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Creator Desk
For creators
Written for the person choosing which programme to join and what to post. Rates and terms come from the networks’ own published figures, dated, with the awkward parts left in.
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UGC creator or influencer: which business are you in?
Two different businesses that share a job title: one sells content as a production service, the other sells distribution. How to tell which you are in.
9 min read · Read the guide →TikTok Shop commission rates, by category
Sellers set the rate, not TikTok. The reported ranges by category, why the headline percentage is the wrong thing to optimise, and what we could not verify.
7 min read · Read the guide →Product tagging or affiliate links: who gets paid?
A tag is a platform permission; a link is a retailer relationship. Who each is open to, who sets the rate, and what happens when the product sells out.
6 min read · Read the guide →LTK, ShopMy or Mavely: what each one actually publishes
None of the three publishes per-brand commission rates, and only ShopMy and Mavely publish their payout terms. What each one does publish, and the questions worth asking instead.
8 min read · Read the guide →How do you make a media kit that a brand actually reads?
A media kit is a sales document with ninety seconds to work. What brands read first, the sections that waste a page, and a 12-point checklist before sending.
9 min read · Read the guide →How do you actually get accepted as an affiliate creator?
The application sequence, what reviewers actually check, and the avoidable rejections - written by a site that has not been approved by anyone yet.
7 min read · Read the guide →How to become a TikTok affiliate: the gates, in order
Five gates in the order they apply, what to do about each rejection, and why the 10,000-follower number everyone quotes is from a different programme.
7 min read · Read the guide →How to add affiliate links to Instagram
Instagram makes links clickable in only a few places, and captions are not one. The placements that work, a structure that survives, and four costly mistakes.
6 min read · Read the guide →How long does it actually take an affiliate to get paid?
Click to bank account runs through six stages. Amazon pays about 60 days after the month earned, once you clear $10 direct deposit or $100 by cheque.
11 min read · Read the guide →Engagement Rate Calculator
Work out your engagement rate the way a brand will, using all four formulas in common use, and see which one a media kit should lead with and why.
10 min read · Read the guide →Do affiliate links hurt Instagram reach?
No published policy, no platform data, and creator experiments too confounded to settle it. What is actually known, and how to test it on your own account.
7 min read · Read the guide →What is deep linking, and how do creators break it?
What a deep link is, the three ways creators break one, and why some of the retailers we tested would not let us verify their links at all. Measured live.
6 min read · Read the guide →What should you charge, and how do you defend the number?
No honest benchmark rate exists, so build the number instead: production, distribution, usage rights and exclusivity priced apart, plus the affiliate floor.
9 min read · Read the guide →How do you build a holiday gift guide as a creator?
Group picks by recipient or budget, give each a reason and, except on Amazon, a dated price; disclose by the links; re-check before Black Friday, 27 Nov 2026.
10 min read · Read the guide →When should creators publish Black Friday content in 2026?
Black Friday 2026 is 27 November. Working backwards from the documented 2025 retailer timing, here is when creator content actually has to be live.
6 min read · Read the guide →Which affiliate platform should an influencer actually pick?
Five criteria that decide a programme, and an honest note on which terms we could actually read: only one operator published its own on 1 Sept 2026.
9 min read · Read the guide →Why home decor affiliate income rests on very few retailers
Home decor order values are high and sit with very few retailers. What the CJ feed showed, what Wayfair, Amazon and Target publish, and what a rejection costs.
10 min read · Read the guide →What do creators actually have to disclose?
What 16 CFR Part 255 actually requires, with its key words quoted: when a disclosure is needed, where it has to sit, and the placements that fail.
8 min read · Read the guide →Affiliate disclosure generator
Pick the relationship and the placement; get disclosure wording that meets the clear-and-conspicuous standard, plus where it has to sit. No email gate.
7 min read · Read the guide →How long does an affiliate cookie actually last?
Amazon's window is a 24-hour session that add-to-cart extends to 89 days. Everywhere else the advertiser sets it, so there is no single network number.
6 min read · Read the guide →Affiliate commission calculator for creators
Work out what a sale is actually worth: enter the order value and commission rate to see the payout, with the deductions that reduce it explained.
4 min read · Read the guide →Which holiday retailers can a gift-guide creator actually earn on?
Which retailers a holiday gift guide can actually earn on: where Q4 inventory sits, and what Wayfair, Poshmark and Woot publish about their programmes.
7 min read · Read the guide →