Building a profitable creator strategy

We are reshaping the creator function from a primarily product-seeding approach into a more deliberate acquisition channel. The work combines creator selection, stronger creative, audience insight and commercial performance to identify where the brand can build more valuable customers through creators.

The challenge

The brand had already established creator activity, but product seeding was the primary approach. Results were inconsistent, with some creators delivering strong content and commercial returns while others generated activity without a meaningful return.

The existing strategy also leaned heavily towards younger creators, despite early performance showing that some older creators were delivering significantly stronger ROAS.

For a subscription product, first-order ROAS is only part of the picture. The real question is whether the cost of acquiring a customer makes sense against the revenue that customer can generate over their lifetime.

The opportunity was to move away from broad creator volume and towards a more focused strategy built around the right audiences, stronger creative and sustainable customer economics.

Building the creator strategy

We started by looking at what was actually driving performance across the creator programme — from audience and creator profile through to content, hooks and commercial return.

That meant moving away from a spray-and-pray seeding model and towards a more intentional approach to creator selection. Early results pointed towards stronger opportunities within Millennial and Gen X audiences, particularly where creators had a more credible and relevant relationship with the customer.

We also sharpened the creative approach, focusing on stronger hooks, clearer content angles and messaging designed to earn attention and drive conversion rather than simply showcase the product.

Making change repeatable

The strategy is increasingly being measured through the economics of customer acquisition, not simply the amount of content produced or products seeded.

For a subscription brand, that means understanding ROAS alongside customer lifetime value and identifying the creators capable of bringing in customers who are commercially valuable beyond their first purchase.

The next phase will build on this foundation through TryBe, the brand's first affiliate programme and TikTok Shop — creating more structured routes to recruit, activate and scale the right creators.