Partnership Pro-Tips

Most automotive sponsorships are broken- we're here to help. Don't miss our partnership playbook, sponsorship strategies, the best management platforms & more!

Author

Erica Sietsma
May 09, 2025

This edition of Trendy AF is near and dear to my heart because it’s ALL ABOUT what we’re all here for: building partnerships that succeed and grow. We want to see MORE partnerships in this industry. More creators getting PAID for you kick ass content. And of course, MORE PEOPLE DOING MORE OF WHAT THEY LOVE!

The Partnering Like A Pro blog post we put together (which has a different name on our website because we rewrote it for SEO value - ha) is a compilation of tips and data from hundreds of conversations with brands, hours of data review from hundreds of creator partnerships on our platform, and more time than I care to admit reading influencer-industry news/stats/research. It’s a handy guide for creators and brands and for those of you reading it who are like, “Uh, my brand partners aren’t doing most of this stuff…share it with them!!

We hope you enjoy this week’s Trendy AF! And if there is a topic you want us to talk about or better yet, YOU want to share with our audience, let us know! Trendy AF is for the industry BY the industry!

Much love,

Erica Sietsma
Autofluencer CEO & Founder

BLOG POST: PARTNERING LIKE A PRO 🔥

We just dropped a no-BS guide for brands, builders, racers, and creators who want to build partnerships that actually perform.

You’ll learn:
• What to offer and expect in return
• How to decide who to partner with
• What metrics really matter (hint: not just followers)
• How to get more out of every piece of content

Whether you’re a sponsor, builder, racer, or creator- this is your new playbook.

PARTNERSHIPS WE’RE LOVING 🏆

Here are some partnerships from creators of all sizes that we’ve seen:

TECHNICAL AF 🧰

PARTNERSHIP MANAGEMENT PLATFORMS AND SERVICES

Since we’re talking about building strong partnerships, we’re naturally super biased that Autofluencer helps in this process, especially for your brand partners (for now).

But….we aren’t the only player in the partnership management space - though we are the only one built for our industry! If you are curious about who the others are (and you may be asked to connect with them by your brand partners) - this is a list of some of the larger platforms.

  • Autofluencer: Has searchable campaigns that creators can apply for and/or they can send links for applications when they get DMs or use a QR code at events

    • Easier for them to review proposals since they’re all in same format

    • Easier for YOU to submit proposals since AF already has your profile data (don’t need to manually add all your links every time)

    • Clear compensation and deliverable/partnership requirements

    • Contracts built-in and saved in the platform

    • Reporting on partnership performance - and you see what they see! (Well, soon it will be identical…stay tuned)

  • CreatorIQ: The biggest and the OG in the space. They ain’t cheap and focus on larger, fortune 500 companies

  • Tagger: Bought by Sprout Social - so this makes them an obvious choice for a lot of companise because they “integrate” with Tagger. Again, 2 -3x more expensive than AF and don’t have any focus (or care) for our industry.

  • Hookit: The gold standard in sponsorship measurement (they don't do partnership management), but they charge for creator use (and it ain't cheap) AND they are expensive AF for brands to use. We were told they are now a minimum of $30K/year. That may have been swagger by the person telling us so they seemed "big." However, if a brand is doing event sponsorships, track sponsorships and hoping for stuff to get televised (even on streamers) and they are throwing down $1M/year in sponsorships, then Hookit is worth it.

    *And then there are about 40 other generic platforms - everyday we learn about a new creator/influencer management platform and we check ‘em all out and then snigger internally as they all focus on lame stuff - ok fine, we’re biased. We think anything NOT in enthusiast industries is lame.

CREATORS & COFFEE 🔔

In this episode of Creators & Coffee, sponsorship expert and founder of sponsorshipsummits.com, Alex Striler, shares powerful, lesser-known strategies on how racers and brands can build more meaningful and effective sponsorships. The conversation moves beyond traditional exposure-based deals, offering modern, tactical insights for racers, teams, and brands alike.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • It's not just about race wins, it's about acting as an extension of a brand’s marketing arm

  • How to target competitors of brands already active in your space and build relationships with their partners

  • Why you should align your sponsors so they complement each other and promote together

  • To trust endemic experts and partners inside niche markets to authentically represent your brand

  • Real world examples of strategic and successful partnerships

❝

“You don’t even have to race anymore to create value for sponsors. The racing is the platform, the backbone, it’s your credibility, it’s your legitimacy, and that’s very important, but you don’t have to race to represent a brand or a company.”

Alex Striler

CHECK OUT BEEHIIVE 🐝

Newsletter platforms like beehiiv give you CONTROL over your audience, unlike the ever-changing social media algorithms. You can build a loyal subscriber base and make money through paid subscriptions, sponsored content, and more, all while growing your community and income on YOUR terms!

They just launched a new direct newsletter sponsorship program that could be great for some of you larger creators (get PAID for your newsletter from brands!) and they even have a calculator on their site where you can see what you could make monthly and I think some of you could do WAY better with the direct sponsorship options.
Subscribe to get your own Beehiiv Newsletter!

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Do More of What You Love!