Creator marketing & GTM, for tech companies
Playbooks and field notes on running creator-led go-to-market — finding the right creators, choosing platforms, and measuring signups instead of likes.
The Wrapper Accusation: Marketing an AI Product to People Who Assume It's a Prompt
Every AI company now markets into a default assumption that its product is a thin wrapper. Why the accusation sticks, what a technical audience accepts as an answer, how to brief creators to meet the skepticism head-on, and why the comment section is the real campaign.
Usage Rights and Whitelisting: What You're Actually Buying From a Creator
The difference between a post, a license and an ad account — how usage rights are scoped and priced, how whitelisting works on each platform, the music-licensing trap that catches most brands, and the contract clauses worth insisting on.
UTMs, Promo Codes and Vanity URLs: Instrumenting a Creator Campaign
The plumbing behind creator attribution — a UTM naming convention that survives a year, when a code beats a link, why spoken URLs need their own treatment, how to store attribution at signup instead of trusting the session, and how to measure what tracking structurally cannot see.
Creator Outreach That Gets Replies: A Field Guide
Why most creator outreach is ignored, and what to send instead — the five-line structure that works, why naming a budget range is the biggest reply-rate lever you have, where to send it, how to follow up once, and the reply-rate numbers to expect.
How to Write a Creator Brief That Doesn't Get Ignored
The brief decides whether a campaign lands. A section-by-section guide for technology products — the one-message rule, how to specify the demo moment, where to be strict and where to stay out of the way, the review rights worth having, and the eight things that quietly ruin briefs.
Creator Marketing vs DevRel: Two Different Jobs People Keep Confusing
DevRel builds your own credibility with developers; creator marketing rents someone else's. A comparison for technical products — what each is genuinely for, the cost and time horizons, why measuring DevRel on signups destroys it, and how the two feed each other.
Micro vs Macro Creators for B2B: What the Follower Count Hides
For technology and B2B products the tier question is really a density question. How to compute qualified reach and cost per qualified viewer, when a macro creator is genuinely worth it, the operational cost of running twenty micro creators, and how to allocate a budget between them.
Creator Marketing vs Paid Search: Which Channel for Which Problem
Paid search harvests demand that already exists; creator marketing creates it. A practical comparison for tech and B2B companies — where each wins, why search quietly takes credit for creator spend, how to test the two honestly, and how to split a budget between them.
Ambassador Programs for Tech Products: How to Turn Advocacy Into a Channel
A practical guide to building a creator or developer ambassador program — who to recruit, what to give them instead of cash, how to design scarcity and exclusivity, what to ask for, how to run events volunteers can sustain, and how to measure a channel that doesn't produce clean attribution.
How Cursor Grew to $1B ARR Without Ads: A Creator-Led GTM Teardown
Cursor reached $100M ARR with no marketing spend and $1B+ without a traditional demand-gen motion. A teardown of what actually drove it — eight ignored launches, developer X, one tweet that named the category, and 300 ambassadors — plus an honest account of which parts you can copy.
Launch Day With Creators: Coordinating Product Hunt & Hacker News
How to use creators around a Product Hunt or Hacker News launch — what each surface actually rewards, why coordinated creator coverage beats a launch-day blast, the tactics that backfire, and how to make the day compound instead of spike.
Creator Marketing for AI Coding Tools & Agent Products
How to run creator marketing for an AI coding assistant, dev tool, or agent product — why the demo is the whole pitch, which creators actually move developers, the credibility traps specific to AI, and what to measure when the buyer is an engineer.
FTC Disclosure Rules for Creator Campaigns: What #ad Actually Requires
A practical guide to FTC disclosure for sponsored creator content — what counts as a material connection, what 'clear and conspicuous' means in each format, why the platform's built-in label isn't enough on its own, and why the brand is on the hook too.
Developer Marketing on X & GitHub: Working With Technical Creators
How to market a developer tool or AI product with creators on X (Twitter) and GitHub — why builders trust these channels, the formats that land, how to work with technical voices, and what to measure.
LinkedIn Creator Partnerships for B2B: A Practical How-To
How to run creator partnerships on LinkedIn for a B2B or technology product — why it reaches decision-makers, the operator-voice formats that work, how to find and price creators, and what to measure.
Newsletter Sponsorships for B2B: Find, Price & Measure Them
How to run newsletter sponsorships for a B2B or technology product — why category newsletters quietly convert best, how to find and vet them, what to pay, and how to measure clicks and signups per send.
YouTube Sponsorships for SaaS: The Sponsored-Video Playbook
How to run YouTube creator sponsorships for a technology product — why YouTube compounds, the formats that convert (dedicated, integration, tutorial), how to find and price channels, and what to measure.
Going Global (出海): A North-America Creator-Launch Playbook
How startups expanding into North America — especially AI and tech companies going global (出海) — use creator marketing to cross the trust gap, from finding local creators to platform choice, pricing, and measurement.
In-House vs Agency vs Platform: How to Run Creator Marketing
The three ways a tech company can run creator marketing — build it in-house, hire an agency, or use a self-serve platform. The real trade-offs in cost, control, and speed, and how to choose for your stage.
Creator Marketing Benchmarks for SaaS: CAC, Signup Conversion & ROAS (2026)
Directional benchmarks for creator marketing at SaaS and AI companies — cost per signup and per customer, signup-conversion rates, and ROAS by creator tier and platform, plus how to read them against your own numbers.
GEO for SaaS: Getting Your Product Cited by ChatGPT & Perplexity
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for technology products — how AI answer engines pick sources, what to publish and mark up so they cite you, and why creator mentions across the web are the input that moves it.
Creator Marketing vs Influencer Marketing: What's the Difference?
Creator marketing and influencer marketing aren't the same — especially for technology products. The real difference in goals, selection, content, and measurement, and which one to use.
Creator Marketing GTM for AI Products
Why AI products are especially suited to creator marketing — beating the 'just AI hype' reflex, showing the wow moment, earning trust with technical audiences, and the go-to-market playbook that works.
How to Measure Creator Marketing for SaaS (Signups, Not Likes)
A practical measurement framework for creator marketing — the metric hierarchy, tracking signups per creator, cost per signup and customer, the attribution gaps to expect, and how to run it as a program.
Where Tech Buyers Actually Watch: A Platform Playbook
YouTube, LinkedIn, newsletters, TikTok, Instagram, X — which platform to use for a technology product, what format works on each, and what to actually measure.
How to Find the Right Tech Creators (Audience Fit Beats Follower Count)
A practical method for sourcing and vetting creators for a technology product — start from your ICP, score for audience fit, read engagement honestly, and build a shortlist that converts.
What to Pay Tech & B2B Creators in 2026
A practical guide to pricing creator partnerships for technology products — rate ranges by follower tier, the B2B premium, the pricing models worth knowing, and how to tell if a rate is actually worth it.
Creator Marketing for Tech Companies: The 2026 GTM Playbook
How technology companies turn creators into a real go-to-market channel — matching for audience fit over follower count, choosing the right platforms, and measuring signups instead of likes.
Get the next playbook in your inbox
Field notes on creator-led GTM for tech — new playbooks as we publish them. No fluff, no spam.
Something went wrong — please try again.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Almost there — check your inbox
We just sent a confirmation email. Click the link inside and you're on the list.
SF Tech Week 2026, Oct 5–11
Our picks for AI founders and GTM people, the biggest rooms, the full schedule, and how to get in.
LA Tech Week 2026, Oct 12–18
The same guide for Los Angeles — events by day as the calendar fills in.
Creator campaign ROI estimator
Model a campaign the way tech buyers measure it — reach → signups → customers → revenue and ROAS — from a budget and an audience-fit assumption.
Creator rate estimator
What should you pay a creator? Get a fair rate range from follower tier and deliverable, adjusted for the B2B premium, usage rights, and exclusivity.
GEO readiness check
Can ChatGPT and Perplexity actually read and cite your site? Checks crawler access, llms.txt, structured data, and whether your sitemap and canonical tags agree.
Outreach emails, briefs & a launch checklist
Copy-paste templates for running creator-led GTM — outreach that gets replies, a creator brief, and a step-by-step launch checklist.