Influencer marketing, UGC, and paid media are becoming one connected growth engine. So why are so many brands still managing them as separate channels?

In this episode of Field Notes, Lily Comba and Sarah Crow sit down with Cody Plofker, former CEO of Jones Road Beauty and host of the Marketing Operators Podcast, to unpack how leading brands are connecting creator partnerships, organic content, and paid social to drive performance.

Cody shares how Jones Road approaches influencer marketing and creative testing, why only a fraction of creators will become true performance drivers, and why bigger influencers can outperform micro creators when their content is used in Meta Partnership Ads. They also dig into creator whitelisting, paid usage rights, influencer briefs, attribution, and how to build a creator roster designed to compound over time.

They cover why influencer marketing should be treated as a long-term growth strategy rather than another paid acquisition channel, how brands can better connect influencer and performance marketing teams, and what changes when creator content is built for both organic and paid distribution from day one.

In this episode:

How Jones Road Beauty approaches influencer and creator marketing
Why UGC, influencer marketing, and paid media are converging
Meta Partnership Ads vs. traditional creator whitelisting
Why larger creators can outperform micro influencers in paid social
How to negotiate creator usage rights and build paid usage into briefs
Why even strong creator programs should expect most partnerships not to scale
Measuring influencer marketing when attribution is imperfect
How to build a long-term roster of high-performing creators

Field Notes is the operator’s playbook for brand, creator, and growth, hosted by Lily Comba, Founder + CEO of Superbloom and Sarah Crow, Head of Creator Strategy at Superfiliate.

The influencer marketing playbook that worked before 2020 doesn't work anymore, and much of the industry hasn't caught up.

In this episode of Field Notes, Sarah Crow and Lily Comba compare influencer marketing before and after 2020. Before, gifting reliably led to posts, creators took commission deals, and programs were built on community. Now brands deal with talent managers, flat fees, mass outreach and much more competition for creators' attention.

They get into why one-off posts stopped working, why long-term rebooking became the key to scale, and why the 2020 DTC boom made it harder to stand out. They also cover why newsletters and long-form YouTube are bringing back the original creator formats.

Field Notes is the operator's playbook for brand, creator, and growth, hosted by Lily Comba, Founder + CEO of Superbloom and Sarah Crow, Head of Creator Strategy at Superfiliate.

Black Friday creator marketing isn’t won during Black Friday. For most brands, the work starts months earlier.

In this episode of Field Notes, Sarah Crow and Lily Comba sit down with Kelly MacIvor of Omnilux to break down how one of beauty’s most considered purchases prepares its creator program for the biggest promotional period of the year.

With a roughly $400 medical-grade device and a customer journey that can stretch up to a year, Omnilux can’t rely on a discount code to create demand overnight. Kelly shares how her team uses creators to educate consumers and build trust months before BFCM, how they identify creators whose audiences can actually convert, and why the holiday season is the time to double down on proven partners rather than chase volume.

They also get into the role discounts actually play in conversion, why creator trust matters more than the offer, how Kelly thinks about testing in the months leading up to Black Friday, and whether she’d rather activate 100 new creators or 20 proven revenue drivers.

In this episode:

- Why Black Friday creator strategy starts months before the sale
- How Omnilux uses creators to educate consumers on a $400 product
- Why trust often matters more than the discount
- How to tell whether a creator’s audience can actually convert
- 100 new creators vs. 20 proven partners
- When to test new creators before BFCM
- Why Black Friday is the time for your “tried and true” creators

Field Notes is the operator’s playbook for brand, creator, and growth, hosted by Lily Comba, Founder + CEO of Superbloom and Sarah Crow, Head of Creator Strategy at Superfiliate.