Read Time: 1 min 50 secs
Hey — Ryan To here.
In today's edition:
Why the one-off paid post is broken
What brands like ELF Beauty are actually doing instead
Ad Content Fit: the concept every creator needs to understand
Influencer marketing is dead
Paying creators to make 1x post to their audience isn't worth it anymore
After talking with marketers at brands like ELF Beauty and Immi Ramen, we’ve seen a new strategy take over the creator marketing scene
It's called organic whitelisting
Instead of paying creators to make content, brands are finding content creators already made organically and paying only for the right to run it as an ad
At ELF beauty, there's an entire role dedicated to this:
Scrolling the feeds & finding creators who post their products organically
This changes everything for creators’ content strategy
The next wave of consumer brands find creators who have ‘Ad Content Fit’
Let me explain…
Ad Content Fit
Before you hit publish, ask yourself: would a brand actually run this as an ad?
Having successful ad integrations and formats that fit their brands’ ad strategy turns your high rates to a no-brainer…
So what are good example of ad integrations?
Here are the formats brands are actively looking to whitelist:
UGC / Organic Testimonial: Raw head talking videos about a product.
@paulinejchoii Stay patched @The Crème shop Korean PDRN Gelly Under Eye Patches are available now at @Ulta Beauty #tcspartner #clipswipeglow #thecremesho... See more
Problem → Solution: You open with a frustration your audience has, then show how the product solved it.
Here’s a winning SuperBonsai Script:
Problem
You're not ugly. You just have an overworked liver. I lost weight. I did skincare and I still look chopped like in this picture where I've got a bullfrog neck. I was the exact same weight that I am right now, but somehow I have a jawline now and I never deal with issues with my skin
The biggest change was I started taking care of my liver
You need to be healthy on the inside so that it shows on the outside.I drink a lot of alcohol
So I thought it was just the calories that was making me fat
But it turns out my liver was unhealthy and it was causing me to blow easily
Solution
I've been taking this super liver tincture for months now
And I'm looking snatched way less inflamed all the time
And all it is is super concentrated extracts of liver healing herbs like milk thistle dandelion turmeric in doctor formulated dosages
It's third-party tested. It's vegan
No toxic filler BS and made in an FDA and GMP compliant facility. My favorite part is that it takes five seconds
And the chicory root in it makes it taste naturally sweet
So you can hit the shop link and try yours risk-free because all super bonsai products have a 100% happiness guarantee or your money back
Founder / Narrative: You tell a story about why you use something. Not a review.
For creators:
Pick the brands you genuinely want to work with. Use their products. Make content about them organically.
Tag them. Make it easy to find you.
→ Post about products you genuinely use without being paid
→ Tag the brand and make it easy to find you
For brands:
Have your marketing team scanning for your product/competitors’ organic content if you’re a smaller brand.
Find creators who already fit your world with real engagement and reach out.
For both:
→ Think about which ad format your product naturally maps to before you post
→ Build a body of content formats around a product category
→ Find comment sections with real sentences, not just emojis
The creators winning brand deals in 2026 aren't the ones with the most followers. They're the ones with the best Ad Content Fit.
Have a great day ❤️
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Ryan To
Creator (120K+)
@itsryanto
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