Why creator marketing teams can't scale

Over the last decade, creator marketing has become a powerful strategy for building brand loyalty and driving sales. But as more brands look to scale up and chase even bigger wins, many are quickly discovering just how much of a nightmare managing creators can become.

Why?

Manual data entry.

Every new creator, campaign, promotion, and product becomes a data point that needs to be collected, tracked, and logged. One. tedious. entry. at. a. time.

The daily data grind (and its costs)

Creator marketing teams heavily rely on manual data entry for creator information and activity tracking throughout the creator lifecycle. Onboarding each new creator requires gathering information from multiple sources, including contact details, social media handles, platforms, follower counts, reach, and much more. This information is then manually dumped into various spreadsheets or tools and must be entered into each new creator contract.

Tracking creator activities presents another challenge, requiring detailed and repetitive tracking and data entry tasks. Teams must log each creator’s actions and performance metrics manually. This is particularly challenging for ephemeral content like Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours. Marketing teams must act quickly to capture and log performance metrics, often leading to incomplete or inaccurate records that undermine performance analyses.

When campaigns involve specific products or promotions, the struggle continues. Teams must manually track and link these products or promotions to creators, correlating activities with performance and sales data. This requires meticulous logging of creator activities, cross-referencing it with product performance metrics, and constantly updating records to reflect changes.

These data entry and tracking requirements are time-consuming and error-prone. One minor mistake—a misplaced space or period—can disrupt the entire dataset, impacting decision-making, reporting, and even payouts.

For example, an additional space in a social media handle might result in failed searches or incorrect tagging, leading to incomplete or inaccurate data retrieval. A misplaced period in a numerical value can drastically alter calculations, resulting in incorrect engagement rates or follower counts. These minor errors can cascade through the dataset, causing significant inaccuracies that affect decision-making, reporting, and even creator payouts. Finding and fixing such errors is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

The situation is exacerbated by the existing processes and systems used by creator marketing teams, which often include a patchwork of Excel spreadsheets and other disparate tools. Each tool may capture only part of the necessary information, making it challenging to piece together a complete picture. This fragmentation results in inefficiencies, as teams spend considerable time transferring data between systems, reconciling discrepancies, and ensuring consistency.

As the volume of data grows with expanding campaigns and creator partnerships, manual data entry processes become increasingly cumbersome and unmanageable. Teams struggle to keep up with the workload, campaign execution slows and the daily data grind continues….

Free Creator Economy Resource List

Looking for the latest news and insights on the creator economy? We’ve curated a selection of top industry resources — all continuously updated— to help marketers navigate the creator economy more effectively. We’ve just added a global marketing events calendar! Check it out here 👇

Industry spotlight

Creators are pioneering a new way of brand-building: Audience-orientation

Marketers are often taught that there are two ways to orient a business: product and market. But creator-backed brands like Prime are finding a third way: audience orientation. Read more here

Experts warn - Why paying influencers based on engagement quantity encourages harmful collusion

A new study by researchers at the University of Nottingham found that compensating social media influencers based on engagement metrics like follower counts, likes, and comments creates incentives for fraudulent behavior and collusion, potentially harming consumers and advertisers. Read more here

Vetting creators the good” way: The unconventional method this agency applies for successful partnerships

Co-founder of The Good Egg shares how the agency thoroughly vets creators through a combination of technology and human review to ensure they align with brand values and voice. Read more here

Starpower

Microsoft launches collaboration with food critic Keith Lee called The Reheat

The Reheat is a program that pairs Microsoft with the restaurants that Keith highlights, to help them future proof their businesses with the company's AI-powered tool Copilot. Read more here

Plannin taps 600+ influencers to create authentic travel recs and earn a 5% lifetime commission on hotel bookings

Former Priceline executives Andrew Loewen and Randy Schartner have co-founded Plannin, a new global travel booking platform launching with over 600 influencers onboard. Read more here

Sports Illustrated launching digital version of its swimsuit issue with TikTok creator Alix Earle

Beginning this summer, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit will launch one-of-a-kind digital issues timed to major moments in entertainment and culture. The first issue will feature content creator & podcast host of ‘Hot M.ss’ Alix Earle. Read more here

Interesting reads

The brand’s guide to full-funnel creator strategies: Tactics and insights for creator partnerships, engagement and ROI [LINK]

LG fuels positivity on social media with ‘Optimism your feed’ playlist [LINK]

Insights into the world of a product review creator [LINK]

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