How (and Where) to Find Creators That Actually Drive Sales for Your E-Commerce Brand.

It’s 2025…. and finding creators that actually sell is harder than ever. You know this.

In 2018, you could throw $30 at a meme page and watch your store blow up overnight. A Facebook pixel, a decent landing page, and a few solid ads were all you needed to scale.

But those days are gone. The algorithm’s smarter, attention is fragmented, and virality isn’t for sale anymore.

Now, the brands winning are the ones building real relationships with creators, not just sending cold DMs or shipping out free product.

This week, we’re diving into exactly how (and where) to find those creators, the ones who actually move product, not just rack up views.

Our guest writer Norman Chu has spent nearly a decade in the DTC trenches: scaling brands, running agencies, managing creator campaigns, and helping influencers like Sommer Ray turn content into multi-million-dollar businesses.

The big idea behind this is simple: Brands who act like people will always find better creators than people who try to act like brands.

Before there were “creators” there were meme pages.

That was the Wild West of the internet. There were several random pages with millions of followers posting chaotic, unfiltered humor that people engaged with like crazy.

And when brands paid these pages for shoutouts, it worked because the content didn’t look like typical ads.

They looked like they were part of the culture.

People didn’t necessarily share them because of the product. They shared them because the content made them laugh. It felt like something they would say in a group chat.

Norman calls this the “first wave” of creator-led virality.

But then the algorithm changed. Feeds became interest-based instead of follower-based.

And suddenly, the question wasn’t who was posting. It was how native the content felt to the platform.

And that was the end of the meme era as we knew it then and the beginning of the creator economy.

In the old influencer world, you got paid for who followed you. If you had a million followers, you knew a brand was going to pay you at least 5 grand regardless of results.

The math was simple. Now, the rules have flipped.

On TikTok, your reach has nothing to do with who follows you. It depends on how good your content is.

Norman put it this way:

Then came TikTok Shop, and that changed everything again.

Creators now had data they couldn't access before: GMV attribution. They could now see, in real time, how much money their videos generated for brands.

That single feature flipped the power dynamic.

Now creators weren’t asking brands for money. Brands were asking creators for access to their audience. (not followers)

They treat creators like they’re just another advertising channel.

They send a rigid brief, ask for specific hooks, micromanage the entire process, and expect them to create magic.

Then they watch the final cut and wonder why it feels flat.

Chemistry can’t be forcefully manufactured through a Google Doc and twelve rounds of revisions.

What you need to understand is that creators are not extensions of your marketing team.

They’re creative partners who understand the language of the internet better than most brand strategists ever will.

So, if you want content that feels alive, you’re going to have to give them space to make it theirs.

The brands that are winning on TikTok today don’t “hire” creators. They hang out with them, show up in the same places where they are, and build trust offline before they ever talk deliverables.

Norman even joked about it by saying “If you can’t reach creators, go play pickleball.”

It sounded funny at first, but he wasn’t kidding.

And if you’ve ever seen been to any of the events Norman’s team has held for creators and DTC brand operators, you’ll understand why.

When you’re in the same room with creators, everything changes. People start introducing you to their friends. Ideas bounce around naturally. And people connect with each other in an authentic way.

That’s when marketing stops feeling like work and builds a life of its own.

And that’s the secret sauce DTC brands need in 2025:

Show up where creators are, invest in genuine relationships, and watch as doors open that no mass email or outreach tool could ever deliver.

This isn’t just about pickleball, it’s about understanding that offline matters as much as online.

Whether it’s hosting a pickleball game, a dinner, a casual meetup, or collaborating at a wellness event, the brands building IRL connections are the ones forming communities creators want to be part of.

When you do this, creators start to see your brand as more than a brief, they see it as an ally, a collaborator, sometimes even a friend.

This is the leverage you need: not just someone to make a video, but someone who cares about your product, knows your audience, and will champion your brand organically—on TikTok, Meta, and everywhere else.

If you’re still relying on spreadsheets, outbound emails, and paid shoutouts, it’s time to rethink your playbook.

Refunnel helps you automate the unscalable:

→ Track every single mention from all of your content campaigns.
→ Automate Product Seeding at Scale.
→ Get analytics on creators, campaigns, and content.
→ Pay content creators automatically.
→ Get content usage rights in minutes, not days.

There’s only one way to scale content. Better systems.