For many ecommerce brands, creator programs start with excitement but descend into chaos very quickly. Tracking lives in Google Sheets, payouts take hours, and it becomes unclear which creators are actually driving revenue versus just posting content.

Crowned Skin, a beauty brand built on Instagram and TikTok discovery, ran into this exact problem. As partnerships scaled, everything was managed manually through Google Sheets, limiting visibility, slowing reporting, and making it harder to double down on what was actually working.

Instead of adding more creators, Crowned Skin made a structural shift. They focused on performance clarity, clean attribution, and a small group of high-impact partners.

By rebuilding their creator program with Social Snowball, Crowned Skin turned creator partnerships into a measurable revenue channel:

• Generated $135,264.55 in affiliate-attributed revenue
• Achieved a 6.7× ROI with an $8.57 CPA
• Saw one top affiliate drive $93,917.23 alone

“Social Snowball gave us exactly what we needed, everything in one place. The dashboard, the support, and the way creators are organized have made managing partnerships so much easier and more scalable.” 

Karen Jefferson, Head of Partnerships, Crowned Skin

About the brand

Crowned Skin is a beauty brand built for melanin-rich skin. The brand grows primarily through creator-led discovery across Instagram and TikTok, leaning heavily on UGC, community trust, and performance-driven partnerships instead of large paid media budgets.

The challenge: Creator momentum without operational clarity

Crowned Skin already had strong momentum across Instagram and TikTok, driven by UGC and word-of-mouth discovery. The problem was everything that happened behind the scenes.

Before formalizing their affiliate program, every creator partnership was managed manually through Google Sheets. As the number of creators grew, this setup became increasingly fragile.

Manual tracking slowed decision-making

Every referral, payout, and performance update had to be logged by hand. This made it difficult to answer basic questions quickly:

• Which creators are actually driving revenue?
• Which partnerships should we prioritize or pause?
• How much revenue is each campaign contributing?

Since data lived across spreadsheets, pulling clear insights took time. Reporting was always reactive instead of real-time.

“Everything was done manually via Google Sheets. My biggest challenge was just keeping track of things.”

Onboarding and payouts created hidden drag

Bringing new creators into the program required manual coordination. Tracking links, confirming sales, and calculating commissions were all handled outside of a central system.

Payouts added another layer of complexity. Each cycle meant reconciling numbers across sheets, double-checking accuracy, and making sure nothing was missed. As the program scaled, this operational work grew faster than the revenue it supported.

Limited visibility made scaling risky

Attribution itself was not broken, but the lack of a unified system made performance harder to trust at scale. Without a single source of truth, it was difficult to confidently invest more time and budget into creator partnerships.

The team could see creators posting and engagement coming in, but there was no clean way to connect that activity back to revenue across campaigns.

The real constraint: time and focus

Most importantly, manual workflows pulled attention away from higher-impact work. Instead of strengthening top partnerships or refining creator strategy, time was spent maintaining spreadsheets and reconciling data.

Crowned Skin needed a way to keep the creator-led growth they already had, without adding operational chaos as the program grew.

The solution: Rebuilding the creator program around structure and performance

Instead of layering new tools on top of spreadsheets, Crowned Skin rebuilt how its creator program was structured from the ground up. The goal was to introduce clarity, accountability, and scalability into a channel that was already driving demand.

The solution focused on four operational changes.

1. Centralize creator and affiliate management

All creator and affiliate activity was moved into a single system. This replaced fragmented spreadsheets with a live dashboard that updated automatically.

From day one, the team could see:

• Affiliate-attributed revenue in real time
• Orders and average order value by creator
• Commissions owed and paid
• Performance trends across campaigns

This removed guesswork from reporting and gave the team a reliable source of truth for decision-making.

“It was very easy to set up and get started.”

2. Segment creators by program and intent

Rather than treating all creators as one group, Crowned Skin organized partners into clearly defined programs based on campaign type and use case.

“It was great to have many ways to organize talent by campaigns.”

This allowed the team to:

• Separate high-revenue affiliates from lower-impact partnerships.
• Measure performance by campaign instead of by individual posts.
• Allocate time and budget toward creators who consistently convert.

Segmentation changed how the program was managed. Performance conversations became data-led, not subjective.

3. Automate tracking, attribution, and payouts

Tracking and payouts were automated end-to-end. Affiliate links, commissions, and reporting no longer require manual updates.

As a result:

• Sales attribution stayed accurate without manual checks.
• Payout cycles no longer require spreadsheet reconciliation.
• Operational overhead dropped as the program scaled.

This freed the team to focus on creator relationships instead of administrative work.

“The program and dashboard have helped a lot.”

4. Support growth through gifting and relationship management

With operations under control, Crowned Skin expanded into product seeding as a long-term growth lever.

Gifting campaigns were managed within the same system, making it easier to:

• Send products to selected creators.
• Track redemptions and gifted value.
• Build a pipeline of future content and affiliate activity.

Instead of running one-off seeding campaigns, gifting became an integrated part of the creator strategy.

“I love the team! Always supportive!”

Results: A concentrated, high-ROI creator revenue channel

Crowned Skin’s rebuilt creator program delivered measurable results quickly and continued to compound over time. With clean attribution and automation in place, creator partnerships became a dependable revenue channel rather than an experimental one.

Here’s what the program delivered:

• $135,264.55 in affiliate-attributed revenue
• 2× increase in affiliate-driven revenue
• 6.7× return on investment across creator partnerships
• $8.57 CPA, keeping the channel efficient as it scaled
• $67.06 average order value on affiliate-driven orders

Unlike earlier setups, this performance did not require constant manual oversight. Tracking, reporting, and payouts ran in the background, allowing the team to focus on partnerships instead of administration.

The most telling outcome was how revenue was concentrated:

• One top-performing affiliate generated $93,917.23 alone
• The top five affiliates drove over 90% of total affiliate revenue

This clarity changed how the program was managed. Instead of spreading thin across many creators, Crowned Skin invested deeper into the partners that consistently converted.

Creator content continued to support discovery at the top of the funnel:

• 269,823 total views and 207,316 reach across Instagram and TikTok
• 149 creator posts generating steady engagement

Product seeding also became a scalable pipeline rather than a one-off effort:

• 133 gifts sent
• $2,833.18 in redeemed product value
• Additional creators still in the process of claiming and posting

With visibility into performance and revenue contribution, Crowned Skin now knows exactly which partnerships drive growth and can scale the program with confidence.

Ready to build a creator program that scales with clarity?

Crowned Skin’s results show that creator-led growth does not come from just setting up new partnerships. It comes from building the right structure around the partnerships that already work.

By moving away from spreadsheets and rebuilding their creator program around clear attribution, segmentation, and automation, the team turned creator momentum into a repeatable revenue channel.

Most importantly, the program now scales without adding operational complexity. High-impact creators receive more focus, gifting drives a long-term pipeline, and revenue attribution stays clean as the channel grows.

Social Snowball helps brands turn creator partnerships into a scalable, performance-driven growth channel by centralizing tracking, automating payouts, and giving teams real visibility into what works.