Manthan Vikam

DTC + Aggressive Direct Response

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@AdamGillman ECOM

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@Bogzabs96 SUPPLEMENT

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@AdamGillman X

[Adam Gillman @AdamGillman]

I hired 500+ influencers to help with marketing to grow my ecom business to $103M in annual revenue.

Here's whether it still works in 2026 and exactly how the playbook has changed:

The short answer: Yes. But the math is completely different.

What worked for us : finding micro and mid-tier creators with genuinely engaged audiences, paying flat fees, getting real testimonial content, then whitelisting the winners as paid ads — that core mechanic still works.

What's changed:

→ Creator rates are 3-5x what they were when we started
→ Audiences are significantly more skeptical of obvious sponsored content
→ Platforms have gotten much better at suppressing reach on overly polished posts

So the bar is higher on two specific things:

Creative authenticity. And your ability to operationalize at scale.

Here's the piece most operators are completely missing:

20-40% of our paid budget ran behind influencer-sourced creative through whitelisting at any given time.

Here's why whitelisting is where the real leverage lives:

→ You're running creative that's already been audience-validated before you spend a dollar on ads
→ It runs from a real person's handle so it inherits their credibility automatically
→ The unit economics outperform brand-owned creative by a meaningful margin consistently

If you're doing influencer marketing and not whitelisting your winners — you're leaving the biggest part of the value on the table.

Who should use this playbook:

Best fit: anything where the buying decision has an emotional or trust component.

Supplements. Kids products. Beauty. Pet. Health-adjacent categories.

Anywhere a real person saying "I use this and here's why" collapses the consideration cycle faster than any ad could.

It also works incredibly well for any product where the use case isn't obvious from a static image: you need someone to show how it actually fits into a real life.

Worst fit:

Pure commodity plays. Ultra-low AOV impulse items. Anything where the buyer is doing deep technical research before purchasing.

Non-ecom:

I've seen it work surprisingly well for local service businesses, SaaS tools targeting creators or small business owners, and financial products where trust is the entire game.

The principle is always the same regardless of category:

Borrow someone else's credibility to shortcut the trust gap.

The brands winning with influencer marketing in 2026:

They're not treating it like PR.

They're treating it like a paid media channel with a creative engine attached.

Portfolio approach. 20-30 creators per cohort. Kill losers fast. Pour spend behind the 2-3 that pop.

If you're doing 5 creators a quarter, you're not going to find your winners.

The system only works at volume.

Comment "X" if you want my full playbook of everything I learned while building my business and how you can too :)

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[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@AdamGillman PLAYBOOK

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@apptics SCALE

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@alecsandrull Page

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@jspujji UGC

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@blvckledge Swipe

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@apptics SCALE

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@apptics SCALE

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@wearetheselect FRAMEWORKS

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@Big_Hass8 @SHOPFLORIEM @suge_ecom @ShopifySupport @Shopify @harleyf Is it possible to get pre revenue or pre launch private processing ? If yes - very interested - can you DM me ?

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@colinillner SETUP

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@mikefutia STATICS

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@Google @googlechrome Mimick MS EDGE please - they have cracked it - the Aesthetic is trash but overall Groups + Vertical Tabs + Workspaces is GOATED

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@Samuel_Ecom1 STRIPE

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@nicktheriot_ BRAIN

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

@FedotOff90 infrastructure

[Manthan Vikam @ManthanVikam]

If SBF is pardoned - Alt Season is back - All other metas or narratives are entirely dead and cringe - AI Agents, RWA, Digital Gold etc are trash