Process & Working With Us — straight answers.

Realistic timeline for a mid-size campaign ($50-150K):

• Week 1: Brief intake, forecast generation, creator sourcing
• Week 2: Creator shortlist review, negotiations, contracting
• Week 3: Creative brief, concept approval round
• Week 4-5: Content production by creator
• Week 5-6: Content review and revision rounds (typically 1-2 revisions)
• Week 6-7: Go-live
• Week 7-10: Performance measurement window
• Week 10: Post-campaign report and recommendations

Total: roughly 8-10 weeks from kickoff to actionable results.

Rush timelines are possible: 4-week turnaround for single-creator deals, 5-6 weeks for 3-5 creators if briefs are ready and creative approval is light. Anything faster than 4 weeks usually means skipping vetting or settling for whatever creator is available — both compromise results.

Slowest stage is almost always creator content production (varies 5-21 days based on creator's existing schedule) and brand-side approval rounds. We've seen brands add 3 weeks to timelines through internal approval chains. Pre-align stakeholders before kickoff.

Minimum inputs for a useful forecast:

Required:

• Product category and 1-line description
• Target geo(s) — country level minimum, region preferred
• Target audience (age, gender, interest categories)
• Conversion event you're optimizing for (install, signup, purchase, etc.)
• Average payback metric (CAC target, ROAS target, or LTV)
• Total budget range
• Campaign window (start date, length)

Strongly preferred:

• Past performance benchmarks from other channels (paid social CPA is most useful)
• Landing page or app store link
• Prior influencer history if any (creators tried, what worked, what didn't)
• Brand-safety constraints (categories to avoid)

Optional but improves accuracy:

• LTV by cohort
• Existing brand awareness in target geo
• Creative assets or brand guidelines

Forecasts generated without payback metrics or prior performance data come with ±50% confidence intervals — useful directionally but not for go/no-go decisions. With full inputs, ±25% range. Standard intake takes 30-45 minutes; forecast generation runs 24-72 hours depending on vertical complexity.

Both work, with different tradeoffs.

You handle outreach directly:

• Lower cost (no agency margin on creator fees)
• Slower scaling — 5-10 hours per creator deal on average
• You own the relationship long-term
• Best for brands running ongoing programs (10+ deals/month)
• Risk: limited leverage on pricing, no benchmark for what's fair

We handle outreach:

• Faster — we sourced, vetted, and contracted 12-creator campaigns in 10 days
• Pricing leverage from volume (creators give us 10-25% off rate cards)
• Standardized contracts (FTC, exclusivity, usage rights, kill fees)
• Forecast-driven creator picks vs guesswork
• Cost: 12-18% management fee on creator spend

Hybrid: common for mature brands. We forecast and source, you take over execution on creators you want to own long-term. Works well past month 3-4 of a program.

If you're running 1-2 deals per quarter, direct outreach is fine. Past that, the time cost of running creator programs in-house exceeds the agency fee. Where we add disproportionate value is the forecast layer — pre-deal CPA prediction is hard to replicate in-house.

Standard contract language handles this — but the operational reality matters more than the contract.

Our contract defaults:

• 48-hour grace period from agreed publish date
• After 48h: 15% fee reduction per day late, up to 50% total
• After 7 days late: client option to cancel deal and recover 100% of paid fees
• Kill fee retained by creator only if content was produced and approved but client chose not to publish

What we do operationally:

• Daily check-ins starting 5 days before publish date
• Escalate to creator's manager/agent at 24h slip
• Have 1-2 backup creators on standby for time-sensitive campaigns (launches, seasonal moments)
• Adjust forecast and campaign-level KPIs to reflect timeline shifts

Across our placements, on-time delivery rate is 88-92% for proven creators, 70-78% for first-time creators. Most misses are 1-3 days, not catastrophic. Real launch-blocking misses (>7 days late) happen in roughly 2-4% of deals. Build in 1 week of buffer between agreed publish date and the date your campaign actually depends on going live.

Disclosure is non-negotiable in our contracts and we audit it post-publish. The rules vary by region:

US (FTC): Clear, conspicuous disclosure. Acceptable: #ad, #sponsored, "paid partnership" tag, verbal disclosure within first 30 seconds of video. Not acceptable: #sp, #thanks, buried at end of caption, mentioned only in video description.

UK (CMA/ASA): #ad required, must appear at top of caption/video. Stricter enforcement than US.

EU (varies by country, plus DSA layer): Germany requires "Werbung" or "Anzeige," France requires explicit disclosure, all EU now under DSA transparency rules.

Regulated verticals (fintech, gambling, health, alcohol): add regional disclaimers ("18+", "Capital at risk", licensing numbers) and platform-specific creative restrictions. Crypto adds another layer (UK FCA requires risk warnings).

Our process: every brief includes disclosure requirements specific to creator's geo and vertical. We review final content before publish for compliance. Post-publish audit confirms disclosure remained intact (creators occasionally edit captions after publish — we catch this).

Brands carry liability for non-compliant disclosure even if creator made the mistake. Don't trust handshake disclosure agreements.

For brands on retainer with us, yes — selectively. Structure depends on campaign maturity:

Full performance-based pricing (CPA/CPI only): rarely offer it. Top creators won't accept it, so the available roster is limited to weaker performers. Bad selection bias for everyone.

Hybrid base + bonus: standard for established programs. Brand pays 60-75% of creator fee upfront, we hold remainder against performance benchmarks. If campaign hits within ±20% of forecast CPA, we release full payment. Outside that band, we negotiate adjustments. Only works when (a) we've run 3+ prior campaigns with you, (b) baseline performance is established, (c) measurement framework is shared.

Agency-fee at risk: for mature retainer relationships, we tie 20-30% of our management fee to forecast accuracy. If our forecast is consistently off by more than 50%, you don't pay full fee. Skin in the game on our prediction quality.

Pure cost-plus: default for first 1-2 campaigns. Builds the data we need to offer performance terms later.

We don't offer performance terms on first engagements because the forecast model needs your specific data to calibrate. Anyone promising guaranteed CPA on a first campaign is bluffing.

Three things happen, in order:

1. Root-cause diagnostic (within 5 business days of campaign close): we break down whether the miss came from (a) view delivery (creator underperformed reach), (b) CTR (creative weakness), (c) post-click CVR (landing page or offer), or (d) attribution gap (campaign worked but measurement missed it). About 35% of "underperformances" turn out to be measurement issues, not real misses.

2. Forecast accountability: if our forecast was off by more than 50% in the wrong direction and the cause is creator selection or pricing (not your offer/LP), we offer either (a) credit against next campaign equal to 50% of agency management fee, or (b) re-running the campaign with replacement creators at our cost on the agency-fee side.

3. Model retraining: every miss gets logged into our calibration system. Repeated misses in your vertical update our forecast bands for similar future briefs.

We don't refund creator fees — those went to creators for delivered content. We do put our own fee at risk when our prediction was the failure point. Standard for retainer clients, available case-by-case on one-off campaigns.

Those are creator-management platforms (CRM + workflow tools for in-house influencer teams). We're a forecast engine + managed service. Different category, different buyer.

CreatorIQ, Aspire, GRIN, Influencity: SaaS tools, $1.5-15K/month. You bring the strategy, creator picks, and execution capacity. They help you organize the work. Best for brands with 2+ FTE on influencer programs running 20+ deals/month.

GrowThunders:

• Predicted CPA before you sign deals — none of the platforms do this; they help you track campaigns after the fact
• Managed execution — we source, contract, brief, and measure. You don't need an in-house influencer team
• Cross-vertical performance data — 1,400+ placements, 67 markets feed the forecast model
• Outcome accountability — fee structure tied to forecast accuracy on mature programs

Where a SaaS platform makes more sense: you have an existing in-house team and need workflow tooling.

Where we make more sense: you want fewer bad creator picks, performance-aligned pricing, and you'd rather buy outcomes than buy software seats. Some brands run both — our forecasts feed picks they execute in their CreatorIQ workflow.