Creator collaborations done properly, at a sensible size.

Part one of creator collaborations is the shortlist. We look for creators whose audience matches your buyers, whose content quality fits your brand, and whose comments show real conversation rather than bought engagement. Follower count matters less than fit; a creator with 15,000 engaged followers in your niche often beats one with 500,000 in a general audience. Each creator on the shortlist comes with example posts, the audience fit and any concerns.

Part two of creator collaborations is outreach and terms. We contact creators on your behalf with a clear, honest offer: gifted product, a fee, an affiliate commission or a mix. Before anything ships, we agree in writing what the creator will make, by when, and what you may do with it afterwards. Creators are free to say what they really think about the product; we don’t pay for positive reviews, and the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials bans buying reviews that misrepresent experience.

Part three of creator collaborations is the brief. A good creator brief is a structure, not a script: what the product is and who it’s for, the moments worth showing (unboxing, first use, a real result), the claims they may and mustn’t make, and practical notes on shots that work well. Creators then make content in their own style, because that’s what their audience trusts.

Part four of creator collaborations is disclosure, which isn’t optional. When a creator receives payment, free product or commission, the post must say clearly that it’s an ad or paid partnership. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides and the UK ASA’s influencers’ guide both require it, and platforms have their own tools: Instagram’s paid partnership label, TikTok’s commercial content disclosure and YouTube’s paid promotion setting. Every creator gets our disclosure checklist with the brief.

Part five of creator collaborations is rights, ads and tracking. Where the agreement allows, strong creator content runs as partnership ads on Meta or Spark Ads on TikTok, from the creator’s own handle. Each creator gets a tracked link or discount code so visits and sales show up, and we keep a log of every collaboration: what was sent or paid, what was made, the rights granted and when they expire.

Collaborations stay at a size we can run properly: a handful of creators at a time, each one briefed, followed up and measured. Full influencer campaigns with large rosters, celebrity talent and reach targets are a different business, and we’d rather say so than run one badly. For creator footage made specifically for ads, see our UGC video ads service.

We report on each creator: what they posted, reach and engagement, clicks and sales from their link or code, and whether their content worked as an ad. Creators who work well get invited back, which over time builds a small, reliable group who know and like the product.

Worked example, with illustrative figures for a hypothetical brand (not a client result): a tea brand gifts a starter box to 20 creators with 10,000 to 40,000 followers each. If 14 posted by the agreed date, reaching 180,000 people, and their codes brought 96 orders, 70 of them from 5 creators, those 5 would be invited back for the next round of creator collaborations.

Gifting is handled carefully. Products go only to creators who have agreed to the terms, with tracking on the parcel, a short note and the brief. We follow up once if nothing has been posted by the agreed date, and we never pressure a creator to post a positive review of a product they didn’t like; their honest feedback is useful in its own right.

Creator collaborations also feed the rest of your marketing. With permission, the best creator content can appear on product pages, in emails and in ads, and the questions creators’ followers ask in the comments show what buyers want to know. We gather those questions in the monthly report.

We also check creators before contacting them: past posts for content that would embarrass your brand, any history of undisclosed sponsorships, and whether their comments look real. That check takes time, and it’s the reason we keep collaborations small enough to do it properly for every creator.

Creator collaborations and influencer collaborations get confused, so we use the terms plainly: creator partnerships here mean small numbers of creators making honest content, and product gifting means sending product with clear terms and no obligation to praise it.