Jordan Buckner (00:00)
Creator marketing and affiliate marketing has become one of the most talked about growth channels in CPG, but it's also a place where you can waste a lot of money if you don't do it correctly. Right. So many brands send out a product, maybe they pay some influencers for a post and hope for sales.

But the brands seeing real results are actually building creative programs that generate consistent content, strengthen retail velocity, and create long-term customer acquisition paths and just relationships in general. And I really want to talk through this to understand how to build effective programs that actually can drive your business forward. So I invited on Austin Clare, who leads strategy and execution at Endlss which is an affiliate management platform. You know, the past 15 years, Austin has built creative programs for brands at every stage and helped.

companies move beyond just the one-off influencer campaigns and help build sustainable systems that really compound over time. Welcome to the show Austin appreciate you being here.

Austin Clare (00:56)
Dude, thank you so much. Excited to chat with you.

Jordan Buckner (00:58)
So I'd love to know starting out, like what is working in creator marketing today and what's not?

Austin Clare (01:04)
It's great question. So creator marketing today. I I believe that I have a pretty an a unique approach to how

Creator programs essentially exist and how they function and how they're systematized. So, how just real quick to define what I'm talking about from a creator program standpoint, I believe that there are three buckets currently for creator programs. There are your microambassadors, which are essentially your raving fans, right? They join your company. They are in their own definition of whatever that is. They've got a lower amount of followers, but they're raving fans of the brands, right? you have your UGC creators, these people who are

diehard creators. They will create videos. There's really no loyalty to any brand, but they know how to create, they know how to use the tools that they have been given. they're great at speaking, great diction, everything across the board. And then you have your paid tier, which essentially is your paid, like these are your celebrities, right? These are your million followers. So

I think out of those three tiers, your microambassadors, your UGC creators, and your paid tier or your paid top tier creators, I believe effective brands who are doing this correctly have a mix of all three. And so essentially, and then breaking that down inside of each one, what creators are doing well.

I believe that right now creators are the one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful asset to the business. And here's why. Every business right now is fighting for the same thing. They are fighting for awareness. They are fighting for awareness on every platform. Meta ads are through the roof. Google's challenging. TikTok ads are fine. TikTok shop, the rise of live shopping, all that's great. But what's essentially is happening is awareness. how do brands get awareness at the fastest level possible? It's word of mouth.

It's voice. It's the same thing back in the day when you had a brick and mortar store, you wanted people to know about you, you told 10 friends, you said go tell 10 more friends. And those 10 friends told more, 10 more friends, then suddenly people were showing up. It's the exact same thing here. So from the creator space, I believe that what was really, really working right now for all three tiers is the experience that the brand is giving and essentially the clarity in which a brand gives to a creator in order to be able to do their job.

effectively, which is create either, is it an ad? Is it a social post? Is it is it just a break straight awareness piece? Is it a gorilla marketing tactic where you're trying to be overly aggressive and get someone to laugh? Or is it a you know whatever it is exactly, the brand's clarity in how they describe whatever they're asking for and the experience they give the creator.

Dictates whether how good the creator does and how long the creator stays. So ultimately, what I how I circle all that back is that from the brand, the term we use here at Endlss to creators is you don't work for us, we work for you. So what that means is how do we give you an experience that when we ask you to create something, you

are

actually excited to do it and one you'll do it at the level that essentially your highest level so it gets us the highest results. I think to go back to that I mean probably the core of the question was what are creators doing really well and what's worth that the skill set to create a video or to create an ad is so widely now available, right? it's hook, it's body, it's CTA, like everybody knows and as long as you have

You can watch a million videos on are you lacking with sleep? Well, guess what? We've got the product. It's so easy to do. Anyone, anyone, any age group can do it. and I think what it really comes down to now is brands investing in the people similar to employees, right? The be more you invest in the employee, the more they're gonna give you back. And

so, I

Jordan Buckner (04:20)
really

Austin Clare (04:20)
double down on that thought.

Jordan Buckner (04:21)
great. I love that.

Austin Clare (04:21)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (04:22)
Yeah,

I mean I a couple of things I want to dive into. One, you mentioned that a lot of this content's really great for awareness. I see this disconnect, especially with smaller merging brands as they're growing, where they are wanting direct return on investment from any marketing that they're doing.

And when you look at the funnel, right, if you think about the general sales funnel usually starts with awareness through consideration and then the final decision and then all the loyalty and repeat that comes after that. But a lot of the creative marketing p elements price sit more at that awareness level. I think it kind of blends a little bit with like things like TikTok shop where someone might see it, can buy immediately. But I think that's where there's a lot of disconnect between founders getting started.

and understanding how to build that funnel because if I maybe work with five creators, it's a very small number, I sh probably shouldn't expect direct sales from those five posts. Or should

I? Like what's

Austin Clare (05:14)
Zero.

Jordan Buckner (05:15)
zero. Like what's needed to build that like base foundation to actually start generating some traffic, some return, some awareness of the brand. Is it 50 creator kind of post? Is it a hundred? Is it a thousand? Like where do you like what's like that minimum bar?

Austin Clare (05:28)
It's a great question. So I think what you're describing is literally the hardest problem. so how I break down brands problems, especially from a startup perspective, you have two massive problems: acquisition and retention. How do you get someone to come in and then how do you get them to stay? So, creators obviously, you don't most founders don't have $100,000 spent on meta in their first month. So they're gonna pivot to creators and they think,

I'll give out five products, like you said, to five creators, and they're gonna make five videos, and then I'm gonna make money. Not not a shot. almost more than likely zero. So the approach I've done with this, I've worked with companies that have ambassador programs and UGC programs of 30 30 people, and I've worked with ones that have 3,000 people. The truth is this it is an absolute volume game.

And if you think, and that's why I think founders, this is a such a good point. I think founders get too caught up in the nitpick of, this creator's hair is a little too brown. I wish they had 6,000 followers over 5,580. And they get so n or the video, right? I wish the

Jordan Buckner (06:27)
Yeah.

Austin Clare (06:28)
lighting was turned up a tiny bit more because that's gonna change the conversion of the it's not. And so what what what we're finding is, and there's a lot of great, great brands doing it.

Simplifying it so much where it's hey do this and then just testing it. So the volume play, right? As a a new founder, if I was a new founder to started today, right? I'm I've got a new brand. I and I the most what I would do is make sure that my inventory is have I'd have hundreds of units, hundreds of units to send out. And I'm sending out as many units as I can to people and hope calling them, giving them an experience so they want to create for me because here's also the problem. this is the problem now.

A year

Jordan Buckner (07:02)
Sure.

Austin Clare (07:03)
ago, six months ago, UGC was like, okay, cool. Right? Or ambassador, right? It's like, yeah, that's really cool. I don't brands, you know, brands need it. They need me. And then the supply quintupled and now 10x'd. And now you've got a million UGC creators all fighting for the brands that are gonna pay.

And now the demand is the supply is way too high. And the demand brands can't keep up with it because now these creators want salaries and all that type of stuff. And so you're fighting for experience. How do you get them to create a video for you instead of your biggest competitor or any other brand as well? And that's experience. So again, a new founder, right? I'm sending out hundreds of products.

Call them, send them the handwritten note. hopefully that the product resonates with something that means something to them. So for instance, like I'm a runner, a stream runner. If I get sent a product on bobsledding, I'm probably not gonna make a post about it because I don't bobsled. It's no relevancy to that. And so

Jordan Buckner (07:53)
Yeah.

Austin Clare (07:54)
it's coming up with this plan that essentially, again, people to people, right? If pretend this UGC creator is your customer or potentially is going to find help find your new customers, treat them like such. Treat them like such. And again, I think that's

It's such a weird, unique take, but like the more you treat these people like people and less just like cogs in your UGC machine, which at the end of the day they are, but you try your best not to make them feel like that, you're going to be successful. But it is volume. It is volume. I would say, like right now, I have a we're we're a gorilla, I have a brand, right? And I'm currently right now, we send out 200 invitations a week. And we send out and it's going to go up to 300. it is volume.

Right. And you find your t eighty twenty principle. Your top twenty percent are gonna make up eighty percent of the results. You take that twenty percent, you grow that twenty percent, you're gonna be successful.

Jordan Buckner (08:38)
Yeah, I mean I think that just changes the script for a lot of people because you know I know like short on TikTok, I'll like see video after video for a product. And I might skip the first couple and I'm like, wait, why do all these people keep talking about? All right, let me actually like watch one that's interesting. Right. And I might skip over three, but it's the fourth one that catches my attention. But I need to see those other three

to stop. That's

Austin Clare (08:57)
Correct. Correct.

Jordan Buckner (08:58)
that's wow. And then so as brands are doing this, how do you balance then that mix of like

Creators who you send out only free product versus creators that you are paying to create content versus like that third of like a revenue share come from like affiliate

Austin Clare (09:13)
Yeah.

So this is such a fun question because it's what we're all dealing brands are dealing with right now, right? There's all the gurus are saying you gotta pay a thousand dollars for six videos right off the bat. I'm gonna tell you from a new founder perspective, okay, or just in general, the amount of people right now who will create videos for you for free is the biggest it's ever been. There are our apps like that and listen, like other apps that

There is thousands of creators who just want their shot. Utilize them. So how I do it and how I've always done it is it's similar, like when you want a job, you gotta earn it. You gotta show it. And you gotta have the resume, you gotta show it, you gotta make yourself the values there. So what I always do is, hey, commission. Always commission, 100%. And again, you're not loyal to me. You're loyal, you're creating for a bunch of other brands.

if you commit to this and it works and it pops off and the sales come in and every and the data says you're great, we move you from tier to tier. So I create personally a system that essentially someone comes in.

We have specific KPIs that we want them to hit. That can be sales, that can be clicks, that can be whatever. Just consistency in videos, their love for it, whatever. It can be whatever the brand wants from the KPI perspective. And if they hit those KPIs, then we move them up. And so it goes from commission only to small retainer to bigger retainer to fill in the blank along the roads. But what I've found is this when you give someone a retainer for UGC specifically, right off the bat, the

Not excitement. It maybe it is excitement. The I've already won mentality. Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (10:37)
Motivation, maybe.

Austin Clare (10:39)
Well, they're not the money, but the it's almost like this, I've already won. Right? I've

Jordan Buckner (10:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Austin Clare (10:43)
already won. So I have a really good friend of mine. He does UGC and he just had his first week. He just made two grand on UGC. And that's from his commissions. And he's like, this is like the best thing ever. He's hungry for it. If those brands take him off that commission, put him on a salary, he'll just go f he's it's almost it's a drug. You wanna feel that.

my gosh, my video popped off. Look at my money commission coming in. Boom. And so if you give them that right off the bat, it's really hard you can only keep going up from there. And so start it slow and build with them. You know, that's why only a few people come in senior level roles in businesses. Like most people start in this position, they work their way up, they have a growth path, right? You give the creators a growth path, they're gonna stay with you forever. If you just say, hey, you come in, it's this for life, see you later.

They're eventually gonna leave. They want the ex

Jordan Buckner (11:23)
I mean, I love that perspective

because then I think that aligns with founders and the way that a lot of them think, right? 'Cause it's like if I pay someone two grand off the bat and the video's just like fine, they see no results from it, I'm gonna be like, Okay, where do I go from here? Like I have no nothing else to really incentivize them with. But if I'm giving out product and find, hey, maybe

Most of them did like okay, but here's 20% that did really well. Like, how then can I capture that? I think a lot of founders and brands miss that piece as well. Like, how do you like pay attention to the ones that are really performing and develop those tiers in advance so you can just move them up? You have the processes already

in

Austin Clare (11:56)
Thanks.

Jordan Buckner (11:56)
place. So you're not making up and losing them

Austin Clare (11:59)
Let me

Jordan Buckner (11:59)
from your network, from a one-off post if they perform so well.

Austin Clare (12:02)
Here's also this is a really fun, I think, tidbit that I think it's been going on since the beginning of time in marketing, especially digital marketing. Smaller founders are trying to do what the nine-figure brands are doing at the same time the nine-figure brands are currently doing it. Doesn't make any sense. So, for instance, a nine-figure brand is gonna hire Alex Earl to promote, you know, or Symbiotica, who she has a stake in now. Like, you can't go find a creator to give like to pay you a million dollars. Like, it just doesn't work like that.

That or let's say this for a nine-figure brand saying, Hey, we're testing a thousand videos a week. You, as a new founder, you can't like that doesn't make any sense. You don't have the budget to test a thousand videos a week, and also to get that thousand is gonna take you 10 times the long amount of time because they have a staff. Like, do live within the time frame of your business where your type business actually is. If you're a startup, realize you have limitations and scale accordingly. If you have 100 products send out, amazing.

If you have 50, amazing. If you have five, probably wouldn't do it. Probably wait till like that 50 mark. But like you get the point. Like these founders are one of the common things we run into is that I wanna be like Bloom, billion dollar energy company.

You're not gonna be like Bloom. The Bloom's been around for 12 years. Like you're not gonna be Bloom in the first year of your business. You're just not. And if you are like Gruns, who sold for whatever in their first like 18 months, anomaly in the space. Like, and if you think you're gonna be the next 100%. If you think you're

Jordan Buckner (13:24)
A lot of money behind it too.

Austin Clare (13:26)
gonna be the next Gruns, I love the passion behind you. Go for it. But most businesses are not. So you have to think of it as and this is probably also like a good point to like to say too.

Creators are not going to save your business. They're not going to save your cash flow. They're not going to make you profitable. They are going to be awareness and they're going to help drive the other things that you really need, which is your acquisition and your retention. Like they are going to help drive those things like email, like SMS, like paid, but like they're not going to save it. So like I've I've watched a lot of founders put all the eggs in the basket, right? All the eggs. And they're like, well, guess what? It didn't work. And I'm like, well, duh, because you gave up on your site conversion. You gave up on your

your meta campaigns, just creating experience campaigns where essentially like top of funnel, you're building out your top of funnel audience with all of that. You forgot to set up your SMS. You forgot to make sure your post purchase was set up correctly. And now it's like all the creators did their part but nothing else worked. And so yeah.

Jordan Buckner (14:19)
I that's a big point. I've seen that happen a lot where like I always tell founders, focus on retaining the customers that you have first, then move up to making sure that your conversion on your website, Amazon, all the are dialed in. It's not just like what you think

you should have on this site, but like what's actually driving customers to buy, you have a really strong offer, you have a really strong flow that when customers see that, you have five plus conversion rate on your site and all those sources, the bigger larger the better, so that you are converting that traffic that's coming in. Otherwise you're spending money and they're like you said the creators are doing their job, but then you're not doing your job of actually converting those. So I think that's key. The other area that I see that happens with a lot of brands

Or when like managing this, right? So like you DM a couple of brands on social, some respond, some you send out product, but you're not tracking them. Maybe you set up the spreadsheet but you're not using it, which is why I love Endlss. And so talk to me a little bit around how Endlss helps to actually organize all the activities that you're doing with creators.

Austin Clare (15:16)
Yeah, absolutely. So being in the space for as long as I have, I've worked with a plethora of apps. all have good pros and cons in all of them. But essentially, similar to everything else, if you're not doing it for scale, then you're probably gonna end up failing. And and with creators specifically, you're dealing with people. So how you manage them, the last time you talk to them, the emails they get

their dashboard, like what they can look at through you is so important and so crucial. And so we at Endlss have put the ambassador or the UGC creator and the brand, we have put them first in the sense that we have taken data from all these other companies, the good, the bad, what we loved, and then ultimately what people have liked. What does your dashboard look like?

What do your results look like? How does your application look like? How do you find how does our search database how does it all look? And essentially from the brand manager standpoint, we gave the exit we created the experience that it was super easy. You go in, you can see your creators, you could see your sales, you could see your top posts, you can see your tags. Super easy, not hard to find, not hard to sample through, or to have to find things in. It's not like a needle in a haystack for the creator.

Super simple. What do they want to see? They want to see their create, they want to see their sales, they want to see the people's names, they want to see how they're doing overall, they want to have access to more opportunities. It's very simple. And I think that's what we have found is that brands have tried and programs like Endlss have tried to overcomplicate the space where it's got all too many things and it's so hard. Like if I have to hop on a call with you and like say you're Endlss or not, well

Maybe maybe we'll flip it around. I'll be Endlss You be you. You have to get on a call with me to learn how to use, like like you can't figure out how to find this whole thing. Especially in the beginning, like that's totally fine. But like as time goes on, like it should be so easy to be like, hey, this is how you do this. It shouldn't be a game on like how to do things inside your platform because at the end of the day.

we don't want our customers, our brand customers to be calling us every single day, hey, I can't find this. Hey, I can't do this. We want them just to run their programs and then come to us with strategy. And that's something too that we do here at Endlss that most brands don't. We have an in-house strategy team so that if our clients need a strategy call, it's people who are running programs like myself.

I get to speak with them. I get to talk with them and tell them what's working boots on the ground mentality. And a lot of brands don't do that. And so which I think is separates us tremendously. That you can get on a call with us. We can tell you what's wrong with your program, what's going right with your program. We can help you write scripts for UGC or briefs. We can help you with identify great creators, we can tell you how what's like why creators have stopped. It's a very special place, a place for that essentially no other company that we've found is doing that. So we have a great technology, we have a great platform.

and we also have the great team behind it.

Jordan Buckner (17:48)
Yeah, I love that. And I love being able to like have people who are experienced in running these campaigns. So it's not just the software, but it's how do you actually implement this in your business and make it sustainable so that you continue to grow. one thing about the strategy part I want to just touch on is are there certain content styles that are working well? Like are the, you know, individual person at home recording like their review of a product still resonating?

Austin Clare (18:12)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (18:12)
more like storytelling and entertainment plus the product and the background, like what kind of content mix are you finding or experimenting with to stand out throughout all the noise?

Austin Clare (18:22)
A great question. I would say from the data complete data perspective, the super overly aggressive hooks in the beginning l are still amazing. the over edited videos we found are just not performing anymore. Like the people who are putting hours into editing and it just it's cool transitions, cool dude, it's a

Jordan Buckner (18:42)
Text overlays.

Austin Clare (18:43)
hundred percent. It's just not the thing anymore.

basic black and white videos. something very interesting though. This is a a fun one. Talking faster works. Like, so for instance, the people who are like, did you know that your vitamins are not where they should be? Are it but it's more like your vitamins are killing

Jordan Buckner (18:57)
That's why.

Austin Clare (18:59)
you, here's why. Like it's it's a super overly aggressive, like, and it's these ads that are done in 10 to 15 seconds. there's a brand called Cove. they're apparel brand and they are, you know,

Massive nine figure brand. But if you watch all of their UGC creators and their ads, it is the same thing. Sometimes there's a face, sometimes there's not. It's more like a finger sometimes. But it will literally be Kova's doing this insane deal. Buy three T's, get two two shorts for free, all in one for ninety nine dollars. Hurry fast, it's gonna sell out, get it before it's gone, Lincoln, buy a bite. Like it's literally like that's the ad. And it's like dude, you're just like, what?

Jordan Buckner (19:27)
Sounds those like ninety infomercials. Or the ads.

Austin Clare (19:31)
$30 t-shirt. Okay. Like, and I'm a personal customer as well, which is great. and I just bought their new jeans. And again, like the ad didn't sell me, but like I was like, I still get their ads, and I'm like, dude, like I'm in now in 10 seconds. The it's all about it. So their structure also is forget the fluff, right? It's gonna be your problem, your solution. Those are also that's probably the best thing to say. Is that the problem solution? Type ads, the and offer. Yeah, the problem solution, like problem is.

All these brands are shot selling you overpriced clothing. We're gonna sell you the same quality for this for a better, lower price. You're gonna choose us. That's their stick and it works really, really well. And so that all's problem solution are great. Talk fast, which is great. now obviously talking fast is obviously that's a personal trait of the human. So but a direct answer, great hooks in the beginning, overly aggressive, I think are still working, but then also problem solution. Like you're paying overpaying

Jordan Buckner (20:17)
Yeah.

Austin Clare (20:18)
for this, get us.

Jordan Buckner (20:19)
And then finally, I'm curious to know your take on AI UGC creators. I've seen a lot of videos where there's like a tiny talking head that's actually AI generated over a screenshot. So you're not even

Austin Clare (20:29)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (20:29)
focused on the head. good, bad, effective, not when to use it, when not to use it.

Austin Clare (20:34)
I will I the day I'm never opposed to trying something, but I will say the A every ad and every UGC creative I've ever done that's AI has just completely flopped. I would take it as a last resort. because people in currently the day we're filming this, August whatever, I don't even know what day it is, but it's August someday in August, they still want real people. They still want real people. Does it say that AI ads don't work? No, not at all. I actually had an AI ad of this guy who was doing roofs.

And it had like 150 comments, people will be like, I love it, I just submitted mine. The demographic didn't even know it was AI. So I was like, okay, like

Jordan Buckner (21:03)
Yeah.

Austin Clare (21:05)
it's got its place. But I would say this: if you're gonna test it, test it. If you're going to try it, try it. Don't let it cons don't let it be the over-everything strategy. But at least if you're willing to try new things, that's the best part about marketing. What we do here is that anyone who just like if you're not open to the possibilities of testing.

then you probably already lost because your competitor's gonna try it and it might work for them and you never know. So that's a great way of telling you what I personally think without I personally think try it, see what works for you. But yeah, people still work.

Jordan Buckner (21:35)
Love that approach. Awesome, thanks for being on. This is super helpful and getting through so much knowledge, so much information. If you have tried running an affiliate or UGC program before but have stopped.

Now's time to start it again and use these insights to get started. Use a platform like Endlss to help manage this or make your whole life a whole lot easier. They allow you to have 50 affiliates for free on the platform so you can get in, just start executing it, make sure it works for you before having to go off and pay someone or pay them to even get more. but this is your your opportunity to get started. Awesome. Thanks so much for being on.

Austin Clare (22:08)
Wonderful time, Jordan. Thank you, brother.