As a content creator, you know the value of sponsored content; it can be a win-win for both yourself and your sponsors, as long as it's well-executed.
You’ve probably seen plenty of good content but also a considerable amount of bad, and one of the most egregious instances of “bad” sponsored content is when it disrupts the viewing experience and annoys viewers. The same goes for when the product or service being advertised makes no sense to the channel’s audience.
So is it possible to create sponsored content that fits in seamlessly with your brand, while promoting engagement by actually delighting and generating value for your audience? The answer is a resounding yes, so let’s dive in.
What is sponsored content?
Sponsored content is a type of content that you, as a content creator, are paid to create for your regular audience by a company or brand that largely aligns with your own. In an ideal world, the sponsored content that you create works organically, and your audience doesn’t view it as an obvious advertisement.
As a creator with an audience, you’ve got considerable value to sponsors. Your audience is a potential addressable market to them, and your content has garnered you a level of trust and authority with that audience.
This trust and existing sense of connection is what a sponsor wants to make use of, and it tends to be more effective than traditional channels—and for you, that means a strong negotiating position when it comes to inking the deal.
Sponsored content versus native advertising
Native advertising is a form of marketing that often gets confused with sponsored content, and for good reason—both strategies are organic and usually present the least disruption as far as your audience is concerned.
Consumers of content aren’t usually big fans of their experience being disrupted, the most obvious example being long, non-skippable ads on video platforms or TV.
So, what exactly is native advertising and how is it different from sponsored content? Here’s an example of native advertising:
Reddit isn’t a platform that needs any introduction at all, and you’ll see that a sponsored Reddit post slips right into your feed like any other post—and the poster’s name might even look quite a lot like that of a regular user, although that isn’t the case in the above example.
Native advertising is meant to fit right in alongside normal Reddit posts, and it works the same way across other sites, from news sites to blogs and even email providers.
The big difference between sponsored content and native advertising is the fact that sponsored content is created by you (the owner of the channel or brand who is distributing or publishing it), whereas native advertising is created by the brand paying for it. You won’t have any hand in creating the native ads—you just need to place them on your site or channel.
The importance of non-disruptive sponsored content
As a content creator, you’ve probably spent a lot of time, effort, and resources on not only building an audience but building a level of trust and authority with the people who follow you.
By and large, they’re doing so of their own volition and because they enjoy your content, get value from what you do, or feel a genuine connection to you. They understand that you also might have bills to pay and that sponsored content is a good way to do this, but there’s such a thing as being too obvious:
The above video by the Kiwi sketch comedy crew Viva La Dirt League is a quite brilliant example of sponsored content. It’s utterly meta in how it makes fun of obviously sponsored content while also very intentionally being a sponsored segment in itself.
The number of mentions of the brand, the camera shots, the unsubtle language in the script, the sheer number of sponsored products present on the screen—those are all jabs at how a lot of creators get sponsored content wrong or overdo it. Any one of those elements in your content and the viewer is pulled out of the journey by the realization that a product or brand is being pushed on them.
Unless that’s the entire point, of course, as with a parody like the one above.
10 more examples of effective sponsored content
There’s plenty to learn from sponsored content when it’s done right, so let’s take a look at a few more examples and see what insights and inspiration can be found:
1. Trent Alexander-Arnold x Google Pixel
Footballers (or soccer players, depending on which side of the pond you’re on) are some of the most influential people on the planet thanks to the rabid and very global popularity of their sport, and Trent Alexander-Arnold has the distinction of being uniquely skilled even in a sport played by billions.
This makes him one of the hottest marketing vehicles on the planet. In late November 2024, he published an Instagram post featuring the caption “Trust me to make the switch” along with images of himself and a Google Pixel phone, as well as a video of him executing one of his trademark long passes, often referred to as a “switch”.
It’s an especially clever and brilliantly timed bit of tongue-in-cheek marketing because the Liverpool superstar is out of contract in summer 2025 and is also, at the time of writing and of the sponsored post, being very heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid—a switch that would rock the footballing world.
2. Selena Gomez x Puma
Since we’re talking about Instagram, it wouldn’t do to leave the platform without mentioning Selena Gomez. The actor and musician was the platform’s most followed user before the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2018 she partnered with athletic wear brand Puma to put out a shoe called the Phenom Lux.
However, her collaboration with Puma was massive for the brand—the post we’ve shown above represented incredible reach with over 7 million likes soon after it came out. And Gomez even went on to top that soon after with another all-Puma pic.
At the time, those sorts of engagement numbers were estimated to be worth well over $3 million in a metric called media impact value, and Puma reportedly paid her a cool $30 million to sign a brand partnership for two years.
Selena has tripled the amount of followers she had back then, and according to the Instagram Rich List, she now takes home close to $1.5 million per sponsored post.
3. TalkSPORT x Just Eat
Here’s a snapshot of Zoe Nicol’s portfolio on TalkSPORT. Nicol is a shopping writer for the famous U.K. sports radio station, which means that the content she produces for the site dives into a lot of different sports-related products. Her audience trusts her to bring them some great deals on good gear.
And, as you can see in the top right of the image, Nicol also produces sponsored content on the TalkSPORT webpage. This article and others like it are published under Nicol’s byline, so it’s her content, and the companies sponsoring said content are very much aligned with the folks reading articles on TalkSPORT.
Most importantly of all, clicking on that sponsored post and reading it does actually give you value. It fits right in with the other articles you see pictured—if you’re the sort of consumer who appreciates a discount on joggers, tracksuits, or sports gear, then odds are you’d be just as happy to grab 15 quid’s worth of takeaway for free.
4. HuffPost x Target
The Huffington Post probably needs no introduction at all, but if you check out their shopping section (snapshot above) you might actually think it looks a heck of a lot like TalkSPORT’s.
That’s probably because the strategy at play is very similar despite the differing profiles of the two outlets, and almost all of the posts here are written so that you click through to Amazon using the HuffPost’s affiliate links, giving them a cut if you make a purchase.
However, there’s also sponsored content to be found. It’s not as easy to spot as with TalkSPORT previously, but a quick look at the post about bedsheets reveals all:
The disclaimer above clearly tells you that in addition to the usual affiliate marketing strategy, one of the retailers mentioned in the post pays them. And given that Target was mentioned on the thumbnail and also in the body of the text, it’s fairly obvious who’s writing the checks.
That being said, the brand isn’t being shoved down your throat in the piece, and in fact, is only mentioned a couple of times. The post goes into the same amount of detail and care as with most of their other purely affiliate marketing articles, shows you some customer reviews, and talks about the ins and outs of the product in plenty of detail. For regular readers of HuffPost’s shopping section, this post will fit right in with the usual fare.
5. Bryan Bros x Bermuda
YouTube golf is a niche but lucrative little corner of the internet, and the Bryan brothers have one of the best channels in the business at just shy of half a million subscribers (the biggest is close to 3m).
They’ve also made one of the more interesting journeys in the space, having started out as talented trick-shot artists to now being considered serious professionals.
The brothers still regard their YouTube channel as their primary pursuit, however, and attract some serious sponsors. The video above, for example, is sponsored content on behalf of the Bermuda Tourism Authority (BTA).
The BTA decided to turn to the Bryan Bros and several other prominent golf influencers, such as Luke Kwon (third from left, pictured above), to bring attention to the territory’s natural beauty and golfing opportunities.
The video was also meant to draw attention to the PGA Tour event in Bermuda the following week (the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in Port Royal), on the same course showcased in the Bryan Bros video. The filming and competitive practice with his fellow YouTubers must have done Wesley Bryan good—when the championship came around the following week, he tied the course record with a 10 under par 61 on the way to finishing tied 17th for the week.
6. Peter Finch Golf x Golfbidder/Shot Scope
Since these examples are coming in pairs, we might as well stay with YouTube golf for a moment longer. We mentioned that the Bryan Bros aren’t actually the biggest golf YouTube channel out there—but Rick Shiels is, and his mate Peter Finch isn’t far behind.
There’s still some distance between the two of them in reach, as the viewing numbers go, but they’ve both got serious clout in the world of YouTube golf and their Golfbidder 2nd hand challenge videos are some of their most popular.
The sponsor’s name is obviously present in the titles of the videos, and they film in Golfbidder stores as they pick and choose their second-hand gear for the challenge ahead—and there are plenty of brand mentions as they face off, too.
Both of these golf coaches turned YouTube sensations are experts when it comes to content creation as a business and have produced an incredible variety of monetized entertainment. However, perhaps extra kudos should go to the ever-affable and frankly quite hilarious Finch for really making the most of the sponsored video series model:
This time in partnership with yet another former colleague, Matt Fryer (close to a million subs between them although likely with significant overlap), Finch also produces a series called Record Breakers. The sponsorship is even more subtle here and is not even present in the naming of the series.
Record Breakers is, in fact, presented by Shot Scope, a company that makes performance tracking, GPS, and data collection gear for golf, and they’re mentioned in the video along with nuggets of information from their data vaults that significantly enhance value for the viewer. As far as examples of sponsored video content done right, Pete and Matt’s Record Breakers series is worth a watch.
7. Micro influencers on Pinterest
What you’re looking at here is the Pinterest page of “Food, Family and Chaos” run by Lisa Santangelo. Her page is closing in on 3k followers, so she’s very much a micro influencer, yet with just a glance above, you can see how important sponsored content is to her business. Several of the posts you see there are sponsored, but it isn’t just product placement—Santangelo adds plenty of value.
All of our examples thus far have been bigger names, but it’s important to recognize that micro influencers like Santangelo are an important part of the marketing equation today, and while their audiences may be smaller, there are serious levels of engagement and trust worth looking at.
If you are a micro influencer and want to know how creators like Santangelo are able to get all of these brand partnerships and sponsored content offers, check out Whop’s social media category. There, you’ll find both coaching and communities dedicated to building your brand presence and sharing insider info on how things really work.
8. DappRadar x WUFFI
Staying relatively small but moving to one of the biggest platforms there is, it’s worth underlining that Twitter (X) can be a great platform for getting sponsored content out there. Generally, earning from sponsored Tweets tends to depend on how many followers you have, and you’ll pick up a certain amount of cash per person.
However, the smart way to do it is to ensure that the sponsor aligns perfectly with your own audience. In this example, DappRadar, a platform that tracks and manages decentralized applications and serves as a touchpoint for blockchain application discovery, has created sponsored content that gives readers a deeper insight into the journey of WUFFI Inu.
Now, WUFFI certainly sounds like yet another dog-themed memecoin, and your own mileage when it comes to that sort of thing may vary—but if you’re following DappRadar to begin with, the chance to learn a bit more about a blockchain project doesn’t feel like a bad thing.
9. Jeremy Dooley x the Hunter: Call of the Wild
Having mentioned Twitter (X) as an option when it comes to sponsored content, it’s only fair that we give Bluesky a shoutout as well—the decentralized, community-driven app is up past 24 million users and growing rapidly thanks to Twitter’s current leadership trajectory.
In this example of sponsored content, Twitch streamer Jeremy Dooley a.k.a. DooleyNoted tells his followers on Bluesky what they can look forward to if they tune in, while also dropping them a chance to claim a very hefty discount on the same title he’ll be playing.
There’s almost no downside at all here since everyone wins—especially the viewer, who knows what entertainment one of their favorite streamers is planning and can also pick up a solid title for peanuts.
Oh, and if you think Bluesky is not worth considering just yet, you might want to readjust your expectations sooner rather than later. Dooley isn’t even on Twitter anymore, having abandoned the platform and his 243,400 followers completely in favor of Bluesky, and major influencers like George Takei, Mark Hamill, and Mark Cuban are rapidly moving toward the 1 million follower mark on the new platform as 2025 rumbles closer.
10. Sam Riegel on Critical Role
We started with comedy, so why not finish up by coming full circle? Critical Role is a huge thing today—it started out as a group of voice actors playing D&D and is still that, except now it's got a truly massive following and can be found across multiple platforms. It even has its own Amazon show, The Legend of Vox Machina, based on its original campaign.
One of the many things that set this group apart was how they handled sponsored content—rather than just read off an ad, cast member Sam Riegel (pictured above, sort of, on the left) would create a “bit” for every episode, sometimes featuring one or two fellow cast members but most often reducing them all to tears of laughter.
As you might imagine, Sam Riegel’s ever-creative and often ridiculous ads are one of the highlights of the show and extremely popular among the audience, to the point that you can find supercuts of them alone on sites like YouTube without having to watch entire Crit Role episodes. If you can get your audience so engaged with and enjoying your sponsored segments that much, you’re doing something right.
How to create great sponsored content
So, beyond learning from the examples above, how can you go about making top-quality sponsored content that works with your sponsor and adds value to your audience, rather than being ads that they need to endure? Here are some brief tips:
- Focus on your audience first: Your audience is your audience for a reason, and that reason is you—they like what you’re doing. Any sponsored content also needs to give them the same sort of value they usually get from your content. Make sure that your sponsored content doesn’t come off too much like a plug and you’ll be fine.
- Be discerning about accepting sponsors: Not every sponsor is the right fit for your brand, and a mismatch could leave your audience scratching their heads. Going back to the above examples, imagine a U.K.-based second-hand golf store like Golfbidder pairing up with Selena Gomez. It’d probably work out very well for Golfbidder, but one could imagine Gomez’s audience being rather nonplussed.
- Use the right platforms: We’ve shown you examples of sponsored content across multiple platforms above, and it’s worth figuring out a cross-platform approach or which channels to pick for a given deal. It’s also a good idea to remind yourself that you’re not locked to any one platform—it’s okay to switch, especially if a platform starts to give you ethical concerns.
- Flag your sponsored content clearly: In most countries, including the U.S., content that is sponsored needs to be highlighted in a manner according to regulatory guidelines. This means using disclaimers in your text (as HuffPost or TalkSPORT did above), mentioning the fact in your videos, or using hashtags in post titles or descriptions (as you see with the last couple of examples we showed you). It's a good idea to read up on the online advertising and marketing guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
- Up the value for your audience: We’ve already mentioned this but it bears repeating—sponsored content needs to give your audience value rather than come off like an ad. It’s even better when you can work with your sponsor to give your audience something tangible, like a deep discount on something they’d be interested in. Not all websites and platforms discount their products as much as video game companies or Steam do, but a free meal delivery here or a little twenty percent off there can really help.
Learn how to leverage sponsored content with Whop
One of the major benefits of sponsored content for you is that you can retain full creative control, to ensure the content put out to your audience doesn’t come off as irrelevant. It's an extremely effective form of advertising and a good way for you to monetize your following.
But this only scratches the surface of the content creation world. How do you navigate all the ins and outs of online marketing, content creation, and sponsorships?
There are so many moving parts and routes to take, and most creators struggle to know where to even start. This is where Whop comes in.
Here, you’ll find communities where content creators and other entrepreneurs can share their own experiences with marketing avenues such as sponsored content. You can also find courses, ebooks, and seminars that’ll help you level up your own business and make it more appealing to sponsors.
Sponsored content is all about creativity, and there’s no place like Whop to help you unlock yours.
