ContestedSeed Product With
Vetted Athletes.Upgrade The Winners.Send product to athletes who match your brand. They opt in, receive product, and post if it fits their audience. Add promo codes so every post is measurable and every top performer earns their way into paid campaigns.
Posting is optional. Promo codes make performance measurable.
Trusted by Top Brands
What It Is
Get Product Into The Right Hands
Product seeding is a campaign built to get your product into the hands of athletes who fit your category. They opt in through Contested, receive product via your Shopify store, and post content if it fits their routine and audience.
What It Is Not
Seeding is not a guaranteed posting program. Athletes acknowledge this is optional content. If you need fixed deliverables on fixed dates, use seeding to find the natural fits, then upgrade top performers into a paid UGC or ambassador campaign.
Why Seeding
Why Brands Run Seeding On Contested
Find Real Fits Before You Pay
Seeding surfaces athletes who naturally understand your product and can sell it credibly. No guesswork, no wasted budget on mismatched partnerships.
Create Content Without Forcing It
Optional posting produces better content when it happens — driven by genuine product fit, not contractual obligation.
Measure Impact With Promo Codes
Assign unique discount codes per athlete through your Shopify store. Track who drives actual sales, not just vanity engagement metrics.
Build a Repeatable Pipeline
Seeding is top-of-funnel discovery. Winners graduate into paid creators you can scale — with data proving they convert.
The Workflow
From Brief to Performance Data
Six steps from campaign creation to paid creator upgrades. The wizard handles setup in minutes — then the platform manages matching, fulfillment, and tracking.
Create Your Seeding Campaign
Name your campaign, select the product from your catalog, set your launch date, and choose how many athletes you want to seed (1–100).
The campaign wizard captures everything in a single session — no back-and-forth with a sales rep.
Define Your Target Athlete
Set demographics, age ranges, geography, gender, athlete types, sports, interests, and which social platforms matter most to you.
The more specific your criteria, the better the AI-powered matching algorithm performs.
Set Offer Details & Incentives
Configure affiliate commission rates, optional posting bonuses, and preferred content types — Instagram Reels, TikTok, stories, photos, or testimonials.
Posting is optional. Commissions and bonuses give athletes a reason to post without making it mandatory.
Review Your AI-Matched Shortlist
Our algorithm scores athletes on location, sport, follower count, engagement rate, and content style. Review each match and mark athletes as ideal, alternative, or pass.
Only athletes you mark as ideal receive offers. Alternatives stay on standby if someone declines.
Send Product & Track Delivery
Offers go out to your selected athletes. When they accept, product ships through your connected Shopify store. Discount codes are auto-generated per athlete.
Order fulfillment is tracked automatically — you'll know when product arrives.
Track Performance & Upgrade Winners
Monitor promo code redemptions, content submissions, and revenue driven per athlete. Identify your top performers and invite them into paid UGC, affiliate, or ambassador campaigns.
Seeding is the top of the funnel. The athletes who move product earn the right to get paid.
Athlete Incentives
Why Athletes Post (Even When It's Optional)
Posting is optional. These incentives increase the likelihood that athletes create and share content organically.
Affiliate Commissions
Athletes earn a percentage of every sale driven through their unique discount code. The athletes who drive revenue get rewarded directly.
Clear Creative Direction
Most non-posting happens when guidance is vague. You set content preferences — Reels, TikTok, stories, testimonials — so athletes know exactly what to create.
A Path To Paid
Top performers don't stay in sample-only territory. Athletes who demonstrate results get upgraded into paid UGC, affiliate, or ambassador campaigns.
Seeding finds the fits. Codes reveal the closers.
Deliverables
What You Get
Always Included
When Athletes Choose To Post
Brand Protection
Controls That Protect Your Spend
Vetted Athletes
AI-matched on location, sport, engagement, content style, and follower fit — scored 0 to 100.
Delivery Tracking
Shopify integration tracks order fulfillment so you know exactly where product went.
Brand Guardrails
Set content preferences, approved platforms, and creative direction during campaign setup.
Performance-Based Scaling
Only upgrade athletes who drive measurable results. Spend follows data, not guesswork.
Analytics
Measuring Success
Even with optional posting, seeding produces measurable outcomes at every stage of the funnel.
Pipeline Health
Content Outcomes
Commerce Outcomes
If you cannot measure it, you cannot scale it. Codes make seeding measurable.
Decision Guide
Seeding or Paid?
Run Seeding When You Want
Run Paid When You Need
Start with seeding. Pay the winners.
FAQ