Bonus: The Future Is Human: How to Scale Your Creator Marketing Program (Without Losing Trust)

0:00We understand that brands starting off don't know everything. That's why we've built like AI brief generators backed by half a billion purchase data. You just drop in a link of your product and the briefs generates. It matches you with performance data backed creators. You pick creators not by just subjectively how they look. You actually see how well they did in other ads. So you see actual performance signals. So we really want to be the place to go for D2C companies that want to do creator marketing. And we really want to give them data-backed direction with very reasonably priced creative.

0:40And honestly, that is probably the best thing that could be done today with creator marketing.

0:51Donatas Smailys:Donatus, welcome to the D2C podcast. Super excited to jump into a topic that we never get tired of talking about on the DTC podcast, which is creators and influencers. Tell me about Billow. What problem were you solving when you launched Billow? Okay, let's go back to 2020. The problem we solved was content for brands at scale, not necessarily from influencers with thousands of followers who were quite expensive for small to mid companies. So that was the problem. And our assumption was that we can also help lots of creators who don't necessarily have lots of followers earn money. So it's like a marketplace on the supply side of the creators who have a problem of wanting to earn more money.

1:41And on the demand side, we have the e-commerce, mostly brands who need creative for performance marketing. So that was really it.

1:51Donatas Smailys:Talk to me about the state of like influencer slash creator marketing. How integral do you see it? I see it all the time. And every person who's talking about their ad mix, this kind of repurposed creative is absolutely essential. How are you seeing brands use it most effectively right now? Honestly, so even our platform, Billo, has evolved from this one trick of outsource creative to a full scope creator marketing platform. So I think now it has to be used as a system because a lot of things changed. And especially that it doesn't really matter that much how many followers creators have. Since the algorithms of social networks are mostly about viral moments now and virality of the content.

2:37And so you have to do organic these days to pick up performance signals and then know what sort of ads to create. and then know what sort of partnership ads or spark ads, if you may, on TikTok, partnership ads on Meta, what to spend on. And from these performance signals, you have to crush it with a lot of concepts, with a lot of content to win on these social algorithms. So I think it has become systematic. You can't just do random actions. And for platforms like ours as well, we just had to evolve into a system rather than just a one-trick marketplace.

3:12Donatas Smailys:Describe that system. So the system is as follows. So you know your usual partnership actions with the creators, which is you establish a relationship, you create a video, you use that video for us, whatnot. Then as a part of the system, with the creators, you do organic posting. And with organic posting, you see what people resonate with. from those specific creators, you fit your brand. So that means you just picked up performance signals. So based on that, you can create content for your ads and put it as an ads manager. Based on that, you know what sort of creators you can run partnership ads with, aka whitelisting, it used to be called on Meta, now it's model, or spark it on TikTok.

3:58So that's what I mean by a system. With that said, this could be done with, you can do it yourself by other platforms. And our system is that we actually suggest the next step afterwards because our clients, well, now it's just for meta. They connect as they trust us. We connect to their ad accounts and we can suggest that next step. And recently, we've also launched version one of our proprietary technology where we use the existing content of the advertiser and we create the next piece of creative to further on run ads with. so this is like in a nutshell the system as you go in loops because all the you know i've read a lot of content that i i've spoke with many clients and i stand or sit in front of you right now and i can say nobody knows at the end of the day what's going to perform no matter how magician they sound even i don't know what's going to perform at the end of the day obviously but you need a direction, which is backed by data.

5:03And now we definitely know, especially, you know, the Andromeda, you need a lot of concepts, a lot of creative. So direction, creative.

5:13Donatas Smailys:Right. Because you don't know what is going to catch. You don't even know what about your creative is going to catch, whether it's the way the person looks that makes someone think of their teacher or something, right? Like you don't actually know their kitchen might resonate, the kitchen that they're in or the background or the shirt they're wearing or their tone of voice. So you just need, talk to me about, because Andromeda is not new, as we know, it's been around for almost a year now or just under a year. But we're really living in this world of Andromeda now where, I love the metaphor we talked about on the podcast a little bit.

5:42Donatas Smailys:It's basically like, instead of having things bucketed into silos and categories, it's like a single concierge who sees the customer, has a library of a billion ads, and then goes and picks the one that is going to work best. So what does that actually mean when it comes to the creator slash influencer marketing world? Okay. So I'm going to describe it in my own words, okay? As I understand it. I read a lot of blogs, as I said, talked with a lot of advertisers. We also do testing, you know, ourselves as a company. And the truth is, at the end of the day, how does it work? Nobody knows. Here you go.

6:18But there are patterns, definitely. And as I understand it, is that even though like, let's say we're selling these, I don't know, this mouse for a computer. The reason why this mouse is used may be the same by your customers, but the message that they will connect with you with will be different. That is the point where even on Facebook, like as manager, you used to specifically define the audiences that you want to reach. Now you just suggest them. You don't, because the AI does its own thing. And the thing is, like, I just imagine these boxes, like on one side, you have the creative, the concept, lots of it.

7:03On the other side, you have the potential customer that resonates with a different message. And I think it can be actually even insane what sometimes a potential user can resonate with based on what they like. And you know, the truth is like these AI systems and these big companies, they know a lot about us. And I think it's even scary to think how much they know about us. And you know, the further it goes, the more personalized the whole experience will be. And I think obviously we don't know how exactly the algorithm works, but I think fundamentally that's how I think about it.

7:40Donatas Smailys:I worry more about how much ChatGPT knows about us with most people using it as their psychiatrist at this point. So the amount of like gaslighting ability that ChatGPT has on me is off the charts. But I think it's interesting. I did a podcast with Nate Lagos, who ran the growth at Original Grain, a watch company for many years. And he talked about being, I think, being ahead of the curve with his company is about how to think about segmenting your audience, not by their segment or their demographic segment, but by their like underlying emotion about the product in a way. So he actually broke all of his campaigns and his avatars out into, okay, it's either men who are buying the watch or it's their significant other who's buying it as a gift.

8:22Donatas Smailys:But then he goes a layer deeper to be like, why is this man buying this watch? Is it because he just needs a win? You know, he needs something that is going to be beautiful that he wants to look at. And he broke down like five different reasons that each of these avatars would actually buy the creative. And to me, that's the kind of thinking that's going to win in Andromeda because it goes to that like deeper level as the why. And then it allows the algorithm to go out there and find everyone's why because they know so much about us, right? Spot on. And thinking even about ourselves, how we do it, a few things to add here.

8:57I think we should always make assumptions as well as speak directly to our clients nonstop and validate these assumptions of why, the drivers of why. I think even ourselves, sometimes I remember the periods of building Billo where half a year goes by and we're like, how many customer interviews did we have? Ten, you know what I mean? So I think that is crucial. It's very important to build with customers and listen to them. We also send out these quarterly surveys and pick up these exactly performance signals as she's talking about because these Ys are performance signals. But with that said, I wouldn't be building a platform like Billow if I didn't say, if you're working with creators, you should allow at least a good portion of them to go nuts and at least a good portion of them to discover and deliver those whys.

9:56I mean, there are different brands. Some brands are extremely hands-on and extremely in control of what creators say and do. Of course, it differs, but I really believe that a huge portion of the content should be, you let the creator define those things and help them connect with similar audiences. And it works like a charm, especially if they love your product.

10:20Donatas Smailys:I love that. We have Abes who comes on the podcast from Pilot House all the time. She's always talking about not being afraid to like get weird with it too. Because you just don't, like diversity is so important in your creative. Redundancy, is redundancy, from what you've read about Andromeda, do you feel like redundancy is punished or it's just gonna show up more? Like you're gonna have creative that never gets seen if it's redundant or if it's not fresh. How do you think about redundancy? Honestly, I'm not gonna sort of pretend that I know the exact answer for this. And I'm maybe repeating myself.

10:54So you have to go in cycles. You have to learn from what you already did. You have to repurpose the content that you already had. If it didn't work before, it doesn't mean it's not going to work again. If it works on one platform, you should try it on another. If it doesn't work on one, you should do cross-platform checks. and another is like you cannot just have this not always testing something new mindset you just can't you just it's it's a must because as far as we know these social algorithms today they're like black holes of content fatigue it's like some sort of a creature that grows as much as you input it and it just disappears somewhere and to keep up with the game you just have to you just have to keep have this mindset of as you mentioned yourself just sort of go nuts with it and i'll repeat myself some portion just just just let the creators go nuts let them do

11:53Donatas Smailys:their thing because they have the fresh eyes they know their connection to their audience they so even if you're not using their reach you're just using their creative they know how to speak to that group of people and let them bring their own unique take on it because it's like you just yeah Yeah, you constantly want to be finding new customers. And so you probably have to be saying new things in order to do that. Yeah, and Eric, another interesting thing that we're trying ourselves now, and I'll tell you where this came from, just a little bit on and off topic. We're hiring a position, a role for our social media channels.

12:28and the one thing that i want is that the person understands gen z the way how to do marketing with gen z and the person grew up for years with social algorithms because i think there's also something there generate there's something generational there to not underestimate is actually who you do this job with.

12:53Donatas Smailys:Yeah. And we shouldn't be limited with our own thinking because, you know, sometimes it can just lead to, you know, if you're talking with yourself, you're in your own bubble and the world is much more diverse. So I just wanted to put this out. You know, we are also testing all the time, even though we're, you know, a creator marketing platform preaching, let's test, test. We're also doing that. You mentioned the extension, the AI extension sort of philosophy you have with how you're taking original human creative, but using AI to extend its life, maybe extend it through fatigue. And we're also in the era of maybe rampant soon AI influencers and a whole segment of the population that gets that and is repulsed by it.

13:34Donatas Smailys:What's your stance on AI influencers or creators and what are you guys doing instead? Okay, so let's kick off with, I think just like movie characters, just like game characters, fictional characters i think is here and it's going to stick and especially if it's going to be consistent like ai influencers ai personas ai something that we don't know yet some you know something's going to happen maybe there's going to be ai only social network and maybe there's going to be human only social network really soon we don't know that but with that said we embrace it, it's here. But when it comes to like AI generated content, I think when we talk about some content being generated with a purpose to trick someone that is a real human being, I think that is the line.

14:26And this is the line that we drew. If an AI avatar is out there, if it's selling and I know it's fictional, I'm okay. You know, I'm fine. Just let me know that That's like the Keebler elves.

14:37Donatas Smailys:I know they're not real. I know they're not making the cookies, but they're cute. I don't watch much, honestly, movies. And I don't watch much Netflix. But when it comes to Witcher, for example, I've been fascinated by the game years ago. And I love the character. And now sometimes... But that's fine. I'm fascinated with a story with the consistency of the character. So I think, not to double click too much on this, it's here. But when it comes to real humans, when it comes to talking about products and selling opinions, even though we know that influencers and creators may get paid, but there are plenty of jobs out there.

15:18There's plenty of content out there where they actually enjoy the product, when they go for long-term partnerships with the brand, where they create the voice for the brand. I think that is just the way to go. And we decided to say no to clone avatars because we think it's short term. Maybe it's good, it's working. But in midterm, people are going to get peed off and they're going to say, I want to know, is this real or not? I get that myself now. I'm strolling through the feed now. I'm like, I'm getting a little bit paranoid. Is this real or is this not real? Every comment. I would just like to know.

15:50Every comment.

15:51Donatas Smailys:Comment, even video. Oh, yeah. is while there's already a crisis of authenticity in a lot of ways, even with, like you're saying, even with real creators, there is that worry sometimes. And so I think it's probably a good line in the sand. There's probably also issues with the FCC, I would imagine, if you're actually just fabricating people entirely. So it seems like a good line to have. Yeah, I mean, I have read through it. It's a very controversial topic, but I read through it. And I think the line is pretty clear that non-existent humans should not be promoting products and promoting opinions.

16:25because they have an existence. Because who is accountable at the end of the day? A prompt? Yeah, exactly.

16:31Donatas Smailys:Who is accountable? If a grandma bought supplements because the grandpa said it's good, what if the next day the grandpa says it's not good because the grandpa is a prompt? And someone else uses it, right? Even if someone else gets that formula or whatever, and then all of a sudden you get contradictory messages from different marketers out there. Yeah, it's dangerous. And where was that bot's face used before? You will never know. And then social networks, I think they will have to tag it. And then maybe a new social network will arise. And I think, honestly, to double click, Eric, I think give it like a, I don't know, three, six months, we're going to see a wave of we are human only this.

17:12We're human only that. We're weaponizing human things, you know. I think that's going to come as well.

17:18Donatas Smailys:So what are you doing? Explain what you are doing then with AI to extend the life of creator content. AI is, for us, is a tool. It's not a face. Let's start with this. So we embrace the fact that AI is great for making things more productive. Like, I mean, it's changing. It's life-changing, even though, like, you know, I use the chatbots every day. I find it fascinating. But in our case, we keep the human accountable. That's number one. So we keep the voice of the creator for max authenticity, for things that happen. Our goal is to match the creator with the brand that they actually love and like.

17:59And we use AI and data to provide that direction, as I've mentioned before, in the system.

18:06Donatas Smailys:So data is like, this is a direction to create things. Maybe change this a little bit, iterate on that, use this creator. Here's the data about how these creators actually performed in other ads. So we were the first to have a database of creators backed by real purchase data. And the AI part now, I'm proud to say we've developed our proprietary technology to generate mashups from the content that you already have on our platform. So it's like real creator stuff, real creator content. And while you wait for net new content, which is not expensive at all on our platform because that's the mindset we have to test a lot.

18:46But AI generates new creatives. And that, we believe, is the right way to go. Because at the end of the day, the human is accountable. AI is used as a tool, not a face.

18:57Donatas Smailys:And it satisfies the endless hunger of the algorithm, which you do need. You need the ability to come up with lots of diverse creatives, but then find effective ways to reuse it and recycle it. And going further, I think that we will work hard to help creators establish long-term relationships with the brands and help them to develop that brand voice, pick up those performance signals. Honestly, I really believe in good products. And by being good, we all have different standards. But at the end of the day, this is really what I want. I want the best products to win, the best creators to win, and at the end of the day, the consumer wins as well.

19:38Donatas Smailys:So I think it was 2018, I put on an event in Barcelona for marketers, and I think we had Nick Schockford come out and speak. And he explained in 2018, the power of what was called whitelisting and blacklisting back then. It's always been a major force for e-commerce brands to use creators' handles to promote products. But now more than ever, I guess, with Spark ads on TikTok and partnership ads, Meta's putting a huge push behind them. How do you see the mix versus brands using creator content on their own handles versus these partnership ads? Where do you see the future? Okay, so for disclosure, we are a managed partner of Meta.

20:16We believe the stuff that they're doing. 70 % of our clients are meta first. Honestly, out of all the platforms right now, we hear that meta performs the best. And they're going to go hard with their partners as well on partnership ads. It's an agenda this year. It's an agenda most likely for the next year. I can talk about partnership ads as increasing CTR, decreasing CPAs, and there are different performance use cases. And the truth is, it is the truth. Like it does work. I don't think it works at the scale as it could, most likely, but I think it's a matter of probably education. It's a matter of probably working with the right systems.

21:03And what we see, we've developed, as we developed our system, we've launched partnership ads as well on our platform, because we believe that is definitely thing to go because put it this way if you think of the creator marketing as a system you do social posting you pick up performance signals you create ads it's just a way more convenient way to run an ad you run it through the handle of one of your let's say best long-term creators who help you build a brand who help you pick up those performance signals so i think it really is the future. And I think brands will collab with the best performing creators even more in ways that maybe we even don't know yet.

21:49Donatas Smailys:The other topic I wanted to hit on was this, it's actually a term I think I'd heard around, but you crystallized it when we talked last time about answer engine optimization. We're now in this era where I was, you know, we're not just looking for a search. We don't want search listings. We just want the answer, which I don't know what Google's going to do eventually in that environment. But how does creator marketing play into building an AEO program? So everyone knows what SEO is. It's like years of building content, building blogs. So you rank high in Google search. AEO is how high and how fast you rank or appear in the answers of your chat GPTs, of your claws, of your Gemini's when people ask and search for certain things.