Influencer marketing is an excellent marketing channel for brands that can’t rely on paid ads. But without the right tools, even the best creator campaigns can become a mess of spreadsheets, tracking errors, and delayed payouts.

That’s exactly where Tabs Chocolate found themselves. Being restricted from running ads on major platforms like Meta, they depended entirely on influencer-led growth. But managing hundreds of micro-creators manually was slow, chaotic, and impossible to scale.

To fix this, Tabs Chocolate switched to Social Snowball—a platform built to automate affiliate operations and manage your program in one place. In just a few weeks, what was once disorganized and error-prone became fast, trackable, and scalable.

Here’s what they generated:

• 17% increase in influencer-attributed revenue.
• 9.8x ROI on creator campaigns.
• 10+ hours saved every week on payouts and tracking.

"Social Snowball handles the impossible task of organizing our army of creators & making influencer management easy, all while keeping the data super digestible."

Oliver Brocato, Co-founder of Tabs Chocolate

About the brand

Tabs Chocolate is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand known for its sexually enhancing dark chocolate, designed to be shared by two partners. Founded in 2021 by two University of Michigan students, the brand built a cult following through viral, edgy content and a product that combines pleasure with playfulness. 

Challenges: Scaling influencer marketing without systems

With traditional advertising off-limits, Tabs Chocolate doubled down on influencer marketing from day one. The strategy worked, but operationally, it was unsustainable.

Here’s where things started to break down:

• Creator management was a spreadsheet nightmare: The brand ran multiple influencer campaigns at once, often with over 100 micro-creators. But everything (from creator lists to campaign briefs) was managed in Google Sheets. There was no centralized dashboard, no way to segment creators by program, and no visibility into performance.

“We used to use spreadsheets, and it was a bit of a mess.”

• Payouts took days every month: Sending payment to creators became a full-time job. The brand had to track commissions manually, confirm payment details over phone calls, and send individual PayPal transfers, month after month.

“I used to get anxious at the end of the month... I had to block out multiple days just for payouts.”

• Tracking sales was nearly impossible: Most of the brand’s creators were micro-influencers on TikTok, where links in bio aren’t allowed. That made it incredibly hard to track which creators drove sales. Without accurate attribution, the brand couldn’t reward top performers or optimize their campaigns.

“UTM links weren’t really effective for us… tracking was very difficult.”

Solution: Automating creator operations with social snowball

To scale without drowning in manual work, Tabs partnered with an agency, Legion Social, and migrated all influencer operations to Social Snowball, an affiliate platform built specifically for DTC brands.

Here’s how they overhauled their system:

Step 1: Centralize all campaigns in one platform

Before Social Snowball, Tabs ran everything manually: campaign details, creator rosters, and performance tracking were buried in Google Sheets. This made it hard to identify active creators, offers, and sales performance.

Once they moved to Social Snowball, everything was in one place. Each influencer program was organized separately but managed under a single dashboard, giving the team full visibility without the clutter.

“What I love about Social Snowball is the ability to create multiple influencer programs and keep them all organized separately.”

Step 2: Automated discount code creation without cluttering Shopify

Attribution used to be a major hurdle. Since TikTok micro-influencers can’t add links in their bio, traditional tracking tools like UTM parameters weren’t effective. The brand had to rely on discount codes, but generating them at scale through Shopify cluttered the backend and made the data messy and unreliable.

Social Snowball changed that. It auto-generated unique discount codes for each creator and connected them directly to the affiliate dashboard, without flooding Shopify’s discount tab. 

This gave Tabs Chocolate a reliable way to track which creators were driving sales, even on TikTok.

“Now we’re able to more accurately track attribution from our micro-influencer campaigns. Social Snowball took care of the entire process with one click.”

Step 3: Automated payouts and eliminated monthly payment friction

One of the biggest time sinks for the Tabs team was handling creator payouts. Each month, they manually calculated commissions, collected PayPal info, and processed payments one by one. 

The process was repetitive, error-prone, and easily took two to three days every cycle.

With Social Snowball, payout distribution became instant. The platform tracked affiliate earnings in real time and sent batch payments to creators automatically; no more follow-ups and manual errors.

“I used to block out multiple days just to handle payouts. Now, with one click, it’s done.”

Step 4: Scaled micro-influencer output with a Discord-based content engine

Once operational friction was solved, Tabs Chocolate shifted its focus to scale. With help from Legion Social (social media advertising agency), they launched a Discord group with over 100 micro-influencers. In this creator hub, members received performance updates, content guidelines, and access to the brand’s best-performing video assets.

Each creator set up new TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts specifically for the brand’s promotions and posted content daily. Social Snowball ensured their sales and commissions were tracked automatically, so the brand could keep up with the scale without losing control.

This system turned influencer marketing into a machine: decentralized content creation with centralized attribution, management, and payouts.

“Being able to use a tool that takes away the friction and heavy lifting saves us tens of hours per week.”

Step 5: Gave creators transparency with a dedicated affiliate interface

It wasn’t just the team at Tabs Chocolate that benefited. Creators loved the Social Snowball experience too. 

Each affiliate had access to their own dashboard, where they could see their sales, commissions, and payouts in real time. This cut down on support questions and helped creators stay motivated and accountable.

“The interface for creators is really important to us, and Social Snowball is the only tool that delivers what we need.”

Results: 17% revenue growth and 10+ hours saved weekly

Within the first month of using Social Snowball, Tabs Chocolate transformed their influencer program from a manual operation into a scalable growth engine with measurable results to back it up.

Here’s what the team achieved:

• 17% increase in gross merchandise value (GMV) directly from influencer-driven sales.
• $22M+ monthly views generated across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube by their micro-influencer network.
• 9.8x return on investment from their affiliate campaigns.
• 10+ hours saved every week on creator payouts and campaign management

By automating code generation, payouts, and tracking, the brand was finally able to scale its most critical revenue channel, without the chaos that had held it back before.

“Usually with influencer programs at our scale, things get lost. Codes get missed. Attribution breaks. That hasn’t happened once since we implemented Social Snowball.”

Tabs Chocolate now runs a high-volume creator program without missing data, delayed payments, or operational bottlenecks, with a system that is built to grow with them.

Ready to scale influencer marketing without adding chaos?

Managing creators manually might work in the beginning, but as your program grows, so does the complexity. Spreadsheets get chaotic, attribution fails, and payouts get delayed. And the very thing that should be driving revenue becomes a drain on your time.

That’s why brands like Tabs Chocolate switched to Social Snowball—a platform that replaces manual processes with automation built for scale. From bulk discount code generation to one-click payouts, Social Snowball gives you everything you need to run a high-performing influencer program, without the overhead.

Whether you’re starting your affiliate campaign or trying to scale an existing one, Social Snowball helps you:

• Track and reward creators accurately.
• Automate payouts and eliminate back-and-forth.
• Grow revenue without growing headcount.

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