Glossary

Creator marketing, defined.

Every term the industry uses, in plain language. 37 definitions covering deal types, metrics, rates, and the disclosure rules that apply to paid content.

Foundations

The vocabulary the industry is built on, and who does what.

Influencer marketingalso: creator marketing, influencer advertising: Influencer marketing is a form of advertising in which a brand pays an independent content creator to promote a product to that creator's own audience, on the creator's own channels.
Creator economyalso: passion economy: The creator economy is the set of businesses and income streams built around independent creators who publish directly to an audience, including brand sponsorships, platform payouts, subscriptions, affiliate revenue, and their own products.
UGC creatoralso: user-generated content creator, content creator for brands: A UGC creator makes content for a brand to publish on the brand's own channels, rather than posting it to their own audience. They are paid for the content itself, not for distribution.
Influencer tiersalso: nano influencer, micro influencer, macro influencer, creator tiers: Influencer tiers group creators by audience size: nano (roughly 1,000 to 10,000 followers), micro (10,000 to 100,000), mid-tier (100,000 to 500,000), macro (500,000 to 1 million), and mega or celebrity (over 1 million).
Talent manageralso: creator manager, influencer agent: A talent manager represents a creator commercially, negotiating brand deals and handling contracts and invoicing on the creator's behalf, usually for a percentage of the fee.

Deal types and terms

The shapes a brand and creator partnership can take.

Brand dealalso: brand partnership, sponsorship: A brand deal is a paid agreement in which a creator produces and publishes agreed content for a brand in exchange for a fee, product, or commission.
Sponsored postalso: paid post, branded content: A sponsored post is a single piece of content a creator publishes to their own audience in exchange for payment, and which must be disclosed as an advert.
Product seedingalso: gifting, gifted collaboration, PR package: Product seeding is sending creators free product with no guaranteed post and no fee, in the hope that some of them choose to feature it.
Affiliate marketingalso: commission deal, performance partnership: In an affiliate deal a creator earns a percentage of the sales they generate, tracked through a unique discount code or link, rather than a fixed fee.
Whitelistingalso: allowlisting, creator ads, spark ads, partnership ads: Whitelisting is when a creator grants a brand permission to run paid advertising from the creator's own social account, so the ad appears to come from the creator rather than the brand.
Usage rightsalso: content licensing, content rights, paid media rights: Usage rights define where a brand may reuse a creator's content, in what form, and for how long. Without them, the brand may not repost or advertise with the content even though it paid for the post.
Exclusivityalso: exclusivity clause, category exclusivity, non-compete: An exclusivity clause stops a creator from working with a brand's competitors for a defined period, in a defined product category.
Brand ambassadoralso: ambassador program, long-term partnership: A brand ambassador is a creator under an ongoing contract to represent a brand over months or years, usually posting on a regular schedule and typically bound by exclusivity in the category.

Creator assets

What a creator sends a brand, and what it should contain.

Media kitalso: press kit, creator media kit, rate sheet: A media kit is a short document or page a creator sends to brands that summarises who their audience is, how their content performs, which brands they have worked with, and what they charge.
Link in bioalso: bio link, link page: A link in bio is a single landing page a creator puts in their social profile, holding the several links they want to send followers to, because most platforms allow only one clickable link in a profile.
Rate cardalso: pricing sheet, creator rates: A rate card is a creator's published list of prices by deliverable, for example a set fee for a feed post, a story series, or a long-form video.
Content pillaralso: content category, niche: A content pillar is one of the few recurring themes a creator's content returns to, which together define what their audience expects and what a brand is buying access to.

Metrics and measurement

How performance is counted, and what each number does not tell you.

Engagement ratealso: ER, engagement percentage: Engagement rate is the share of an audience that interacts with a post, calculated as total engagements divided by a chosen denominator, most often followers or reach, expressed as a percentage.
Reach: Reach is the number of unique accounts that saw a piece of content at least once. Each person is counted once no matter how many times they saw it.
Impressions: Impressions are the total number of times a piece of content was displayed, counting repeat views by the same person.
CPMalso: cost per mille, cost per thousand impressions: CPM is the cost of a thousand impressions, calculated as the fee divided by impressions, multiplied by one thousand. It is the standard way to compare the efficiency of creator deals against each other and against paid media.
CPEalso: cost per engagement: CPE is the cost of a single engagement, calculated as the fee divided by total engagements. It measures what a brand paid for each like, comment, save, or share.
ROASalso: return on ad spend: ROAS is revenue divided by the spend that produced it, expressed as a multiple. A campaign that returned 30,000 in revenue on 10,000 of spend has a ROAS of 3.
Earned media valuealso: EMV: Earned media value is an estimate of what a campaign's organic reach and engagement would have cost to buy as paid advertising. It is a modelled figure, not revenue.
Conversion trackingalso: attribution, discount code tracking, UTM tracking: Conversion tracking is how a brand ties a sale back to the creator who drove it, usually through a unique discount code, a tracked link, or a survey at checkout asking how the customer found the brand.
Audience auditalso: fake follower check, audience quality, follower audit: An audience audit checks whether a creator's followers are real and relevant, looking for bought followers, engagement pods, and mismatches between the audience's location or age and the brand's market.

Rates and payment

How creator work is priced and paid for.

Flat feealso: fixed fee: A flat fee is a fixed amount paid to a creator for agreed deliverables, regardless of how the content performs.
Performance-based payalso: pay per performance, commission-based deal: Performance-based pay ties some or all of a creator's compensation to results such as sales, sign-ups, or clicks, rather than to publishing the content.
Payment termsalso: net 30, net 60, invoice terms: Payment terms set when a creator is actually paid after invoicing. Net 30 means payment is due 30 days after the invoice date, net 60 within 60 days.

Disclosure and compliance

The rules that apply to paid content, and who they apply to.

FTC disclosurealso: ad disclosure, sponsorship disclosure, advertising disclosure: FTC disclosure is the requirement in the United States that a creator clearly reveals any material connection to a brand, such as payment, free product, or commission, when endorsing it. Disclosure must be clear, prominent, and hard to miss.
Paid partnership labelalso: branded content tag, paid partnership tag: The paid partnership label is the built-in disclosure tool on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, which displays a standard notice above a post identifying the brand that paid for it.

Running campaigns

The operational steps from finding a creator to reporting results.

Creator rosteralso: influencer roster, talent roster: A creator roster is the maintained list of creators a brand works with or wants to work with, holding their contact details, audience data, rates, past performance, and current status.
Creator discoveryalso: influencer discovery, creator sourcing: Creator discovery is the process of finding creators who fit a brand: searching by niche, audience, location, and performance, then shortlisting the ones worth approaching.
Outreachalso: creator outreach, influencer outreach: Outreach is the first contact a brand makes with a creator about working together, and the follow-up that turns interest into an agreed deal.
Campaign briefalso: creative brief, influencer brief: A campaign brief is the document a brand gives a creator setting out the goal, the deliverables, the key messages, the dos and don'ts, the timeline, and the disclosure requirements.
Deliverable: A deliverable is a single specified piece of content a creator has agreed to produce, such as one feed post, a set of three story frames, or a 60-second video.
Campaign recapalso: campaign report, wrap report, post-campaign analysis: A campaign recap is the report produced after a campaign ends, showing what was published, what it cost, what it delivered in reach, engagement, and revenue, and what should change next time.

Put the vocabulary to work

Distinct is where in-house teams and creators run the work these terms describe: rosters, briefs, rates, deliverables, and the recap at the end.

Distinct for brands, Distinct for creators, or the FAQ.