Brands Expand Creator Marketing Beyond Awareness to Drive Product Launches and Sales

How Brands Are Moving Influencers Down the Funnel

Brands are no longer treating influencers as mere megaphones for awareness. According to new Digiday research, 88% of brand and agency professionals now deploy creator partnerships for seasonal campaigns, while 78% tap influencers for product launches—a clear signal that creator marketing is moving down the funnel.

The shift is practical. Albertsons Media Collective saw engagement triple on Instagram and quadruple on Facebook when it used Linqia influencers to spotlight Lunar New Year traditions. Ruggable, the home goods brand, used affiliate platform ShopMy to identify a micro-influencer with high conversion potential—chef Dan Pelosi—and then co-developed a product line with him after noting strong sales data. CMO Lauren Sherman-Kaoud says ShopMy allowed the brand to “scale our influencer program by 20 times.”

At the same time, brands are getting more disciplined about how they use creators. Milani Cosmetics classifies influencers into three groups: those who shape brand perception, those who educate (like makeup artists), and those focused purely on driving sales through livestream shopping. Strava, the fitness app, only works with athletes who already use the platform authentically—often pros or verified users—and gives them features to test and then share across multiple channels.

The trend extends to homegrown talent. Nearly a third of survey respondents now use a mix of in-house employees and external influencers. Ulta Beauty runs an associate creator program alongside its “Ulta Beauty Collective” of external influencers. And Duolingo treats its famous owl mascot as its own influencer, making brand-creator collaborations feel like two creators teaming up.

Why Data, Segmentation and Authenticity Are Redefining Creator Partnerships

From Awareness to Product Co-Creation

The Digiday data reflects a strategic pivot: marketers once paid for reach; now they want attributable impact. Platforms like ShopMy provide affiliate sales data that lets brands identify which creators actually move product, not just content. Ruggable’s 20x scaling is telling—when data validates a creator’s influence on purchases, the partnership naturally deepens into co-creation. This turns an influencer from a rented channel into a product-development asset, embedding them into the supply chain of brand innovation.

The Segmentation Advantage

Milani Cosmetics’ three buckets aren't just internal jargon; they solve a core problem of measurement. By separating creators by objective—perception, education, conversion—the CMO can allocate budget against distinct KPIs. Perception campaigns can be judged on sentiment and reach, education on tutorial engagement, and sales on affiliate link clicks. This segmentation, echoed in Strava’s rigorous verification process, moves the industry away from the vague “return on influence” toward a performance-marketing mindset.

Building an Authentic Creator Pipeline

Both Strava and Ulta Beauty illustrate that the most effective creators aren’t bought in bulk; they’re grown. Strava only onboards those who already use the product, ensuring that content never feels forced. Ulta’s employee-creators bring product expertise and genuine customer rapport, while the external collective captures cultural trends. The 29% of surveyed companies blending in-house and external talent suggests a maturing supply chain: internal creators for consistent, trustworthy messaging, external ones for reach and cultural relevance. And when a brand owns a character like Duo, it turns a mascot into a collaborative peer, lowering resistance from potential partners.

What CMOs Should Do Now to Turn Creators into a Growth Engine

• Use affiliate data to spot product collaborators. Ruggable’s success with ShopMy shows that tracking actual sales from influencers can quickly surface micro-creators worth co-developing lines with. Implement a data feedback loop that signals when a creator’s audience converts above benchmarks.
• Segment your creator roster by campaign objective. Adopt Milani’s three-tier model (brand, education, sales) and assign distinct KPIs. This forces clarity in briefs and makes ROI comparisons across programs possible.
• Build a creator program, not a series of one-off deals. Strava’s verified network and Ulta’s associate creators rely on long-term incentives like early access to features or commissions. Give creators a reason to invest in your brand’s success over multiple campaigns.
• Audit your own employee talent. Nearly a third of firms already use in-house creators. Identify customer-facing staff—chemists, makeup artists, product developers—who can produce authentic educational content at scale, often at lower cost than external talent.
• Trust creators’ native voice. Over-scripted content repels audiences, as YouTube’s Brian Albert noted. Brief on goals—not a line-by-line script—and measure authenticity through engagement spikes and sentiment, not just views.