 videos, the typical first year was 16 videos across 6 creators, then 35 and 13 in year two. Only AG1 (240 videos in year one) and Ritual (155) opened at scale, and both are venture funded.
What to do:
- Put your first year next to 16 videos across 6 creators, and your second next to 35 across 13.
How Prestige Labs sold $1.7M with no ads
In fact, these were the actual sales numbers from the first full month of sales from our supplement company, Prestige Labs. So, you can see there, 429,000. That was week one. 383,000, 411,000, 44,000 with zero paid ads using 100% affiliates. So, if you're trying to add it up, it was $1.7 million per month.
$100M Leads Launch, Alex Hormozi, 2023, 61:23
Health niches shrink as programs grow
- Past 1,000 videos: health, fitness, food and sports creators fall to 24.6%
Our records: 39.4% at 200 to 999 videos. The typical program works 1, 2, 4.5, 9 and then 31 niches as it grows. AG1's biggest niche is travel at 209 videos, with health at 77.
Re-booking rates by program size
- 10 to 999 videos: 62% to 67% of creators re-booked
- Past 1,000 videos: 44.4% of creators re-booked
Our records of sponsored YouTube videos.
What this cannot see: these records are YouTube only. Instagram and TikTok first brands like poppi, Celsius and Alani Nu read as zero here, which is a gap in what we hold, not proof they do nothing.