How we think about influence.
Working notes from the front of the creator economy the playbooks, the pricing, the pitfalls. No recycled listicles.
The creator seeding playbook: why volume beats perfection
Seed product to enough of the right creators and most content will do a job while a few videos pop off beyond anything you could script. How to build the programme recruitment, commissions, incentive ladders and what to do with the winners.
The right 80,000 followers beat the wrong 8 million
Follower counts are the least useful number in influencer marketing. The metrics that actually predict performance: engagement quality, audience authenticity, and category fit and how to check all three before you spend.
Your best ad creative already exists a creator made it
Whitelisting, Spark Ads and usage rights: how to turn organic creator winners into paid social performance, and the licensing mistakes that quietly kill great campaigns.
What creators cost in 2026 an honest guide
Rates by tier and platform, what moves them up and down, where hidden markups hide in agency quotes, and how performance elements change the negotiation for both sides.
AI just collapsed the cost of content ops. Margins moved. Prices should too.
Editing, motion graphics and captioning that took studios days now takes hours. What that means for campaign economics and why most agencies are keeping the difference.
Attribution without self-deception
Links, codes, affiliate tracking, post-purchase surveys: building a measurement stack you can defend to a CFO and knowing exactly when a performance deal makes sense.
Prefer the applied version?
Every insight above is something we do, not just something we write about.