The Problem Wasn't Finding Creators.
It Was Orchestrating Collaboration.
The influencer marketing industry solved discovery. What remained was a design-led campaign operations platform connecting brands, creators and agencies through one governed workflow—eliminating fragmented communication, manual approvals and disconnected operations.
70%
Operational Efficiency Gain
8→2wks
Design Cycle Speed
4.7/5
Average NPS Score
+65
Enterprise Clients
Role
Lead Product Designer
Duration
8 Months
Users
Brands • Creators • Campaign Teams
Domain
Influencer Marketing Platform
Influencer marketing was chaos dressed up as strategy.
Brands struggled to find creators, creators struggled to find campaigns, and every campaign relied on six disconnected tools with no visibility, accountability or reliable workflow.
Business Impact: 23% campaign failure rate
Fragmented operations resulted in delayed deliveries, payment disputes and missed campaign commitments.
A Single Campaign Depended On Six Disconnected Tools
Communication & approvals scattered across inboxes without version control.
Creator discussions lived in DMs with no shared visibility.
Excel
Manual spreadsheets quickly became outdated.
PDF Briefs
Multiple brief versions with no single source of truth.
Drive
Assets, reviews and approvals lived across different tools.
Payments
Manual payouts caused delays and frequent disputes.
Understanding why influencer collaborations were breaking down.
Before designing the platform, I focused on understanding both sides of the marketplace. Rather than digitizing an existing workflow, the goal was to uncover where trust, efficiency, and campaign execution were failing across the entire collaboration journey.
Research activities
Multiple discovery methods were combined to validate assumptions before defining the product strategy.
Marketplace Audit
Studied existing creator marketplaces to understand onboarding, campaign discovery, payment workflows, and trust patterns.
Creator Interviews
Spoke with nano and mid-tier creators to uncover recurring frustrations around visibility, negotiations, and payment confidence.
Brand Conversations
Captured expectations from marketing teams around campaign quality, creator discovery, communication, and ROI.
Journey Mapping
Mapped complete journeys for creators and brands to identify friction, delays, duplicated effort, and drop-off points.
Key research insights
Small creators remained invisible
Discovery algorithms heavily favored established influencers, leaving emerging creators with little opportunity despite relevant audiences.
Negotiations happened everywhere
Campaign discussions moved across email, WhatsApp, and calls, making collaboration fragmented and difficult to track.
Trust was the biggest barrier
Creators worried about delayed payments while brands questioned campaign authenticity and delivery quality.
Campaign matching lacked precision
Manual filtering increased effort for brands and resulted in lower-quality creator recommendations.
Design opportunity
Create a trusted marketplace that enables brands and creators to discover each other faster, collaborate transparently, and complete campaigns confidently from discovery to payment.
Discovery Outcome
Trust became the foundation of the platform.
Research revealed that the real challenge wasn't discovering creators—it was reducing uncertainty throughout the collaboration lifecycle. This insight shaped every major product decision, leading to transparent creator discovery, guided campaign workflows, centralized communication, and secure payment milestones that increased confidence for both brands and creators.
Designing a marketplace that balanced every stakeholder's success.
Discovery highlighted that solving only the creator experience or the brand experience would not be enough. The platform had to balance the expectations of every stakeholder while maintaining trust, transparency, and operational efficiency.
Stakeholder
Creators
Goal
Get discovered & grow sustainably
Operational Pain
Limited visibility for emerging creators
Scattered communication across channels
Uncertainty around payments and approvals
Platform Capability
Transparent creator profiles, campaign dashboard, milestone tracking, and secure payouts.
Stakeholder
Brands
Goal
Find the right creators faster
Operational Pain
Manual creator discovery
Difficult campaign coordination
Limited confidence in campaign outcomes
Platform Capability
Smart discovery, campaign management, creator comparison, and measurable collaboration.
Stakeholder
Platform
Goal
Enable trust at scale
Operational Pain
Disconnected workflows
Poor collaboration visibility
Low marketplace engagement
Platform Capability
Unified collaboration workspace with governance, milestones, and transparent activity tracking.
Stakeholder
Business
Goal
Build a scalable marketplace
Operational Pain
High operational overhead
Inconsistent campaign success
Weak retention across both sides
Platform Capability
Standardized workflows, scalable operations, and stronger marketplace retention.
Design Principle
Product decisions guided by shared stakeholder value.
Trust by Design
Every interaction should reduce uncertainty for creators and brands.
Equal Opportunity
Discovery should prioritize relevance instead of only follower count.
Guided Collaboration
Campaign execution should feel structured, transparent, and predictable.
Operational Simplicity
Replace fragmented communication with one connected workflow.
Rather than optimizing individual user journeys, the platform strategy focused on creating a balanced ecosystem where creators, brands, and the business could all achieve their goals through a shared, trustworthy workflow.
Three architectural decisions created one unified platform.
Rather than designing isolated interfaces, the solution unified brands, creators, campaign operations, and finance into one shared operational model with governed workflows and transparent ownership.
Single Campaign Object
Challenge
Four stakeholder groups required different permissions while sharing the same campaign lifecycle.
Trade-off
One shared campaign model with role-based experiences instead of duplicated workflows.
Impact
- Single source of truth
- Consistent campaign state
- Reduced synchronization effort
Escrow-Based Payments
Challenge
Creators wanted payment confidence while brands wanted delivery assurance.
Trade-off
Funds released only after milestone approval.
Impact
- Higher creator trust
- Fewer payment disputes
- Faster campaign closure
Transparent Matching
Challenge
Discovery depended on follower count instead of campaign relevance.
Trade-off
Recommendations prioritize campaign fit over vanity metrics.
Impact
- Better campaign quality
- Improved creator visibility
- Faster discovery
One platform connecting every stakeholder.
Every interaction flows through a governed platform where brands, creators, operations and finance share one campaign lifecycle instead of disconnected tools.
Brand
Unified Platform
Campaign Orchestration
Governance & Trust
Operations
Creator
Operations & Insights
Shared visibility across the entire campaign lifecycle
Campaign Monitoring
Centralized operational visibility reduced manual follow-up while improving campaign governance.
Escrow Payments
Centralized operational visibility reduced manual follow-up while improving campaign governance.
Analytics
Centralized operational visibility reduced manual follow-up while improving campaign governance.
Audit & Compliance
Centralized operational visibility reduced manual follow-up while improving campaign governance.
Architecture Principle
One campaign.
Multiple experiences.
Every stakeholder interacted with the same campaign object, while permissions, workflows, and responsibilities adapted to their role. This eliminated duplicate processes and created one governed operational ecosystem.
Single Source of Truth
Role-Based Experiences
Escrow Protection
Operational Transparency
One workflow. Eight stages. Zero operational gaps.
Every campaign followed a governed workflow with automated validations, approvals and payment milestones. Each stage had a clear owner, embedded business rules and complete auditability.
Automated Transitions
Manual Hand-offs
Secure Escrow Payments
Visibility Across Stakeholders
Set Up Profile
Profile completeness validation
Land & Sign Up
Search & filter engine
Discover
Campaign eligibility rules
Apply / Invite
Structured briefing workflow
Brief & Select
Deliverable tracking
Execute
Approval workflow & audit log
Approve
Escrow & milestone release
Payment
Operational
Principles
Faster Campaigns
Up to 70% reduction in campaign cycle time.
Zero Chaos
No more email chains, spreadsheets or status chasing.
Trust by Design
Escrow, approvals and audit trail protect both sides.
Shared Visibility
Every stakeholder sees what they need, when they need it.
Brand Owner
Brand
Creator
Creator
Campaign Operations
Campaign Ops
Operations Team
Operations
Validating workflow concepts before visual design
Before moving into polished interfaces, ideas were explored through rapid sketches to validate campaign creation, creator discovery, workflow orchestration and overall platform architecture. These lightweight explorations helped refine the experience before investing in high-fidelity design.
Campaign Sketch
Creator Discovery
Discovery Flow
Platform Thinking
Refining the product through evidence-driven decisions
Workflow concepts were validated through usability sessions, stakeholder reviews and scenario-based walkthroughs to ensure the platform reduced operational friction before final implementation.
Task Completion
Brand onboarding completed without assistance.
Campaign Success
Brands successfully created campaigns.
Average Time
Application flow completed 15% faster.
NPS
Overall usability satisfaction.
Key Validation Insights
Budget created hesitation
Observation
Brands became reluctant when budget allocation appeared before creator discovery.
Design Decision
Budget planning was moved later in the workflow with contextual guidance.
Outcome
Campaign creation improved from 83% → 92%.
Engagement mattered more than followers
Observation
Participants consistently valued creator relevance over audience size.
Design Decision
Discovery recommendations prioritized engagement quality and campaign fit.
Outcome
Discovery satisfaction increased from 3.8 → 4.4.
Users needed workflow reassurance
Observation
Campaign managers wanted confidence before submitting campaigns.
Design Decision
Progressive guidance and contextual hints were introduced across the flow.
Outcome
Overall completion rate improved by 61%.
Validation Outcome
Validation confirmed that simplifying campaign orchestration, delaying commitment-heavy decisions and introducing contextual guidance significantly improved confidence, reduced operational friction and created a workflow that balanced business objectives with creator experience.
The final product experience.
The redesigned platform connects brands, creators and operations into a single enterprise workflow—from creator discovery and campaign execution to approvals, payments and performance tracking.
Primary Experience
Creator Dashboard
A unified workspace providing creators with campaign visibility, earnings, performance insights and application management.
Platform Experiences
Designed for every stakeholder.
Brand Marketplace
Discover, evaluate and shortlist creators using structured insights.
Campaign Approval & Payout
Review deliverables, approve content and release creator payments.
Creator Discovery
Explore campaigns, understand requirements and evaluate opportunities.
Apply to Campaign
Submit applications, track status and manage campaign participation.
Delivered Experience
One connected platform.
Every stakeholder.
The final solution unified fragmented influencer operations into a connected ecosystem where brands, creators and operations collaborate through one consistent experience.
From fragmented campaign coordination to a scalable enterprise platform designed to simplify collaboration, improve governance and create a transparent experience for both brands and creators.
The challenge wasn't designing interfaces—
it was building trust, governance, and
coordinated workflows across stakeholders.
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