Merch as a marketing channel, not a side hustle
Branded product earns its place when it gives an audience something to wear in public. Small runs, decent blanks, and honest margins beat a warehouse of unsold stock.
When paid amplification is worth it, and when it wastes budget
Boosting a creator post can multiply a good result or magnify a bad one. The deciding factor is almost always organic hold rate in the first week.
Affiliate attribution without fooling yourself
Codes and links only tell part of the story. Here is how we reconcile creator-tracked sales against analytics, and how we treat the gap honestly instead of claiming all of it.
Writing a brief a creator actually wants to make
Over-specified briefs produce flat videos. Give the hook, the one thing that must be said, and the boundaries — then let the creator do the part you hired them for.
How we score a creator before we ever send a brief
Follower count is the weakest signal on the sheet. Audience overlap, comment quality, posting consistency, and past brand work tell you far more about whether a partnership will convert.
Reach is not a result: picking metrics that survive a board meeting
Impressions are easy to buy and hard to defend. This is the short list of numbers we report instead, and why each one holds up when somebody senior asks what the money bought.