Few brands are as synonymous with influencer marketing as Tarte.
The makeup label throws some of social media’s most talked-about influencer trips, taking creators to far-flung destinations like Bora Bora and Dubai, putting them up in luxury hotels and, of course, giving them oodles of Tarte items like Maracuja lip plumping gloss and Shape Tape concealer, as well as additional gifts like clothing from Revolve and Dyson AirWrap stylers. It’s created custom product bundles with mega creators like Tana Mongeau and Vidya Gopalan. On top of all that, the brand regularly gifts products to thousands of smaller creators, who then are incentivised to post about them on social media and receive affiliate income through platforms like TikTok Shop, ShopMy or LTK.
The goal with all the levers of its influencer strategy is to give creators a reason to talk about the brand — without needing to add an #ad to the post.
“If someone posts Tarte once and then just disappears, that’s not a partnership to us,” said Maureen Kelly, the brand’s CEO and founder.
It’s an increasingly common approach. After years of sticking to robotic scripts or too-detailed briefs, creators are pushing back against traditional sponsored posts, electing to prioritise creating content that will allow them to generate affiliate income (made easier with more advanced gifting capabilities). Increasingly, they’re prioritising creative freedom when inking a new deal. Often they want their partnerships with brands to go beyond posting, whether that means working together on a collaboration or offering feedback on product development.
Some brands, used to dictating terms to creative agencies, may chafe at the idea of allowing influencers more autonomy in their posts. But brands that allow creators the freedom to flex this muscle end up with better content. They don’t have to go in blind either. In this new era of sponsored posts, brands should consider what parameters they absolutely must keep in place while broadening their perspective of what the post looks like in the first place.
“The brand can help shape the message, but if they shape it too formulaically, nobody’s going to believe it,” said Arthur Leopold, the chief executive and co-founder of Agentio, an AI-enabled platform that orchestrates creator-led campaigns.
Product Placement
When it comes to sponsored content, the primary goal for both brands and creators is that an #ad doesn’t feel like an ad at all. The best way to do that is to make sure the post feels in line with the rest of a creator’s content. If they never talk to the camera, a “get ready with me” video will feel out of place.
“Before every paid partnership, we do a briefing call, and my first sentence always is, ‘I want to know what you want to say,’” said Jordyn Casaus, the director of digital and integrated marketing at Crown Affair. “I would rather not work with someone than have it feel forced.”
Creative briefs haven’t been done away with, but they’re more tailored to the individual creator in question, rather than a blanket approach for all their ads. Brands may also outline key terms to hit, depending on the product, though rather than provide a script to follow, they may just tell creators a phrase to include. For the launch of Crown Affair’s Air Dry Smoothing Cream, the brand requested creators mention that the product reduces frizz, but otherwise let them design the content on their own.
Often brands have a particular point they want to emphasise. For jewellery brand Dorsey, that’s historically been education around lab-grown stones, while for a beauty brand, it may be about product benefits. Dorsey founder Meg Strachan said brands should educate the creators, but then let them pass the message along to their followers in their own way because when “brands try to dictate it, it feels like an ad.”
Giving creators freedom to decide how the brand should be integrated into their content can ultimately result in more interesting placements as well. Gucci, for instance, sponsored a video from creator Delaney Rowe, who creates comedy videos on TikTok. In head-to-toe Gucci, she satirises a rom-com ending scene, with slow pans at her horsebit-adorned Mary Janes and the interlocking Gs on her burgundy bag. The comments on Rowe’s video were resoundingly positive, with one user writing “this is the kind of ad I wanna see from now on.”
“Brands used to be way too precious. They thought of every single Instagram post as a TV spot,” said Agentio’s Leopold. “Creators are the most creative people in the world. They have built massive followings off their creativity. They know what’s best for the audience.”
At the same time, more tools have become available to facilitate these types of partnerships. ShopMy’s Opportunities feature, for example, allows brands to pay a creator a set fee for a certain number of mentions across their channels per month. Casaus said they’ll evaluate a creator’s performance on Opportunities before inking a more formal partnership.
Another powerful tool for creating organic content is influencer trips. There are no posting requirements for attending #TrippinWithTarte getaways; instead, the brand looks at it as both a relationship-building endeavour as well as a photo-worthy backdrop for organic content that the brand can later amplify on its own channels.
“That emotional connection is something that you just can’t manufacture through a one-off post or a paid campaign,” said Kelly.
Timing a trip to a particular launch can also help drive sales success. Free People timed the release of its first branded swimsuit collection in 2023 to a trip to Mexico, where creators took photos and videos wearing the product. Several styles featured on the trip sold out, according to Free People’s director of brand marketing Libby Strachan, and the brand saw a record number of shopping sessions on its website.
A Larger Role
Beyond just creative freedom, influencers want their brand partnerships to take on a larger scope entirely. In 2025, there was an increase in brands doing product collaborations with influencers, allowing the creator to flex a new muscle and the brand to create a shoppable moment for customers.
London-based handbag brand DeMellier taps five creators it has a pre-existing relationship with for its Icons programme every year, allowing each to choose a bag from the brand’s assortment to redesign. This sort of programme requires an upfront investment — from product development to manufacturing to marketing — that makes the ROI less than it would be for a classic sponsored post, but Llusia-Lindh said that the price is worth it when it comes to both building brand equity and stronger relationships with influencer partners.
“It’s less about making money and more about going deeper into their communities,” she said.
Brands are finding ways to tap a creator’s prowess outside of their content, too. An influencer’s own analytics and conversations with their followers provide a trove of consumer insights.
“We see what they’re saying in the comments and reply to their DMs,” said creator Kiana Davis. “It’s just this wealth of knowledge and information, and I want to do something with it.”
It’s all representative of brand-creator relationships shifting from being purely transactional to more of a two-way street. DeMellier will feature interviews with its creators in its newsletter or through its blog. Crown Affair will send products to its top creator partners in advance and invite them to offer feedback.
“When you look at a paid ad strategy, you’re working largely with a machine, you can scale it up and scale it down,” said Dorsey’s Strachan. “There’s nothing mechanical about working with creators. It really is a human-to-human relationship.”
Want to dive deeper? Check out “From Hype to Discipline: The New World of Influencer Marketing,” BoF’s case study breaking down the changing dynamics in the creator economy.
