Pearpop, a marketplace for social collaborations, announced today that it’s launching a new product called “Boost Mode.” The new feature allows brands on the platform to turn content posted by creators into high-performing paid ads.
With Boost Mode, brands can look through live content to determine which posts are performing well in terms of views, likes and engagement, and then turn them into ads. Creators receive a bonus when a brand chooses their content. Pearpop sees the new product as a “try before you buy” approach to paid ads.
“Once creator content goes live as part of a Pearpop Challenge, brands can then monitor organic performance in real-time through our Brand Dashboard,” Pearpop CEO Cole Mason told TechCrunch in an email. “There, brands can view all live creator content and decide which content they want to boost in paid media. Boost Mode allows brands to add paid amplification with just one click to the top-performing posts in their Pearpop Challenge. This allows brands to ‘scale what works,’ simply and instantly.”
The launch of the new feature comes two weeks after TikTok launched a similar feature called the “TikTok Creative Challenge.” The feature allows creators to submit video ads to brand challenges and receive money based on video performance if their video is selected by a brand.
Mason says Boost Mode differs from TikTok’s new product because it “lets marketers double-down on the content that is already proven to perform.” In TikTok’s model, creators are required to submit content, after which brands pick a video to promote. Creators don’t receive compensation unless their video ad was selected. As for Pearpop, the company compensates creators first on a performance-basis for the Organic Views they generate as part of a Pearpop Challenge and then pays them an additional bonus when a brand chooses their content.
Image Credits: Pearpop
Both of the companies’ models somewhat follow the same sort of model by helping creators cut down on the amount of time and effort it takes to reach out to brands to try to get brand deals.
Founded in 2020, Pearpop facilitates brand-to-creator collaboration as well as creator-to-creator collaboration. Pearpop allows creators and brands to buy collaborations with celebrities like Madonna and creators like Sommer Ray. These celebrities and influencers are able to sell the chance to collaborate with them. Or, they can run “challenges” that invite people to post using a specific prompt or sound on TikTok or Instagram for the chance to receive cash rewards determined by engagement milestones.
Pearpop has attracted numerous notable brands, including Amazon, Netflix, Chipotle, Rakuten, Universal Pictures, Sonos and Beyond Meat, as well as celebrities like Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Madonna, Shawn Mendez and Post Malone.
“The key to frictionless creator collaboration at scale is data,” Mason said. “We continue to invest in the richest creator dataset, all while continuing to scale the largest community of vetted creators in the industry and building out enhanced features for both brands and creators. We’ll do this across all major social platforms, and are keeping a close eye on new and emerging social platforms, to ensure our product works with wherever audiences are spending their time. All with the goal of helping more creators earn a living doing what they love while making creator marketing simpler, scalable, and measurable.”
Last fall, Pearpop added $18 million to its Series A, bringing its valuation to $300 million. Since its launch, Pearpop has raised $34 million in funding.