Brands Briefing: Brands and agencies sharpen their influencer and affiliate strategies for Q4

Many brands are trying to venture off the beaten path and team with nontraditional influencer partners. For example, companies like Ghia and Little Spoon are working with meme creator accounts to sponsor viral content in a more organic way. This year, the cosmetics brand SmashBox began working with creators not typically associated with beauty content, such as dancer Stevie Doré and Pilates instructor Caroline Citelli.

According to brands and agencies preparing for their Q4 influencer campaigns, matching with an effective creator has become like finding a needle in a haystack. That’s why brands are becoming more particular about when it’s worth paying influencers to post about them versus leveraging product seeding to identify the right partners. Brands are also increasingly prioritizing performance-focused tactics like creators who can put out a clear call to action when a new product launches, or drive sales to lower-funnel channels like TikTok Shop or Amazon.

‘A demand for higher ROI’

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to finding the right creators. As performance expectations from influencers and affiliates spike, creative agencies and platforms are encouraging brands to tap not-so-obvious creators. For example, advertising agency Iced Media, which largely works with beauty brands, helps brands look beyond the saturated beauty influencers space. Sometimes that means gifting products to creators in a completely different category whose audience would appreciate hearing about these products. 

One of Iced Media’s recent successful TikTok Shop affiliate campaigns was with Moroccanoil, to help launch the brand’s new L’Originale fragrance. Ashley Banks, chief client officer at Iced Media, credited the launch blowing up on TikTok to the large range of creators the brand and agency reached out to.

“We had brides, travel creators, ballerinas and athletes all talking about this fragrance,” she said. Much of the messaging revolved around the Mediterranean-inspired notes and the brand finally offering its signature scent in perfume format after years of customer requests. “So it was able to reach a lot of different pockets.” 

Finding the right creators to partner with is even more critical as brands are increasingly cutting underperforming channels amid a tough macroeconomic environment.

“Brands are pulling back from channels that are hard to measure,” Banks said, pointing to broad PR or splashy brand-only campaigns. “Every dollar now has to prove its worth both in the short term and the long term.” Even bigger brands are honing in on creating more precise and targeted campaigns through their creator affiliates. Some of Iced Media’s clients for full-funnel media investment campaigns include Topicals and Chantecaille. 

Banks said that gone are the days of throwing thousands of dollars at a creator and hoping a post about the brand will go viral and result in sales. These days, Banks said, brands want “creator partnerships for conversion, not vibes.” 

However, Banks added, smart brands aren’t ditching brand marketing altogether. They’re baking it into performance marketing, which Banks refers to as “performance branding.” 

Some brands are leveraging this strategy by focusing on 100% paid performance first. “They invest in creators as if it’s almost content-for-hire,” Banks said, as opposed to calculating rates based on follower count or engagement rate. Others take a blended approach, where they’ll partner with an influencer with a large following and spin that content out to lower-funnel ads.

“Creator budgets are moving from ‘cool factor’ partnerships to performance partnerships,” Banks said. “Think creators who can move product, whether that’s affiliate-driven TikTok Shop sales or performance content that fuels paid social.” 

“The creative that wins is building affinity and driving conversions,” Banks said. Examples of creatives that work well for conversion, Banks said — especially on channels like TikTok Shop — are first-hand accounts and reviews of using a product. 

There is also a bigger push for consumer-led storytelling and investing more where product discovery is happening. “We’re in the era of ‘content is the new targeting,’” Banks said. “Discovery isn’t just Google anymore. … It’s TikTok’s 4 billion daily searches, ChatGPT’s 700 million weekly queries and platform-native commerce.”  As such, Iced Media just launched a Search and Discovery practice to guide brands as they adapt to new search habits outside of traditional SEO. “We integrate social search, AI-driven discovery and platform-native commerce like TikTok Shop to capture consumer demand wherever it starts,” Banks said.

Corinne Travis, the director of marketing and creator growth at the affiliate and creator commerce platform BrandCycle, said smart brands aren’t pulling back on affiliate marketing via creators in 2025. 

But similarly to Banks, she said the companies that are doubling down on this channel are sharpening their ROI demands. Previously, brands would be happy with a traffic bump or social engagement coming from these paid partnerships. These days, brands want more than temporary virality, and they expect affiliate creators to drive a threshold of sales to make this channel’s investment worthy.

Travis added that brands currently coming to BrandCycle are looking for access to creators who can help achieve the company’s revenue goals. “Even CPG brands that once avoided affiliate [marketing] are now launching programs because it’s a measurable, performance-driven channel,” Travis explained. She added that, across categories, the platform is seeing momentum in alternative formats, such as creator-driven storefronts, co-branded landing pages and live shopping on social platforms.

A deliberate approach to influencer budgets 

New brands are having to navigate all of these changes in real time and with limited budgets. One of these is butt-care brand Asset, which this year is trying to build out its influencer marketing program through product gifting.

Asset founder Chad O’Connell told Modern Retail that the brand is just getting started on working with influencers, which has proven difficult in its respective category, which deals with a historically taboo topic.

The company has been able to grow through organic and digital ads since launching with its hero Hole Serum in early 2024, despite constant censorship across social platforms. Most of the traction the brand has seen to date has been through Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram. Through its DTC channel, Asset generated $2.3 million in sales during its first full fiscal year. This was largely due to sales of its serum, which sold 40,000 units. The company is projecting 2025 revenue to increase 2-3x over last year. 

But when it comes to influencer partnerships, O’Connell said there is still a taboo around butt care. “A lot of people don’t even talk about it with their partner, much less on the internet to everyone,” he said. This is proving to be the biggest challenge for the brand when it comes to paid ads, influencer product seeding and paid affiliate commissions. 

“We’re at a point that our brand is doing high-volume seeding, but finding the right creators is like finding needles in a haystack,” he said. Still, O’Connell thinks starting out by casting a wide net with product seeding was the right choice, as it helped identify potential creator partners the brand may not have considered otherwise. One way the company is approaching seeding now is by seeking out comedy and LGBTQ+ creators, who, in turn, are commenting on the brand’s strategy for a chance to work with Asset.

Thus far, organic seeding has helped the brand find some virality. The company sent comedian Uly Morazan its products, resulting in Morazan posting an unboxing video that generated over 3.4 million views and nearly 75,000 shares. More recently, the brand sent its new Hole Cleanser to cosmetic scientist Dr. Julian Sass, who posted about it actually being his new favorite face cleanser. O’Connell said the viral video shows that the right influencer partner can come from anywhere and effectively make a case on behalf of the brand to their followers.  

BrandCycle’s Travis said that, no matter how they approach this channel, “The brands that take a proactive approach to affiliate see far stronger results than those reacting last minute.” After all, it is much harder to catch up than it is to stay ahead as competition heats up. “When budgets are confirmed early — think now for November-January — it creates the space to plan, optimize and deliver far more effective outcomes.”

O’Connell said that Asset will start testing ad spots in the podcasts of creators who can speak more candidly about issues the company is targeting, such as fissures and chaffing. “I’m actually very excited to start trying podcasts because their nature is better suited for storytelling and humor,” O’Connell said. 

As for paying influencers to talk about the brand, O’Connell said he has no problem paying out affiliate commissions if the creator is authentic and can speak to the brand’s mission. “It’s a big risk for me to outlay a bunch of cash, not knowing what is going to come back on it,” he said. –Gabriela Barkho

Quotes of the week from Shoptalk Fall

At Shoptalk Fall in Chicago, held from Sept. 17-19, retail executives shared insights on everything from navigating supply chain uncertainty to preparing for the new dawn of search. Here’s what three leaders had to say about some of the buzziest topics in retail today.

Michelle Goad, Chief Digital Officer, Athleta: “I think about search as our marketing team’s brief. [Through search, our customer] is coming in. She’s telling us what she wants. We make sure to serve that up to our marketing team. Then, we’re making content. We’re making leaderboards. We’re doing all these amazing creative exercises, because the more connected you can [be], for the customer, it feels like you’re reading their mind.”

Kim Roxie, Founder and CEO, LAMIK Beauty: “In this environment, choosing ways to build a sustainable business is very important. Do the hard things now. This is the time to do it, because this is the time when people are going to have more patience. People are going to be more understanding. Disrupt your own thing, so you can be ready for the next wave.”

Bennett Fox-Glassman, SVP, Customer Journey, Macy’s Inc.: “One of the best forms of personalization is when you feel that connection with another human being. And one of the marketing tactics we’ve used has actually been localized, where we … send out a relevant message to the local customer. … To reach out and say, ‘Hey, we’ve done something different. Come in and check it out,’ has been really amazing. And the customers come in and say, ‘I got an email from one of the store managers.’ … They feel that personal and human connection, and that’s turned out to be a really powerful approach.” –Julia Waldow

Love Your Melon relaunches as LYM

Love Your Melon, a beanie company that supports pediatric cancer research and patients, re-launched this week with a rebrand to LYM after turning back over to its original owner.

Launched in 2012, Love Your Melon had developed a reputation for its “buy one, give one” program, meaning one beanie gets donated to pediatric cancer patients for each one that is purchased. About three and a half years ago, it was sold to Win Brands Group. But earlier this year, one of the original founders, Zachary Quinn, re-bought the company. 

Quinn told Modern Retail at the time the company sold that he and his co-founders were embarking on other life journeys, like starting a family. But Quinn said he missed the brand, and talks about buying it back began around a year ago. Last year, Win Brands Group had multiple rounds of layoffs, as Modern Retail previously reported, and the company had been looking to sell off some of its other brands, like Gravity Blankets, according to sources. 

For the relaunch, Quinn said the company decided to trim down the number of SKUs it offered to help simplify operations and focus on top sellers. “Before, we had 2,000 SKUs — we knew we had to get that number down, and we brought it to around 200,” he said. “That meant taking what were just minor variations and turning those into tighter, more meaningful product lines.” 

LYM will also sell charms and patches to help lean into the trend of personalization. Come October, it will launch a physical presence with a pop-up store in Minneapolis. The “buy one, give one” program will continue, along with 15% of all proceeds going to support pediatric cancer programs. To date, the company has donated over $10 million.  –Melissa Daniels

What we’re reading

• Lululemon’s CEO said during its second-quarter earnings call that some of its offerings have become “too predictable” and some of its seasonal products haven’t performed as well as expected. 
• How Bath & Body Works plans to restore its shine. 
• Mark your calendars, NikeSkims finally launches on Friday.

What we’ve covered

• Why ThredUp’s CEO thinks its investments in AI have been “underhyped.” 
• How brands like Target, Every Man Jack and Credo Beauty are preparing for the rise of GEO. 
• How Winx Health is looking to land in more Instacart and DoorDash orders as it launches nationwide in Walgreens.