Product Seeding

Sending free product to creators in the hope (but not contractual obligation) that they’ll post about it.

Product seeding (also called "gifting") is the lowest-commitment form of influencer outreach. The brand mails the creator a free sample without a posting requirement. Creators who genuinely like the product often post organically; those who don’t are under no obligation. Seeding works best when the product is the kind creators would naturally feature (beauty, fashion, tech, food).

Seeding is much cheaper per attempt than paid partnerships, but the hit rate is unpredictable — typically 10-30% of seeded creators post unprompted. Brands with strong product-market fit can run seeding programs of 1,000+ creators per quarter to build organic momentum.

Seeding sits adjacent to the paid booking flow on Collabios — brands typically reach out to a shortlist of creators through pre-hire messaging to gauge interest before mailing a sample, which is cheaper than a blanket-mail strategy.