Adhesive Media has closed more than $20 million in YouTube sponsorship deals since its founding in 2022, representing 180 creators and working with 50-60 brands monthly. The Miami-based sponsorship representation agency specializes in connecting brands with YouTube channels that have older male U.S. audiences in niches such as automotive, farming, and outdoors, demographics that founder Brandon Pourmorady says consistently deliver higher engagement and conversion rates than typical lifestyle influencers.

“Most people selling YouTube sponsorships are sleazy middlemen,” Brandon says. “That creates a lack of trust and transparency in the industry. There are a lot of problems.” This environment has created a situation where multiple intermediaries each take substantial cuts, often leaving creators with less than half of what brands initially paid.

Brandon founded Adhesive Media to address this specific problem in the creator economy: creating a transparent agency that fairly represents YouTube creators while delivering measurable results for brands. “We live and breathe transparency, service, and operational excellence. That’s what’s allowed us to stand out in the industry,” he says.

The Sponsorship Market Problem

The sponsorship situation Brandon describes is troubling: “There are deals where three or four middlemen are involved. A brand pays $10,000, the YouTuber gets $4,000, and someone in the middle makes $3,000,” he says.

This environment has created widespread skepticism among content creators. “A lot of YouTubers are scared to do sponsorships or work with people like me because the industry has such a bad reputation,” Brandon says.

The consequences extend to brands as well. Brands face inconsistent results and difficulty establishing reliable partnerships in this fragmented ecosystem. Without transparency, both creators and brands operate with incomplete information, preventing the market from functioning efficiently.

Building an Operational Edge

Unlike many who enter the YouTube sponsorship space hoping for quick profits, Brandon approached the business with long-term vision from day one. “Most people get into YouTube partnerships thinking it’s an easy way to make 10K a month. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re building a serious business,” he says.

This business-first mindset manifests in Adhesive Media’s operations-centric approach. “My top priority was always our operation. I wanted it clean and crisp,” he says. “We’ve never used Google spreadsheets for our backend. Everything’s in Airtable with custom builds for everything.”

The investment in operational infrastructure has been significant. Brandon has spent “almost $100K on operational coaches, consultants, and tools.” This foundation has enabled the company to grow without sacrificing service quality, creating an advantage that’s difficult for competitors to replicate.

“Investing back into the business and our team’s knowledge, figuring out the right tools and how to use them, has allowed us to scale without things falling apart,” he says.

The YouTube Advantage

While many agencies focus on Instagram or TikTok creators, Brandon identified specific advantages in YouTube that make it particularly valuable for brand partnerships. “YouTube creators have the most authority with their audiences. There’s more trust on YouTube than any other platform,” he says.

This trust translates into predictable, reliable results compared to platforms dependent on algorithmic distribution. “If you’re a brand and you want consistent results over time, go with YouTube,” he says. “TikTok depends on the algorithm and non-buyer audiences. Instagram is oversaturated. YouTube is where it’s at.”

Adhesive Media specifically targets creators with older male U.S. audiences in niches like automotive, farming, outdoors, homesteading, DIY, fishing, and conservative news. The strategy is based on measured results: “These channels perform well. Older audiences have more buying power, more qualified U.S. buyers, and more consistent viewership,” he says.

The emphasis on these demographics isn’t just theoretical. Brandon notes that these audiences typically demonstrate “more trust between the audience and host because younger creators often sell out for any brand, while these are more selective.”

A Methodical Selection Approach

Adhesive Media’s creator selection process reflects the company’s operational focus, using custom-built tools to analyze approximately 12,000 YouTube channels against specific criteria.

“We look for channels with 100,000+ views per video and consistent audiences,” Brandon says. “We use something called Coefficient of Variation; it measures how much views fluctuate. We want under 50% fluctuation.”

Additional metrics include engagement rates of 7% or higher (specifically .7% or higher comment rates), channels where the host appears on screen, and creators based in the U.S. with high U.S. audience percentages. The company also prioritizes channels with either no sponsorship history or evidence of successful renewal deals with previous sponsors.

This methodical approach has uncovered unexpected success stories that challenge typical assumptions about influencer marketing. Brandon recalls a particularly informative example with meal prep company Factor: “In 2023, we found a farming channel called Brian’s Farming Videos, with about 70,000 views per video. He told us, ‘I eat 18 Factor meals a week.’”

When Brandon pitched Factor on the partnership, they were skeptical. “Factor said, ‘Farming? That’s weird, how could that work?’ We told them to give it a shot. They came back saying, ‘This performed so well,’ and he’s worked with them 24+ times ever since,” he says.

This success story demonstrates a key principle of Adhesive Media’s approach: “Influencer marketing is unpredictable. What matters most is when the creator genuinely uses and believes in the product,” Brandon says.

Measuring Real Impact

For brands concerned about tracking return on investment, Brandon offers concrete solutions to measure performance. “A lot of brands think attribution is impossible, but it’s not. There are plenty of ways to track YouTube sales,” he says.

He outlines four specific methods for attribution: “Add a link in the description or pinned comment, use coupon codes, include QR codes, and run post-purchase surveys.”

While Brandon suggests brands give “some leniency” compared to other channels like paid social, acknowledging YouTube’s brand awareness component, he maintains that performance can and should be measured. “Any brand can track which creators perform best for them,” he says.

Building a Team Around Transparency

As Adhesive Media has grown from a one-person operation to a team of ten, Brandon has emphasized instilling the company’s core values throughout the organization. “It became clear how important reputation and brand are,” he says. “We make that very clear in our hiring and training.”

The quality of the team has been critical to the company’s growth. “We’ve hired amazing people,” Brandon says. “That’s been the biggest factor, having a great team pitching, selling, coordinating, and signing new creators.”

The impact of this team-building approach is evident in Adhesive Media’s expansion. “We’ve almost doubled our roster in the last six months,” he says. This growth has been possible precisely because of the operational foundation and values-aligned team he’s assembled.

For Brandon, seeing this team dynamic in action has been particularly rewarding. “The most rewarding part is seeing my team thrive,” he says. “When you start, it’s just you, and it’s hard to let go. Now there are things happening in the business, deals and systems I don’t even know about because they’re building it.”

Looking to the Future

Having established Adhesive Media as a notable player in YouTube sponsorships, Brandon launched Adhesive Ventures in June 2025 to expand the company’s impact in the creator economy. The new initiative focuses on two key directions: acquiring other creator management agencies and launching products with creators as equity owners.

“We want to acquire other management agencies, fix their teams, operations, and cash flow, and make them more profitable,” he says. This approach applies Adhesive Media’s operational excellence to other businesses in the creator economy ecosystem, potentially elevating standards across the industry.

The second direction involves developing deeper partnerships with creators: “Launching physical or digital products with our creators and giving them equity in the companies,” Brandon says. “We want to do more of those deals, that’s exciting.”

Adhesive Media is also developing technology to further streamline the sponsorship process. “We’re building tech to outreach creators on behalf of brands,” he says. The system will analyze thousands of creators, filter by brand experience, rank potential matches, generate pricing, and facilitate outreach, all advancing the company’s mission of bringing transparency and efficiency to the sponsorship market.

Brandon’s most detailed vision, however, is for YouTube itself. “If I were YouTube, I’d acquire a company like mine and handle brand partnerships directly,” he says. He sees an opportunity for YouTube to implement pixel tracking and create more direct brand-creator connections. “If YouTube managed partnerships through its own portal, performance would improve, and budgets would grow.”

Until that happens, Adhesive Media continues its mission of bringing transparency to YouTube sponsorships. “We manage sponsorships for 180 creators and work with 50 to 60 brands each month,” Brandon says. “People love working with us because of our transparency, service, and incredible team.

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