Running a 40-creator roster with two account managers

The agency owner’s face was beet-red on the video call, steam practically coming out of his ears. “Did you see the engagement on that post?” he hissed, pounding a fist on his desk. My colleague, Maya, grimaced. We had just started working with this particular agency, and their client was an international luxury car brand. The creator, a semi-pro motorsport photographer, had delivered stunning visuals, but the caption was… flat. Like, a 1980s encyclopedia entry flat. And the client noticed.

That wasn’t an isolated incident. Across their roster of forty creators, managing content quality, brand messaging, and, frankly, creator quirks, was a constant tightrope walk for their two account managers. They were good, really good actually, but they were perpetually firefighting. Every morning felt like stepping into an arena, ready to battle the day’s inevitable curveballs. It was a chaotic dance of spreadsheets, Slack messages, and desperate phone calls.

We saw this all the time. Agencies bringing on more and more creators, chasing bigger campaigns, and then hitting a wall when it came to actual execution. The initial excitement of landing a big client or signing a popular creator quickly dissolves into the daily grind of managing deliverables, tracking performance, and ensuring brand safety. What often gets overlooked in the rush to scale is the operational infrastructure needed to support that growth.

For this agency, their system was… rudimentary. Google Sheets for tracking deliverables, manual email threads for communication, and a prayer that nobody missed a deadline. When you have five creators on a campaign, that’s manageable. When you have forty creators, each with different contracts, timelines, content requirements, and personalities, it’s a recipe for burnout. And boy, were those account managers burnt out.

The biggest issue, honestly, wasn't just the sheer volume of tasks, though that was a huge part of it. It was the lack of centralized, easily digestible information. Imagine an account manager trying to find the specific brand guidelines for Creator X on Campaign Y for Client Z, while simultaneously chasing Creator A for their unsubmitted draft, and trying to approve Creator B's caption with the client, all happening simultaneously across different communication channels. It was a digital haystack, and every piece of information was a needle.

And the reporting? Oh god, the reporting. They were spending days at the end of each campaign manually pulling data, stitching together screenshots, and wrestling with export files. That’s time they could have spent nurturing client relationships, onboarding new creators, or, you know, sleeping.

We started by mapping out their current workflow in excruciating detail. Every step, every handoff, every communication point. It was a sprawling, tangled mess. The key takeaway was that they needed to automate the tedious, repetitive tasks and centralize the vital information.

First, communication. Instead of a free-for-all across email, WhatsApp, and Slack, we pushed for a single, primary channel for creator communication regarding deliverables and feedback. This significantly reduced the time spent hunting for specific messages. We also implemented a standardized feedback loop. Creator submits draft, account manager reviews based on a pre-defined checklist (which we helped them create), client approves/requests revisions, creator revises. No more vague "make it pop" comments.

Then came the content management itself. We streamlined their content brief process, ensuring creators received all necessary brand guidelines, talking points, and visual examples upfront. This cut down on revisions significantly. Think about it: clear instructions upfront mean fewer mistakes later. It’s simple, but often overlooked in the rush.

The real game-changer was bringing all their campaign data and creator performance into one place. This wasn't just about pretty dashboards; it was about empowering those account managers. They could see a creator's past performance, their average engagement, their best-performing content types, all at a glance. No more digging through old campaigns or making educated guesses. This helped them allocate the right creators to the right campaigns and quickly identify when a creator might be struggling.

What happened? The first thing we noticed was the collective sigh of relief from those two account managers. The red-faced agency owner started getting reports that were not only accurate but on time. The conversations shifted from frantic problem-solving to proactive strategy. They could now identify which creators were consistently over-delivering and which ones needed more guidance.

They didn’t hire more account managers, at least not immediately. Instead, those two account managers were able to take on more campaigns effectively. The quality of creator output improved because they had more time to dedicate to strategic feedback, rather than just chasing deliverables. Their average time spent on reporting plummeted, freeing them up for higher-value activities.

It’s important to remember that scaling an agency isn't just about signing more clients or creators. It’s about building the operational backbone that allows your team to handle that growth without collapsing under the weight of it. Those two account managers went from feeling like glorified data entry clerks and chase officers to genuine strategic partners for their clients and creators. The lesson? Efficient tools and processes don't replace good people; they unleash their full potential.