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How Slumberkins Built an Influencer Program That Carried Their Brand Without Paid Ads
Slumberkins shut down 70% of their ad spend for 3 months. Revenue held steady. Then they turned it back on with influencer whitelisting and performance improved. See how they did it with SARAL.
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Most DTC brands treat Meta like oxygen. Turn it off, and everything dies.
Slumberkins didn't believe that.
In February 2024, they shut down Meta ads completely — 70% of their total ad spend — for three months.
Revenue didn't drop.
When they turned it back on, they used whitelisted influencer content instead of branded creative and performance improved.
We spoke with Kelsey Knight, Chief Commercial Officer at Slumberkins, about how they built an influencer program that could carry the brand without paid ads.
The Problem: Meta Was Dying, Affiliate Wasn't Enough
Founded by a therapist and educator, Slumberkins is a mission-driven brand for kids that started organically — founders shared hand-sewn creations on social, parents fell in love, community formed naturally.
By early 2024, they faced two problems simultaneously.
Meta was collapsing
70% of their ad budget lived there but post-iOS 14, every metric declined.
"We had been struggling on the Meta platform for a while. Almost every metric of our funnel on Meta was struggling."
CPMs rising, targeting broken, creative fatigued.
A similar story for many DTC brands.
Their affiliate program missed the point
They had an affiliate program that drove some minimal revenue through codes and commissions, but Slumberkins needed storytelling.
"Where we really were seeing the magic of the brand come to life is when other moms and teachers would share their own personal experiences with their kids, with our products in their own words."
They needed to move from transactional affiliate partnerships to community-driven ambassadors. Then test if it could replace Meta's reach entirely.
The Strategic Shift: Community Over Commissions
They reframed everything. Stop calling it "affiliate." Start calling it "community."
"We try to position it as a community rather than an affiliate program. We don't set deliverable expectations. We don't put contracts in place. Everything is… here's your code, post when it makes sense, earn when you do."
No mandatory posts. No contracts. No transactional pressure.
Creators join because they want to belong, not because they need another affiliate link.
But positioning alone doesn't scale. With a small team, manual operations would collapse under growth. They needed systems.
How SARAL Automated Everything
"Operationalising influencer is a very big lift. There's the prospecting, the gifting, the tracking and reporting. All of that used to be very cumbersome."
Seamless Discovery
Most influencer platforms are closed networks — you only reach creators who've signed up. With SARAL, you can find the profile of any creator across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, pulling contact info and engagement data into one place.
"What was really unique about SARAL is that you're able to get the contact information and engagement data for everyone. That brought all influencers to the table, not just the ones in our direct category."
Automated Outreach & Follow-ups
SARAL's email sequences handle personalized outreach and automatic follow-ups. The team queues campaigns, and the system manages timing and responses.
Shopify Integration for Instant Onboarding
When creators accept, SARAL auto-generates unique discount codes through Shopify, creates affiliate links, and triggers shipping workflows. No manual code creation. No spreadsheet tracking.
"Rather than focusing on 'Do we have code set up?' 'Did we ship it out?' — because so much of that entire process has been automated, we focus on who we're reaching out to, why, and what we're going to gift them."
Performance Dashboard & Sentiment Tracking
SARAL's performance dashboard surfaces key metrics in real-time: posting rate, engagement, revenue per creator, content value (what you'd pay for equivalent UGC), and sentiment analysis (buying vs. neutral vs. negative comments).
"We are 99% buying and neutral, very little negative sentiment, which speaks to the quality of the prospects we're reaching out to."
The Slumberkins team shifted from tactical execution (shipments, codes, tracking) to strategic thinking (which creators tell the best stories, where to invest deeper relationships).
✅ Want this level of automation? See how SARAL helps brands scale influencer programs without drowning in operations. Book a demo →
The Insane Experiment: Meta at $0 for Three Months
With the right systems in place, they made the call. February 2024: Meta spend went to zero.
"We were definitely taking a big breath because we weren't sure what was going to happen."
Only Google ads and organic channels drove top-of-funnel. Influencers became the primary awareness engine.
The result: top-line revenue held steady. More importantly, first purchase profitability improved.
"We did not see a drop in our top line and we saw gained efficiencies in terms of our first purchase profitability."
Why did this work?
Creators posted consistently. Stories reached audiences. The brand showed up in feeds without paid distribution. People searched for Slumberkins after seeing influencer content — those searches converted through Google or direct traffic.
Attribution said "Google drove the sale."
Reality: influencers created the demand.
The Comeback: Whitelisting as Creative Testing
After three months, they turned Meta back on, but differently.
Instead of testing branded creative with ad dollars, they identified influencer posts that already performed organically, then amplified them with spend.
"Anybody who joins the Slumberkins Ambassador Program gets the opportunity to be whitelisted. I'm looking for content that's organically performing well, then we whitelist that."
This is the unlock: organic performance becomes your creative filter. Test for free, spend on winners.
If a post gets strong engagement and positive comments, you know it resonates. Then you put ad dollars behind it, running through the creator's channel (partnership ads/whitelisting).
"Our customers enjoy hearing that story from another parent. That's been key in keeping our spend profitable this year."
No more guessing. No more expensive creative tests. The influencer program became a content engine that continuously feeds their ad account with pre-validated creative.
Tracking Influencer Marketing Performance
Slumberkins track performance in two layers:
- Outreach efficiency: Response rate, gifting-to-posting conversion, posts per influencer. These show which creators become genuine advocates versus one-off posters.
- Marketing performance: The real value is content that compounds across channels — whitelisted Meta ads, website testimonials, email creative, social proof.
"We're seeing six-figure numbers of content value that we're leveraging across all our other channels."
The Reults
The system now sustains itself. Creators post organically. Top content gets whitelisted. Meta performs better than before the shutdown. Awareness grows. More creators want to join.
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