Full-Funnel Creator Marketing: Kristina Coughlin's Framework for Measurable Results

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I sold my car on Carvana last night.

Well, that's cool.

No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

So what's the problem?

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch.

Maybe there's no catch.

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

Wow, you need to relax.

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood?

I think it's laminate.

Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough.

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That is your biggest differentiator, that there's no one in the world that's exactly like you. You see a lot of these newly coming creators that try to, and not intentionally, but they're kind of ripping off other creators because they see them as aspirational and they're trying to take some of those best practices. But it's obvious that they're trying to pretend like they're someone that they really aren't. And it's, it's easy to do because sometimes you don't even catch yourself doing it. And so the best thing you could do is just be your true authentic self and provide value. Figure out what that value proposition is going to be.

Step into the world of success. To success with Your Brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. This topic is so important for the moment that we're in right now, and I'm so thrilled to have an expert like Christina Coghlan on the show. Christina, thank you for being on Your Brand Amplified.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

And I haven't even talked, you know, this is my slow tee up to the topic, but when we see a lot of people in the creator space, I mean, and everybody and anybody almost can be considered a creator now. And we also see a move towards a lot of AI creation and AI creators and influencers taking segments of the market. So I'm, I'm really excited to dive into your background and what you do because you're not just a theorist, you're an operator. You've built and scaled 7 and 8-figure influencer programs. You co-founded an award-winning agency, Get Hyped, and now you lead Strategy at Trevant, formerly AdParlor. So let's go back to that first start, right? You didn't start in performance marketing. You were a creator, talent manager. And you've been in the space for 16+ years. So let's go back to that beginning. What did that experience being a content creator and talent manager help you with that ground level experience? What did it teach you that you can use today?

Yeah, it's a great question. And certainly empathy and that at a high level was one of it. You know, it's, I fell into the creator space a little bit by accident because I was told to go on a gluten-free diet. So I started taking it seriously and creating a lot of content on my Instagram account with the recipes. Recipes I was creating, and then, you know, grew a micro following and started working with brands on sponsored content. And if there's anything that I've learned through the creator lens is how much work goes into that process. And it's, it's tough because unless you get to that really, really large creator tier, it is not super scalable. It's, it's you, you're the star of the show, right? And it's You can't really turn it off. You can't be replaced by someone else. You have to really be on and creating content and engaging all the time. And I found it, especially when kids got brought into the mix and I had my son and my daughter, that that balance became increasingly harder for me to manage and not wanting to always constantly be on my phone to be engaging and creating content and doing all those things and showing up on Instagram stories. So for me, it actually really did help when I got into ultimately the business side of influencer marketing, because now my team and I work with those creators and it's helped me understand how they actually want to be worked with, how they want to be communicated to, how to have that level of empathy when they inevitably run into things in their life and they say, hey, can we have a couple days because this situation just happened and I have a sick kid that I'm, I'm navigating with. Can I have a few more hours to create this content? And so it allows us to really drive some of those stronger relationships with those creators and be able to understand. Fully where they're at.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I love the fact that you're talking about balance, and you're also talking about the fact that sometimes we need a little grace in our lives. I think having that perspective as somebody who's been on both sides is important, and I'm sure it helps your agency retain a lot of business and also retain a lot of these creators because they know they're going to get somebody who actually cares about them as a person, not just as a paycheck.

Right. And it does, it helps us be able to deliver the scope in full to the client because the creators, we, we do have empathy for them and we do care about them and we don't want to operate it just transactionally. We do really view them as trusted partners because as an agency, we're only as good as the creators that we hire, right? It's so, they're such a critical part to our process and how good we are as an agency. So we care about those partnerships and relationships and the success across both. And then the client, ultimately the brand, feels that, right? Because they're happy creators, they care about the content, they're willing to go more above and beyond. So then it not only helps with the retention of that creator partnership, but also helps with retention of that client partnership, because we do go above and beyond and we do care about the creators, and they ultimately see that through performance.

So talk about that first part of co-founding Get Hyped. Why did you decide, oh, we need to start an agency because we can do things a little differently. We can do things a little bit better.

Yeah. So talk about things that again happened by accident. So when I was starting as a creator, I realized that there was a big market for people who needed support with social media marketing. And my original plan was to help other creators who were starting from scratch, who really wanted to become a creator and needed the tools and resources to be able to figure out how to grow their own brand. And I started with that. And so I started having these little sessions where people would come in and I'd do a little bit of an overview of just what they need to do to sort of start building up their brand. And what I realized, because I would pull the room of, hey, where, you know, where are you coming from, what's your goals, what are you looking to do? And I realized like 70% of the room was brands, not wanting to— not, you know, soon-to-be creators. And I was like, interesting. And I was like, I didn't even think about that. This is This is a huge brand play. These brands are looking to build their brand, right? And there's even larger market on the business side than there is on the creator side. So I started leaning in a little bit more into that and helping to support brands with growing their brand on social. And I started doing it as a consultant for a while and supporting them with their social influencer strategy. And then some of the feedback that I started getting from some of them, because I would see, you know, we'd go and have these great conversations and talk strategy and put together this plan. And I wouldn't see anything actually come from it. And I'm like, hey, where, where are you getting stuck? What's your roadblock? And a lot of them, especially not huge built-out businesses, like most aren't, would say like, hey, the strategy was awesome. We just don't have the bandwidth to manage the execution of it. And it was like, ah, and it had that like light bulb moment of like, mm, I need to do more than just the strategy. They need— that's really the heavy lift part is the execution, right? The strategy is great. But they don't have the time to be able to do it, especially if they're founder-led companies. So I was like, you know what, I think I need to expand out the team. So I started hiring a few folks and I'm like, you know what, we can handle the execution. And then I quickly realized, I'm like, you know what, I think we're turning into an agency. I think that's what this is now, right? So I ended up branding it to Get Hyped at the time and we just continued to build it out and build it out to ultimately be a creator-led performance shop. Especially for those SMB brands that need both that strategy and support with that. But most importantly, they need that ongoing execution.

Absolutely. I love the accidental entrepreneur story because that's kind of my story as well.

Like, oh, I accidentally just started a PR agency or a podcast agency or accidentally just happened. But it's—

well, and now you're general manager at Trevant, formerly AdParlor. So you're operating on an even larger scale from Get Hyped. So talk about that, leading a team inside a larger organization and that transition.

Yeah. And that happened really a LinkedIn connection reached out and was like, hey, you know what? We are looking to build a, at the time, a creator monetization tool and interested in your, your point of view on how we can build this out. And that's how some of the conversations started going. And I love, I love the building stage, like the building stage of a business. It's just, it's so fun building something from the ground up. It's challenging, it's different. So I loved helping and supporting them with that. And then finally it turned into, hey, you know, would you, would you wanna work with us full-time? And at the time I had brought on my husband on the Get Hyped side. And so him and I talked and was like, you know, would you wanna take over operating Get Hyped and I can take over helping this initiative, and at the time it was for a parent company, Fluent, and we're like, you know what, all right, let's, we'll both build our own thing. So I moved over to there and then ultimately what I didn't know at the time at Fluent was that they had an agency subsidiary within their parent company, which was a performance shop. It was a performance agency. And so as I started building this creator monetization tool with them, which was called Infuse at the time. They go, actually, you have agency background in influencer marketing. We actually have an agency that's interested in potentially adding creator as part of their offering mix because they're a performance shop. Would you be interested in going over there? And it's like, well, yeah, that, that actually seems like it perfectly aligned with my skill set. So I went over there and ended up building their, their end-to-end full-service creator marketing offering from scratch and which worked really well alongside their paid media and performance marketing services that they were offering to enterprise brands already. And then what we found after not really long period of time, after about a year or two, is that we were winning more on the creator side. It was becoming our differentiated offering because we had that strong performance DNA from the team who was doing media buying for 17 years. And applied that to our creator marketing offering. So then we ended up completely pivoting the entire agency to being a creator marketing agency with that performance DNA, which ultimately led us to the rebrand that we're currently launching this week to Trevant. And it's been incredibly exciting. So now I have the honor of being the general manager and leading that team through this whole rebrand and transition. And it's, it's been a blast.

I mentioned this a little bit before we jumped on. AI is doing so much. It's something that is top of mind in all of my classes right now. I'm teaching a class in digital media management, you know, advertising, buying, analytics, measurement, and AI powers so much of what we do, but we still need that human component. And we're seeing that AI ads are not always performing as well. People want to make sure that they have that trust and authority, which is really where the influencers come in, in an ideal situation, right? But let's thinking about the performance piece from your own positioning statistics. I read that 70 to 80% of brands run influencer marketing, but only 30% can tie it to revenue. Can you talk about that? Because that seems like a huge missed opportunity. Of course, I know some of it's for brand recognition versus actual sales, but ultimately everything we do needs to tie back to the bottom line.

100%. And it's so interesting because even if a lot of the influencer marketing conferences we go to now, that is a huge topic, is there is now increasingly more and more becoming like the CFO-level scrutiny when it comes to influencer marketing budgets because it's maturing as a service. I think as a— for many years it was that upper funnel brand awareness, getting, you know, content storytelling, and still absolutely does that, right? It's still that content engine. You still get that user-generated content. You still get that brand awareness and engagement. But if you're going to be taking— and we're hearing this a lot from advertisers— hey, you know what, we want to take some of these dollars out of our performance marketing budget and apply it to creator because we need more of that creative, we need more of that upper funnel and really that full funnel strategy. We need to balance that out a little bit more because I think we've kind of tapped our audiences on the bottom of the funnel. And the CFOs are naturally going, well, you're going to take budget out of performance and put it into creator. What's the ROI on that? Right. Does that make sense? So we're starting to hear more and more that, yeah, you know, they're really looking for, for the measurement of that. And there's more and more measurement tools that are coming out in the market. And now we're seeing a lot of brands not only using, you know, source of truth like their GA4 or Adobe to be able to track more of that full funnel, but also So using tools like MMs and MTAs and really getting that multi-attribution and also running things like brand lift studies and things like halo effect reporting to understand what influencer is doing specifically, but also how is that impacting all of their other channels? Because the reality is, and the tough thing with sometimes influencer marketing and other marketing efforts too, is you see a creator and I do this all the time. You see a creator, they talk about a shampoo, for example. I go to Whole Foods and I see that shampoo and I'm like, oh, nice. And I go and I pick it up and I put it in my cart and I leave. Right. There's no attribution to that. Right. I'm one impression on their report in their campaign. And so there's also foot traffic measurement tools that are coming out that we're starting to test with as well, because the reality is It's all happening, but it's not being measured. So I think there's gonna be a lot more scrutiny, especially with AI now coming into the mix. We're starting to do more AI measurement tools and AI searchability processes to ensure that influencer campaigns are also impacting AI searchability for those brands as well. So what we do on our side is really integrate into a lot of those platforms depending on what their goals are, if it's foot traffic, if it's an MTA, if it's, you know, utilizing their GA4, if it's utilizing other third-party measurement tools. And we integrate into that so that the client can really see that full holistic picture and not necessarily just that, those siloed social analytics that only tell realistically like 5%, 5% of the story.

Yeah, I love that. And it's interesting to hear how many new tools are coming out. And I'll be really curious to see how effective they are, you know, as we're still trying to figure some of this stuff out. Can you talk about creator-first performance marketing versus traditional influencer campaigns?

Yeah, so the really the big difference between the two of them and at a high level is really adding amplification to the mix. So adding in paid amplification and putting media spend behind the creator content to amplify it to net new audiences. Historically, there's always been such a focus on organic creator content, right? So the creator's obviously posting to their own audience, which is critically important because obviously those, the audience know, likes, and trusts that creator, and they're usually gonna be really impactful to their own respective audiences, but it's not leveraging the content as far as you can really be leveraging it, especially when you can get amplification or whitelisting access from that creator in your contract with them. Put media spend behind it, and then really do hyper-targeting to net new audiences. And of course, on the social platforms, you can target whoever you want to target, right? So you can get really specific with it. You can do A/B testing with it. You can do a whole test and learn strategy to figure out what performs well, what audiences don't perform well. Also, what creative, what hooks, what angles perform well. So that also helps you inform your future creator strategy, because then you figure out, okay, these hooks will go well, these calls to action are working well, these angles are working really well, this problem-solution concept seems to be working well for us. And then you can adjust that brief that you give to the creators moving forward based on what you know works well, and also ensuring that you have that authenticity with the creator and what works best too, and mirror those two things together so you also get learnings at scale too, which also helps improve performance. And what we see is that a lot of times creator-led content on paid social outperforms branded content because it's a third party saying, hey, this brand is amazing, versus the brand saying, hey, we're amazing, right? So it does just perform better, especially— we've done a lot of comparison and testing of what kind of call our BAU, branded assets, versus creator. So it is, it's super interesting how the power of getting creator content really out there at scale.

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I sold my car on Carvana last night.

Well, that's cool.

No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

So what's the problem?

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch.

Maybe there's no catch.

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

Wow, you need to relax.

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood?

I think it's laminate.

Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's close enough.

Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. And let's talk about what you look for in creators and influencers. And because I've seen stuff that says there's a shift to really micro or, you know, smaller influencers, people who have a deep niche and maybe more engagement versus paying somebody that we all have heard about on the news a lot of money. So, you know, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that perspective because you obviously came from this background and were working with brands. And then what do you see that brands are looking for now and how do you choose who you're going to work with on that side?

It's a great question. And that's also probably the most difficult part of like the sales process and working with a net new advertiser is figuring out what they want, because there are a million ways to slice and dice an influencer strategy with the amount of creators and the size of creators, the amount of content and the platforms and the deliverables. And it's really trying to figure out, okay, what is that client's goal? And sometimes clients have a strong point of view of what they want and we can deliver on that. And some of them don't. They're looking for recommendations. And so our team really understands what are their goals, what are their focus, what's their target audience that they're looking to hit. What niche and vertical are they in? What are they trying to solve for consumers? And that helps us kind of narrow down what our focus is. And as we think through a potential scope of work for them, then what we're seeing is it's pretty, pretty good mix of the different tiers. We have some advertisers that are really going to say, hey, we want a big splash, we want mass awareness, we want a big creator telling everybody how amazing we are, and we'll work with the Alex Earls or the MrBeasts or whoever it may be of the world who will drive that mass awareness and mass scale. Now, are they necessarily going to drive mass immediate conversions? Maybe not, but they are going to drive that mass awareness. And then there's also on the other side of the spectrum, those that say, you know what, I want more volume. I want a lot of creators talking about us and I don't necessarily want to pay a ton of money for a lot of creators, those micros and those nano creators. Are perfect for that because they're also perfect to get a lot of volume of content. But it's also great because it's less expensive content that you can get usage rates for to leverage for your other marketing efforts. So for paid social or other amplification, connected TV is becoming a big opportunity now in the creator space and amplifying content there. So we're seeing a lot of those that might do more of the volume game, though my personal favorite segment of creator is that mid-tier. So to me, that's— they're the, they're the sweet spot, especially from a performance perspective, because they're the perfect mix of— they're a little bit pricier, but they're not crazy expensive, still fairly approachable price point, but they're established. They are still an established creator. They likely do this full-time. They usually have a talent manager and they have built up a really decent-sized audience because they are genuinely good at what they do. I noticed that mid-tier category from an organic performance perspective tends to perform the best. Though if you're amplifying the content and putting media spend on it, we've actually done some studies and learned that the size of the creator actually doesn't matter. So if you're doing it as part of a paid campaign, whether they're a huge mega creator or a micro, it really just depends on how good their creative is. Not how large their following is, which is super interesting. Interesting.

That is really interesting. And can you define what do you consider mid-tier?

Mid-tier is usually in that, and there's, everyone has a different definition, but I kind of loosely consider it that 75,000 to about 400,000 follower range. So they're not really super small micro, but they're not really a huge, you know, macro mega creator either. They're in that kind of middle ground sweet spot. Oh, nice.

Yeah, I like hearing people's definitions.

Everybody, but you could ask 4 different people and they probably all have a slightly different definition of how they, how they consider each tier, but we're, as an industry, we're trying to get there collectively.

Nice. And let's talk about the flip side of looking at things that, you know, brands get wrong when they're thinking about the vanity metrics, impressions, likes, reach versus connecting to revenue. And you did mention some are looking for more of that awareness piece. But how do you decide what the right mix is and how do you share and tailor and recommend things to your clients for that?

Yeah, it's a great question. So we've had some clients, especially in the enterprise brand level, that do very much leverage influencers for the upper funnel, for the impressions, for the engagement. They have the budget for it, right? They have specific budgets for upper funnel versus bottom of the funnel, but what we have learned is especially with, uh, on the Trivant side, is we have had a few advertisers come to us and say, yeah, we want more awareness, we want more people talking about us, we want more share of voice in the space. So we'll do a campaign, we'll also do some amplification for them. And there's been multiple times where we actually have an awareness objective, but yet still exceeded their CPA benchmark. Compared to their current paid strategy. So then they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, right? Creator as much of our performance channel as much as we thought about it as an awareness channel. But now we're thinking about it a little differently. Maybe we start to think about this as more of a performance channel. So it's also amazing how quickly budgets unlock when, when you're beating those CPA benchmarks and going back to that kind of CFO level, like, okay, I like what I'm seeing here. Let's let's double down on this. And so sometimes we've actually shifted away from brand awareness focus to more bottom of the funnel and CPA or ROI or ROAS focused because the client realized, hey, you know what, we can leverage creator content this way. We don't need to just leverage it for upper funnel. And they're still driving that content. They're still driving that awareness anyway. So they're still getting that, but they're really getting more of that that full funnel strategy. And sometimes we have the clients too that will just say, hey, you know what, we, we do want more of an awareness focus, and that's just our goal, and that's the objective for creators. And, and that's great too, but we're definitely starting to see that shift of, hey, there is— you can do more with creators than what you think you can be doing.

Fantastic. When it comes to the creators, you have a 9-step shield vetting process. Across 10 million+ creators. Obviously, we don't need all of your proprietary information, but I would love to learn about some of the factors that you look to that brands may overlook.

Yeah, it's absolutely— the vetting process is such a critical part of the process. And there's— to us, it's very much a data-driven combined with a human approach. What we're starting to see, especially at a time of AI, that a lot of agencies or consultants are leveraging AI a lot for that vetting process. And that's not 100% a bad thing, right? I think data does inform a lot of, in terms of who's gonna be the right fit, especially as you think of it's audience demographics and psychographics and audience authenticity and engagement rates and all of those clear metrics that determines, are you reaching the right people through that creator, which is critically important. Where a lot of, you know, platforms tend to just miss is that human element to it of, if you're watching their content, are they just a general genuine good fit, right? Can you see them talking about this and it's going to be that natural fit and it doesn't seem like it's going to be a total stretch from the typical content that they would do. What is their content type and does that really align with the brand messaging and the type of content that we're looking to do for this campaign? Brand safety, that's also a huge thing for clients, especially larger ones. And yes, sometimes platforms can catch some of that. And for example, sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not so great, right? Some of them, for example, will say, oh, this creator, major brand safety issue. We would look at if you kept calling her food the bomb. And so, oh yeah, she was just referring to the food as really good, right? But it flagged her as, oh, major no-no from a brand safety perspective, right? So it's also that, that qualitative stuff of, okay, are they actually saying the bomb in the context of the food is delicious, right? And then there might be some stuff that they're actually saying that the platforms wouldn't necessarily catch that is a major no-no and maybe controversial or political or something that could absolutely put the brand at risk. So we look at all those things, and it's really that human component to that, you know, the, the backend stuff checks a lot of the boxes, but that human component of, is there, is this content really going to work well organically? And also, is their content going to work really well paid? And do they really have that strong relationship with their audience? Is sometimes that strong gut check stuff that unless you're really going into it deep with those creators, it's, it's very easy to miss.

Yeah, I can see that how that happens. I mean, even for the podcast, I have my stats, I know I have my audience information, I have my safety rating and all of those things that I can share with potential advertisers or partners because it's important for me also to, to show up the way I want to show up and make sure that my guests are showing up the same way, right? I'd love to just take a little side trip here and talk about what was one of your favorite campaigns that you did as a creator? And then on the other side, what's one of the favorite campaigns that you've put together?

Oh, it's a good question. So I actually got to work on a campaign for the olive oil brand Filippo Berio, and this was a few years back. They were doing an onsite activation at this wine and cheese festival that was a couple hours from my house. And they, you know, sponsored my husband and I to go. And, you know, we had to create content, show the experience, and obviously focus on, on the product and creating the product and some fun recipes with that. And the wine and cheese festival was quite the vibe. It was a great time. There was wine flowing, there was all this amazing food tastings, which I got to participate in all of them. To me, some of the event-based stuff that I did as the creator were some of the most fun things. I also had to do an activation with— over in Hudson Yards in New York, where they were doing this boat caviar tasting event and promoting their caviar tasting boating event. That was also not terrible. Really enjoyed doing that. So some of those were really fun where I got to actually go out meet new people. It wasn't just a face behind a phone where I actually got to meet people and talk to people. I got to meet with the brand and be part of this experience outside of just creating content. Those were absolutely some of my favorite ones. As far as the best one that we did for— and on the business side of it, it's— it is a good question. I would say some of the ones that we've done have been— oh, we did a few for Slim Chickens. So it was the fast food, the fast food QSR that's really growing rapidly in the South. That was a lot of fun because if, first of all, the creators down the South, they love themselves some Slim Chickens. So we got the response rate on that campaign was crazy. Usually it's, it can be sometimes hard to get in with, with creators because there's so much demand. The response rate was almost 100% on that campaign. Every single creator wanted a part of it. And we got to do this really fun onsite activation where they got to do the whole experience of, of eating Slim Chickens. And we did a lot of limited, limited time offer stuff where they got to do different tastings and share content. And the content was just so fun. And what I think was the best part about it is that the client was so great about giving creative freedom to the influencer and saying, you know what, yes, we have some, you know, guardrails as any brand does, but they allowed the creator create that native content that worked really well for their audience. So we got to have fun with it and we got to work with some really big creators and big names who were, when I say amazing partners, they were just incredible. And we ideated and we were trying to come up with different concepts and fun ideas and and also go just creatively different than what they've done before. And I think from a creativity perspective, it was one of the most fun because we had just really carte blanche to kind of do what we want, which we saw that in the performance that we got back. It's like the content was just fun. It was lively. The creators were on site. They were meeting with, with folks in the Slim Chickens team. It was just a really fun campaign and a nice offset sometimes to some of those campaigns that can be a little bit more rigid because clients are very strict from a legal and compliance perspective.

I wish they were in California because that sounds really fun.

I wish they were in Connecticut. I get to visit them, but I do wish they had them fully up here because the food looked so good.

And it's really fun that they allowed for that creative license as well for the creators to come back with something special. And I know sometimes that can go awry, but if— As long as you have a good brief and you're working with creators who really understand, then there shouldn't be any problems. That takes me to the other side, which is, of course, we're starting to see AI creators and we're seeing brands use AI creators that you honestly can't tell are AI. Now they can only create very short videos on social, right? Maybe 10 seconds, but they'll, they'll create an entire life for these creators and they also won't identify them as AI. Which is an issue because we've seen that if you are not, I mean, there's a whole thing, there's a whole Instagram about like, if you create, you know, all these brands coming out and saying, this does not have AI in it. Let me show you the behind the scenes because the ads look so perfect that people are thinking they're creating them with AI. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your perspective on this and are you—

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So right now I would say it's small enough to be mitigated. I think that's going to rapidly change, so it's something that we're definitely staying ahead of. And I do think it has caused even more— I think often, you know, consumers crave authenticity. Yeah, period. Even before AI came about. And I think craving for authenticity has amplified a millionfold now with AI creators coming out, where they're really leaning more towards those creators that they've been following for years and years that they do know, like, and trust. And it's like, ah, a real person that I know without a fraction of a doubt is telling me real stuff and also only promotes real products that I know I'm genuinely gonna like, because they will only promote things that they genuinely like. And I love creators that will be extremely strict about the things and even turn us down sometimes and say, you know what, that product just doesn't really align with something that I would personally use. I will absolutely reach out to that creator again because they care and they will not sacrifice the trust of their audience, and they're willing to turn money away to continue to, to build that trust, which is amazing. I will absolutely go back and reach out to those creators and will absolutely favor them. And so there's definitely, I think, favorability towards those creators even more so, which is great and what I want to see. I think it'll be interesting to see as, as AI continues to blow up, how we have to evolve as an influencer marketing space. And also, does it become a thing where advertisers want or need to start leaning into AI creators more because they start building more of those actual audiences and build— building more of the demand. I do think there'll be more scrutiny about the disclosing of it. I think that'll absolutely continue and there's going to be more of a crackdown on that. But it'll be interesting because, you know, you see that sometimes of someone— people start off as wary about it and then it becomes something that's because more socially acceptable. And I wouldn't be surprised if that happens in the future, but we'll see.

Yeah. And then that's another area where people are going to have to go, my whole income is is going away, what do I do next?

Right, right. Hopefully it doesn't— I'm hoping that a space where it doesn't off— it just works alongside of the real creators and not in replace of. I think people always will still crave some of that human authentic connection, but I hope, right? We'll see.

Yes. When you are thinking, I know you talked about some of the numbers and with the type of creators that you look for. How often do the brands use first-party data to make sure that they're really choosing, or that you're choosing on their behalf, creators that look— the psychographics, the demographics exactly of their audience? Or do they ever say yes to people who might be slightly different but that they still feel will be really genuine to the campaign?

Yes, and we love doing a little bit of that testing because sometimes we'll have clients that tend to work with the same type of creators, right? Maybe the same type of vertical or same type of creative or messaging. And I love the opportunities where we can push on them a little bit and say, you know what, I know this is a little bit of a test and not typically your MO of creator that you would work with, but we can see, you know, based on either their content creativity or the type of, you know, engagement they have with their audience that they could could be a really great test. Could we test this out and just see how this goes? And I love when clients are like, you know what, yeah, let's test that out. So we'll— I'll use the example of Slim Chickens. There was this comedy duo and they just did— and you've probably seen some of them where there's a few different ones like this where they sit on a— they're just sitting on two chairs and they're just throwing jokes, really dry jokes, back and forth at each other. And I'm like, you know what, let's— what if we test them and add some just comedic humor with Slim Chickens being kind of at the center of it. And they're like, yeah, all right, let's test it out, right? Typically, we go with those— the food creators and the fast food eating creators and the creators that are constantly eating or more lifestyle mom creators is kind of the norm for them. But it was like, all right, let's test something different. And the creators just had so much fun with it. And they were going back and forth between dad jokes back and forth to each other, but then also having Slim Chickens is like the forefront of the jokes and it totally stuck. It was such great content and it was just really fun to be able to test different segments of creators that aren't obvious. And I'm seeing brands lean into that more and more where— and they might be a dancing creator and the creator is kind of dancing and creating a brand dance and making a dance out of it. And it's just something that's a little bit different. It catches people's attention and I think it's It's nice because it gets them outside of that comfort zone, outside of just the typical creator, and allows them to reach new audiences that they probably wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Yeah, that sounds really fun. I love the idea of it. I can't even conceive of what it would look like to create a brand dance for a chicken brand.

But it sounds like—

I mean, but it's something that I would watch because it is unique.

Exactly right. It's like, imagine just like a piece of fried chicken in their hand and they're like doing a little dance like, oh, you could have There's especially some of these creators are just so creative in their ideas. I'm a huge fan of the, we'll call the Zenial creators that tend to talk a lot of nostalgia of like the Nut and Deez in early 2000s. And some of them who will do that nostalgic content, but then tie the promotion in with their nostalgic content. And they do it in a way that's so flawless that you don't even realize you're, you know, you're watching sponsored content, but you don't care because it's so funny and it's so good and it's so value-adding that you'll see in the comments like, I know this is sponsored, but I don't even mind because the content is so good and you deserve every single dollar that you got. So it's really cool to see also the audience kind of rah-rahing the creator for the partnerships that they're doing as well.

For people who are listening who haven't dipped their toe fully in working with creators and influencers, Can you talk about the timelines from conceiving the campaign to choosing the creators to executing the creative to then getting the results?

Yeah, it usually takes about, I say, 14 to 30 days on average. We do it in about 14 because we, we realize that most clients that when they want to work with us, they don't really want to wait 30 days for content to go live because that seems like a really long period of time. Especially when you invested into an agency and you're excited about it and you're like, I want to start seeing results soon. And when you start seeing that creator content go live, it is, it's a celebratory, it's a fun moment. It's exciting. So we try to move really quickly on our end. The only thing that usually can slow down the process is really just client approval. So we do a very collaborative process and sure, and most agencies do where, you know, they have the ability to review the creators and they have the ability to review all the draft content to ensure that it's it's aligned with the creators they want, it's aligned with the creative they want, and can give any feedback and edits. So sometimes we'll bake in a little time depending on the client. So for example, if they are more enterprise, there's going to be a legal and compliance part of the process that's probably going to take a little time on their end versus an SMB probably can turn it around in less than 24 hours, right? So we move fast on our end and kind of figure out what works best for the client to try to get out in market as quickly as possible so that within 2 weeks, ideally 3 weeks, they can at least start seeing that content go live. And within a few weeks from there, they're getting enough data to actually inform some of that performance insights and figure out what we want to do and how we want to optimize future campaigns.

Oh, that's really amazing. Okay, so let's talk about the best platforms for content because I know, you know, obviously TikTok Shop is huge right now. And then we also have other, for people buying clothing and stuff, there are alternatives to TikTok Shop. We're seeing even on Meta platforms that they're really trying to keep us in platform even to make purchases. You know, it's, I have to go in and like click to go to the external link so that I can actually take more time and not feel like I'm forced into buying decision right then. So can you talk a little bit about conversion and, you know, online shopping, what you're seeing be most effective?

Yeah, TikTok Shop is becoming huge. We are seeing, you know, I just did a pitch on that yesterday. We are just seeing the demand on that exponentially increasing. And the challenge with social commerce, because it is incredible in the sense that it is great for discoverability. You know, we work with QVC and QVC has been really big in the streaming space for a long time, and they're realizing, you know what, we need to change up our strategy and really double down on social. And they've been doing that in a really meaningful way. They actually got TikTok Shop Seller of the Year this year, which was incredible. It's such an amazing accomplishment for them. But we're seeing a lot of them improve their discoverability of the brand, especially with net new audiences on social through social commerce and TikTok Shop. And to your earlier point, it's interesting because you can get that impression and that first impression and a conversion in the same piece of content, which is changing the funnel really, right? To especially those impulse buys where I've definitely fallen victim of this scrolling and you're like, oh wow, that looks pretty cool. And it's, it's right there and it's an approachable price point and my credit card's already loaded up. It's like, all right, click it and you buy it, right? You already know it's at your house. So it's shortening that funnel in that sales cycle dramatically and allowing brands to reach audiences that they might not have reached before, which is allowing them to use like a TikTok Shop or even like a Meta as that initial discoverability and then hopefully increasing customer lifetime value through their other retention efforts that they're doing, the retention marketing and other retargeting efforts that they're doing as well. So we're seeing a huge explosion of that. I think the biggest challenge that a lot of advertisers are running into is, especially for like a TikTok shop strategy, the amount of creative you need to get the engine humming on that, it's a lot. So we have, we have close relationship with our TikTok partners, and we need about 150 assets per day from affiliate creators just to get the engine starting to hum a little bit, with some of the top-performing advertisers on TikTok Shop generating 1,000 assets from creators per day. The reality is most advertisers do not have the bandwidth or budget to realistically manage that. So it's highly— it's becoming highly, highly competitive. But those that really do put in the work and get and build up that creator community and build up that engine, the success that they're seeing is astronomical, right? And now it takes a lot of work to get there, but it is changing the game of how consumers figure out and find new products and their decision-making process. So it's, it's pretty—

yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's an unbelievable amount of creative.

It It is crazy. It's crazy for us as an agency who manages it all day, every day. I can't imagine. That's why the demand is so high for advertisers to come to agencies, because even if they do have an in-house team, their in-house team is like, hey, we're— we can only do so much, right? That's usually what we get in terms of advertisers that reach out to us. It's their in-house team that are like, there was like 3 of us and we are tapped out and we need help and we need We want to do more and our leadership team wants us to do more, but we're 3 people and we're wearing 17 hats and we need support. And that's, that's really where we come into play. Yeah.

What is something that you love about being part of a bigger organization versus leading your own organization? Because I know they're, they're, they can be very different beasts.

So, so different. And I'm absolutely like pros and cons to both. What I love about being in a bigger organization is there's a culture that's been fostered even before when I joined the team and still as I've been part of the team now for the past 4 years. It's a very culture-led organization and the team is close, cares about each other, good people. Works really hard. You can ask any single person on the team for something and they will drop everything and get it over to you. And so there's just been this amazing culture that was created. And to be able to be part of that culture of these people who are so smart and work so hard and willing to take the shirt off their back for anybody, it's just really, really cool to be a part of that and being able to lead the charge of these amazing people that are doing incredible things. And seeing the things that they do all day, every day. It's, it's been so much fun to be part of that and also being able to drive more of that impact at scale, right? So being able to work with some of the largest brands in the world and being able to execute some of these really incredible campaigns and some of the accolades we've been able to drive from that and seeing the results of our efforts and the, the clients who give us kudos all the time and, and thanked us for all the work that we're doing. It is— it's as much as it's a, it's a tough job, it's such a rewarding one. So it's so cool to see that, that major impact that we can drive versus owning my own agency. It's, it's yours, right? It's, it's your baby. It's, you know, it's so much pressure because it is yours and you're ultimately the one signing the paychecks at the end of the day. But it's also your team and something that you created, and especially as more of a more boutique agency, it's like we're not necessarily gonna have as large of a scale of impact and as big of a culture, but also having something that you built from literally nothing with zero funding or really experience of how to build a startup or an agency at all and be able to build it into something meaningful, especially where you're helping to support a lot of those SMB clients that realistically could never do it themselves. That's also so cool to be able to see them grow in scale and knowing that you're a big part of that story.

Yeah, and that's a great place to mention Get Hyped is still around. I mean, as you said, your husband took it over, you're a strategic advisor, and I love that you serve very different audiences with both organizations.

Exactly, it works out so well. And we're actually referral partners to each other too. So Get Hyped tends to work more with that, that SMB type of client and works in those clients that have to be scrappy from a budget perspective, and they're looking for that really advisory role for the agency that they're working with, which is so different from the Trivant type of client that is more of that we'll call upper mid-market or enterprise client that has a huge team, but then has, you know, multiple stakeholders and multiple business units and teams that you're operating with. And it's, it's complexity at scale. So they, they operate so differently. And it's great because sometimes Get Hyped will get a more enterprise-level opportunity and they'll refer that to us and we might get an SMB opportunity and we'll refer that to them. So it's been great to really help support both our organizations at the same time.

Yeah.

Oh, fantastic. What is one piece of advice you'd give to anybody who's listening who wants to dip their toe more into being a creator or an influencer?

I would say the first thing is focus on value. Focus on giving value to your audience. So people want to be either entertained or they want to be informed, or they want to learn something. Make it the type of content that is worthy for people to watch and stop and scroll, especially at a time where there's so much creator competition. There's so much content out there. People are doom scrolling really quickly. Make content that's really worth paying attention to. So figure out what do you really love or what are you really good at? Or, you know, what do you love? What— it's something that you love to make, whatever it may be. There is quite literally a vertical for everything and there is an audience for everything. You'll be surprised and just have fun with it. Be passionate about it and also be yourself because that is your biggest differentiator is that there's no one in the world that's exactly like you. You see a lot of these newly coming creators that try to, and not intentionally, but they're kind of ripping off other creators because they view them as aspirational and they're trying to take some of those best practices. But it's obvious that they're trying to pretend like they're someone that they really aren't. And it's easy to do because sometimes you don't even catch yourself doing it. And I would find myself sometimes doing it. I would talk on an Instagram story and my husband would go, why was your voice 4 knots higher than it normally was? And I'm like, oh my God, You're right. You know, I, I'm not even talking like myself. So the best thing you could do is just be your true authentic self and provide value. Figure out what that value proposition's gonna be. And then the tough part is also have patience, right? So be patient. It does take time to grow, but if you continue putting in the work and provide value to your audience, you will see the fruits of it.

Yeah. And on the other side, of course, when a brand is getting started, what's the first step to their journey. Yeah.

So especially if you're starting to work with creators, right? So first get help, you know, whether it's bringing on folks in-house or hiring an agency or bringing on a consultant, because influencer marketing is one of those things where it's very easy to spend a lot of money on it and not to get the results that you're looking for. The strategy is not right. So find folks that. Know the space really, really well, especially if you are just starting out with it, that can provide you that strategy or that guidance or that execution. If you're trying to do it on a budget, hire a more boutique agency or get some offshore help or get folks that are willing to have a lot of expertise and, and support you with that. And then test, you know, be patient and test and learn, right? So I, that's similarly, it's like there is a patience part of it where it's with— especially if you're just starting an influencer strategy, sometimes it takes a little while to do that test and learn process, figure out what creative works, what creators work, who do you want to turn from a one-time partnership to a brand ambassador ongoing? You know, what works with organic audiences versus what works really well at scale? Try different things. Even if it doesn't seem like it's the obvious thing to try, try it anyway and just do a little bit of A/B testing and see what works and what doesn't. And then use that initial data and those insights to help inform what that future plan looks like and just continue to learn, continue to evolve. And if you do that, you bring smart folks in, you continue to test and learn, you will see success from it. It's just a matter of the time and investment that you need to put into it, which sometimes for, for brands can be, can be tough.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we will obviously have your, you know, links in the show notes so that people know how to reach out to get that expert help that we can use when we're trying to start campaigns so that we don't break the bank and make a lot of missteps, having the right person. And I, I think you've really helped guide us today in this conversation in terms of maybe not being as worried about AI influencer, realizing that we still want authenticity, we still want transparency, we want genuine conversation, genuine people that we know, like, and trust, you know, to be putting out content for brands that we also love or that we want to learn about. So thank you for kind of dispelling some things that are out there and, and sharing others. And the reality is TikTok shop, that's, you know, so much content. And I don't think people necessarily realize these things when they're starting out or having that idea to switch.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's still, it's one of those newer, still newish, right? It's a few years old now, newish type of offerings, and it's exploding. But yeah, I think when we talk to advertisers and we talk about the amount of content, it's usually quite a surprise.

Fantastic. Christina, do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto, words that you live by?

Yeah, I do. It's, the difference between a stumbling rock and a stepping stone is what you make of it, you know. And I think it's so applicable for everything, whether it's career transition, whether it's trying a new digital marketing strategy, whether it's something that you're going through in a personal life, I found that every single time you think something might be a stumbling block, it's actually just a stepping stone to something greater. So keep trying, be patient, do new things, do what you love, and you'll end up exactly where you need to be.

Fantastic. I love that. And that's one I haven't heard before, but it is so appropriate. So thank you so much for being on Your Brand Amplified today and giving us your advice and wisdom. And thank you to everybody who is watching this episode or listening to it on your favorite platform. I'll be back again with another amazing guest to share their story and their journey very soon. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of Your Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out at yourbrandamplified.com.

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