No creator post comes with a guaranteed sales number, and Danny Agg says anyone who promises one is lying. The CEO and co-founder of Zodiac Global builds his advice to brands around that risk, from how to split a budget to which contract clauses to fight over and which creators to commit to.

That risk is part of the appeal, in Danny’s view. “There is always an element of risk it might not work, but when it does work, it can work very well,” he says. Zodiac, which he established in 2021, works both sides of that bet from offices in Dubai and the UK, managing 40 to 45 creators exclusively across the UAE and the UK while running influencer campaigns for global brands.

The two sides feed each other. Talent management still accounts for at least 60% of the business, according to Danny, and brands that book one of Zodiac’s creators directly are often pitched a full campaign afterward. For agency campaigns, the company works with creators from its own roster when they’re a good fit for the brief and budget. When the campaign needs a different fit, the team looks across the wider creator market. “We know when to push, when not to push, what levers we can pull to get the best possible results for the brands,” Danny says.

He learned that from outside the industry. As a young financial advisor in Miami, Danny managed money for clients near his age, saw what some creators were earning, and concluded he could do their managers’ job better. The nine-person company now aims to bring a Western style of talent management to the UAE, a market he calls less mature but growing very fast.

Splitting the Budget Limits the Downside

Danny’s first recommendation concerns allocation. Brands most often go wrong, he says, by relying too heavily on one big creator or celebrity. With a $500,000 budget, he would put $100,000 each into three large creators and spend the remaining $200,000 on 30 to 40 mid-tier and micro creators. “That way you’re getting a big spread of different audiences, and you’re just diversifying any risk as well,” he says.

Attribution is why the spread matters. Danny contrasts creator campaigns with Google Ads and Meta ads, where return on ad spend is easy to read. A tracking link captures some sales, but a viewer may see a post and buy two weeks later, and 20 creators going live in a day or two might produce a sales spike with no direct correlation to any post.

The second mistake he names is control. “If a creator is just reading off a script, the audience can tell, and the content is going to flop,” Danny says. Zodiac tracks cost per thousand views, and when a post falls short of the brand’s target organically, the brand can buy usage rights to boost it. Danny estimates up to 80% of brands now do, which has moved the hardest negotiation into the contract.

Usage Terms Have Become the Contract Fight

Usage was not a big issue for social ads when Danny started five years ago. As brands have learned how whitelisting and dark ads work, it has become far more common, and both sides are now particular about the wording, he says. “You get a lot of brands that will discuss just organic usage, but they’ll try and sneak in paid usage rights,” Danny says. Out-of-home usage and unlimited usage on any platform, worldwide and forever, are the other clauses he watches for.

Payment terms carry similar weight for creators. Zodiac is more flexible on fees when a brand pays upfront, 50% on signing or at least within 30 days, according to Danny, while terms of 60, 90, or 120 days work the other way. “No one likes that, and it’s going to affect the relationship and actually make the creator charge more,” he says.

Running both businesses puts Zodiac on opposite sides of these clauses, with the talent team in the creator’s corner and the agency team pushing for the brand. Deliverables and usage set the price, and an organic one-off post costs less. Danny still advises brands to move away from it.

Longer Deals Lower the Cost of Creators

His alternative is partnerships of three, six or 12 months, paired with meeting creators face to face at events, dinners or lunches. Creators with that personal connection are easier to work with and usually cheaper, Danny argues. “Try and avoid a one-off post as much as possible,” he says.

Over time, a fixed fee can become a revenue share, equity, or a deal running up to two years. The shift depends on how well creator and brand gel and how the audience receives the work. Partnerships can also begin with products a creator already uses organically.

In one structure Danny walks through, a brand brings a creator on as an equity partner with $100,000 of equity at the current valuation, vested over two years. The creator commits to minimums such as two posts a month and naming themselves a co-owner or partner in their bio. A deal like that moves from a call and an in-person meeting to lawyers running due diligence.

Zodiac Values Creators Like a Portfolio

Treating a creator the way he once treated a fund, Danny weighs audience size and engagement first. “If someone’s got a million followers and they’re only getting 10,000 views a post, their page is in a bad way,” he says. Uniqueness comes next, and he calls it probably an undervalued asset given the competition across niches.

The other two measures concern the person. Danny looks for creators who treat the work like a job, waking up each day thinking about what to film, which hook to try and which thumbnail to use. Ease of working matters too, because the industry is small and reputations travel quickly.

Signing follows the same logic. Zodiac has no minimum follower threshold, and Danny says it has signed creators with 10,000 followers and turned down creators with 3 million. His first test is whether he can picture a brand integrating its product into the content. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way by signing loads of people, and it’s just been a massive waste of time,” he says.

Creator Brands Fail Without Creator Buy-In

The work ethic Danny prizes in a signing is the same condition he sets for ownership. Zodiac is launching a creator ventures arm, separate from its management contracts, to build brands and equity with talent, and a couple is already live. Ownership might split 50/50, or 70/30 with the creator holding the larger share. “In that case we’re very much going into business with them,” Danny says.

That requires trust and, usually, a working history. His one piece of advice is to settle every awkward question up front. “You don’t want to say, ‘Hey, I thought this was the case,’ when it’s five years down the line, and there’s hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars involved,” he says.

Danny has watched many creator-led clothing brands fail, and he traces the failures to creators who treat their own brand like a brand deal. He points to the Kardashians and Hailey Bieber as talent who understood business and had strong business people around them. “Someone might buy it once, but if it’s not a great product that has a reason for them to buy it again, it will not work,” he says.

Zodiac Sets Its Sights on a 1,000-Person Company

Danny sees the Creator Economy as still in its infancy and expects heavy competition. Much depends on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, which keep changing their algorithms and how they work with creators. Zodiac aims to grow past 1,000 employees, with its eyes on Saudi Arabia, Australia and the U.S.

Across budgets, contracts and ventures, Danny’s advice favors commitment over one-off reach. His guidance to creators relocating to the UAE, a move Zodiac helps with through company formation and visas, follows the same rule. Many lose brand work from home and wait months before local brands book them without a regional audience, and those who succeed establish themselves quickly through local content and events.

“My advice is if you’re moving somewhere, just go all in on that place,” Danny says. “And don’t try to pretend to be in two different places.”

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Check Out Our Podcast