A few years ago, Shopify started making major bets on creators

Not because they suddenly wanted to become an influencer company, but because they understood something many brands still miss: creators aren't a marketing tactic anymore. They're a distribution channel.

I've spent the last decade watching this shift happen from every angle. I built and sold a creator management company representing thousands of creators, later became the first employee at Flagship, a creator commerce platform that was eventually acquired by Shopify, and today advise brands building influencer, affiliate, and creator-led growth programs.

Recently, I worked with a home brand selling products with an average order value north of $1,000. When I first got involved, the brand was generating roughly $10,000 per month through creator partnerships. Today, that number is more than $1 million per month.

The interesting part isn't the number itself. It's how we got there.

There wasn't a celebrity partnership. There wasn't a viral moment. There wasn't a magical creator or secret growth hack. The growth came from recognizing a shift that was happening in creator commerce before most brands saw it and then building the right infrastructure around it.

One of the best pieces of business advice I ever received was simple: pay attention to where smart people are investing.

When venture capital firms pour billions into AI, people pay attention. When Amazon invests heavily in logistics, people pay attention. The same thing has been happening in creator commerce for years.

Shopify, Amazon, ShopMy, LTK, GRIN, and dozens of other companies have invested enormous amounts of time, money, and resources into helping creators become a legitimate distribution channel for brands. That should tell us something. The opportunity is real.

One of the first recommendations I made to this brand was to invest more seriously in ShopMy. At the time, they were already seeing success through YouTube, but they didn't have a true creator commerce infrastructure in place.

I was bullish on ShopMy for a simple reason: I could see what was happening on the creator side. Creators were adopting the platform quickly. The experience was cleaner, attribution was stronger, and, most importantly, creators actually wanted to use it.

That's an important distinction.

Founders often evaluate platforms based on what works for the brand. I evaluate them based on whether creators will actually use them. Because a platform doesn't work if the creator doesn't use it.

So we built the program on ShopMy, established creator attribution, developed a recruitment strategy, and started treating creators like a channel instead of a series of one-off campaigns.

That decision became a meaningful part of the growth story.

When I started working with this brand, the fundamentals were already there. The product was strong, customers loved it, and the economics worked. What they didn't have was a creator channel. They had creator activity.

Those are two very different things.

Many brands think they have an influencer strategy because creators occasionally post about their products. A creator channel is something else entirely. It's repeatable, measurable, and managed.

The biggest change wasn't finding better creators. It was building a system.

We moved the program onto ShopMy, built attribution creators could trust, recruited creators who were already influencing purchasing behavior, increased commissions for top performers, and created consistent communication with partners. Over time, we doubled down on the creators proving they could drive sales and treated creators like an acquisition channel rather than a campaign channel.

The lesson wasn't that ShopMy was magic. The lesson was that creators finally had a platform they wanted to use, and the brand finally had someone actively managing the channel.

Instead of asking, "Who should post this month?" we started asking, "Who could be talking about this product for the next two years?"

That shift changed everything.

Most brands still approach influencer marketing like a campaign. They launch, send product, hire a handful of creators, and then decide whether the channel works.

That's backwards.

Nobody would run Meta ads for thirty days and then declare paid acquisition a failure forever. Yet brands do this with creators all the time.

The companies seeing the biggest outcomes today are building creator infrastructure before they need it. They understand that if creators become a meaningful acquisition channel, somebody has to own that channel. Not an intern. Not a social media coordinator squeezing it into an already full workload. Not a founder answering creator emails at midnight.

Someone whose job is to make creators successful.

I actually think we're still early.

Creator commerce has already changed how consumers discover products. I think the next phase is changing how products are distributed.

The winners won't be the brands working with the most creators. They'll be the brands that build the best systems around them.

That's the shift I'd be paying attention to because it's where I've seen the biggest growth happen.

If you're building a creator program and trying to figure out where to start, I'm always happy to be a resource. Whether that means helping you choose the right platform, hire the right person, structure a creator program, or simply pressure-test your strategy, the creator economy gets stronger when more brands succeed.

And if the last few years have taught me anything, it's this:

Julian Greene is an influencer marketing consultant who helps brands build and scale creator-led growth channels.

Over the last decade, she's worked across every side of the creator economy: on the brand side, as the founder of a creator management company representing thousands of influencers (with a successful exit), and as the first employee at Flagship, a creator commerce platform acquired by Shopify.

Today, she works with a small number of brands helping them build influencer, affiliate, ShopMy, Amazon, and creator commerce programs that drive measurable revenue growth.

Learn more at juliangreeneconsulting.com.