Research & Data Strategies
The 25 influencer marketing strategies
These are the 25 ways a brand can work with creators. They range from paid UGC and gifting to affiliate programmes, brand ambassadors and founder-led content.
We track all 25 across every brand in the categories we cover. That is how a report can tell you which plays your competitors are running, how often they run them, and which ones nobody in your market has tried yet.
Each one has its own page below. It explains what the play is, when it works, how different types of business run it, and how we spot it in the data.
25
strategies we track
7
groups they fall into
5
business types covered
650+
brands we watch running them
Content & paid supply
3 strategies
S01
UGC for paid ads
A creator is paid a flat fee to produce short vertical video in a personal, hand-held, authentic style; the brand owns the raw files and runs them as paid ads. The creator does not post the content on their own channel.
Read the play ›
S02
UGC for organic social
A creator is paid to produce vertical video which the brand posts to its own organic feed (Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts) rather than running as paid media or having the creator post it on their channel.
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S06
Spark ads / whitelisting / partnership ads
The brand runs paid ads from the creator's own handle. The post looks to viewers like the creator's content but is amplified by brand media budget with platform-tracked attribution.
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Creator relationships
4 strategies
S03
Always-on creator retainers
A creator is paid a monthly fee to publish a fixed number of posts about the brand on the creator's own audience, every month, for 6-12+ months.
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S04
Creator-run alt-handles
A brand pays a creator to operate a dedicated handle (e.g. @boringmarketer, @vcbrags) that is brand-affiliated but operates as a creator-first persona rather than a corporate handle. Distinct from the brand's main account.
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S05
Creator collective (the 'Cluely model')
The brand hires 20-100+ young creators as paid employees or contractors, each contractually required to post multiple short-form videos per day about the product on their own personal handles.
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S10
Long-term brand ambassadors
A small number of high-trust creators are contracted as multi-year ambassadors with annual fees, performance bonuses, and a deep relationship (events, product input, equity in some cases).
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Commerce & performance
5 strategies
S07
High-value gifting & seeding
The brand sends premium-packaged product (often £80+ retail value) to 20-200+ micro / nano creators in target demographics, typically with a soft ask to post if they enjoy it.
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S08
TikTok Shop affiliate programmes
The brand opens its products to TikTok's affiliate marketplace with a commission rate (typically 15-50%); any TikTok creator can pick up the product and create commission-driven content with the in-video product card.
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S09
Affiliate / commission-only (non-TikTok)
The brand opens a permanent commission-only programme where any creator can apply and earn a percentage of attributable sales via unique tracking links, typically through LTK, Howl, ShareASale, Amazon Influencer, or in-house affiliate platforms.
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S13
Creator-led product collabs / drops
The brand co-creates a limited-edition product with a specific creator or celebrity and markets the drop as a media event through both partners' channels.
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S21
TikTok / IG Live shopping with creator hosts
A creator hosts a multi-hour live commerce stream on TikTok Live / Instagram Live featuring the brand's products with in-stream purchase flow.
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Owned & internal
2 strategies
S11
Founder-led / CEO as creator
The founder or CEO is the brand's primary creator, posting daily or weekly behind-the-scenes / build-in-public / personality content from their own handle.
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S12
Employee-generated content (EGC)
The brand trains and incentivises employees to make TikTok / Reels / LinkedIn content as themselves about working at the brand or about the product, posting on the brand handle or their own.
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Long-form & audio
3 strategies
S14
Long-form podcast & YouTube sponsorships
The brand pays for host-read mid-roll or dedicated-episode sponsorships on podcasts and long-form YouTube channels, often as multi-month flights.
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S15
Newsletter / Substack sponsorships
The brand pays for sponsorship placement (banner ad, dedicated section, or full-takeover edition) in a creator-authored newsletter sent to an engaged email or Substack list.
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S16
Twitch / livestream sponsorships
The brand sponsors streamers on Twitch / Kick / YouTube Live with on-stream segments, mid-stream callouts, or full-stream takeovers.
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IRL & community
4 strategies
S17
Press trips & brand trips
The brand flies a cohort of 10-30 creators to a destination or event, covers travel and accommodation, hosts experiences, and expects (but sometimes doesn't require) social coverage.
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S18
Geo-clustered micro-creator activations
Instead of one national macro campaign, the brand activates 20-50 micro creators per metro area / per retail-location cluster, with content that explicitly references local context.
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S19
Influencer-hosted IRL events & pop-ups
The brand co-hosts a public IRL event (pop-up shop, dinner, screening, launch party) with a named creator who fronts the experience and drives their audience to attend.
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S20
Covert community seeding (Reddit, Discord, comments)
The brand pays creators or community insiders to seed mentions, recommendations, or product references in target niche communities (subreddits, Discords, comment sections of related content).
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Earned & competitor-recognition
4 strategies
S22
Earned organic mention cultivation
This is not a campaign in the traditional sense. It is the deliberate strategy of investing in product, experience, packaging and brand identity, so that creators tag, mention and post about the brand without being paid.
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S23
Burner page / volume posting networks
A marketing firm operates a network of hundreds-to-thousands of small, themed social accounts (coffee pages, truck pages, meme pages, fan pages) that look organic. Brand / song / product is placed in background of videos posted across the network at industrial volume.
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S24
Clipping / pay-per-view networks
Brand or creator publishes long-form content (podcast, livestream, YouTube). Hundreds of independent clippers cut short vertical highlights and post them on their own accounts. Clippers paid per 1,000 verified views.
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S25
AI-generated UGC / synthetic avatars
The brand uses AI avatar platforms (Arcads, HeyGen, Argil, Creatify) to generate dozens of UGC-style ad creatives with synthetic creators reading scripts. Used predominantly in paid social, not on creator-owned channels.
Read the play ›
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