Everyone says we need influencers. Where do we start?

> WHAT WE WALKED INTO

A home-and-kitchen partner had a paid affiliate platform on the table, subscription and all. We ran Amazon’s own Creator Connections first, because it costs nothing but the commission and it answers the real question, which is whether creators move this product at all. The April log had it at roughly ~$100K in attributed sales. The July export had it at $379,938, 89% on the hero product. The obvious read is that creators work. The careful read is that Amazon counts any sale that comes through a creator’s link, and some of those shoppers were coming anyway.

> THE MOMENT · THE NUMBERS, AS LOGGED

> STEP 01

Ran the built-in program first

Creator Connections went live in April, before any outside platform got paid. The hero product carried the briefs, because a creator program is a bet on the product people already want, and that is the one to bet with.

> STEP 02

One brief, 10% flat

One clear brief per product, a flat 10% commission on what sells. That commission is the whole cost, which is what makes the read cheap: the worst case is a fee on sales that happened.

> STEP 03

$379,938 attributed by the July export

89% of it on the hero product. Three campaigns hit their commission caps and stopped, so the constraint was our budget, not creator supply. That is a better problem than the paid platform’s problem, which is a subscription bill before the first sale.

> STEP 04

Attributed, not incremental

Amazon credits a creator for any sale that arrives through that creator’s link. Some of those buyers would have found the product on their own. So the number settles one question and not the other: the paid platform can wait, and the lift is still unmeasured. A holdout or a branded-search trend is what would measure it.

> THE NUMBERS, DRAWN FROM THIS FILE ONLY

> WHAT CHANGED · FLIP IT YOURSELF