Entering the US Market: A Creator Plan for the First 90 Days

For a consumer brand entering the US, the order of your first 90 days matters more than the size of the budget. Start sending product to creators 30 to 60 days before your Amazon listing or online store goes live, so shoppers who search your name find real people using it. Spend the first month after launch connecting those videos to where people buy, and from day 31 put paid partnerships and ad spend only behind the creators and messages that have already shown results.

It's tempting to do the reverse: open the listing first, then figure out marketing. The sections below explain why that costs you the first month or two, and what to do instead.

What does a 90-day US creator plan look like?

Plan on shoppers who meet an unfamiliar brand looking it up, on TikTok, Amazon or a search engine. If those searches come back empty, any ad money you spend has nothing to land on. So set the goal for the first 90 days as being findable, with real footage of the product in use. Revenue matters, but it follows that.

Choose platforms by who buys from you. According to Pew Research Center's 2026 survey, 37% of US adults say they use TikTok, but that rises to 65% among adults 18 to 29. YouTube reaches 84% of adults and Instagram 51% (as of 2026). If your buyers skew young, TikTok is the obvious starting point. If they're older, give YouTube and Instagram more weight.

With launch day as day 0, a plan we'd suggest looks like this. Dates shift with every brand, but try to keep the order.

What should you do before launching in the US?

Check the rules that can stall shipments

Regulatory prep comes first, because a late product arrival delays every creator shipment behind it. Requirements depend on your category. Cosmetics are a good example: under the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA), facilities that manufacture or process cosmetics distributed in the US must register with the FDA and renew every two years, and the responsible person must list each product with its ingredients and update the listing annually. MoCRA exempts certain small businesses from registration and listing, so check whether that applies to you. The FDA's definition of a facility includes an importer's establishment. Other categories, such as food or children's products, come with their own rules. Treat this as general information and confirm your obligations with a regulatory specialist.

Import costs have changed too. As of 2026, US Customs and Border Protection has suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for shipments valued at $800 or less, and all applicable duties, taxes, and fees must be paid on them. Small boxes of samples shipped from abroad are not automatically duty-free anymore. Talk to a customs broker early, and see our notes on shipping products to US creators.

Start seeding before the listing opens

Product seeding takes weeks. Creators have to apply and receive the product, then actually use it long enough to have something to say before they film and post. Start after launch and you'll spend your first month with nothing for shoppers to watch.

For this phase, nano creators make the most sense. You can work with many of them, their comment sections are active, and together they help your brand show up in search. Ship to more people than the number of videos you need, since some recipients won't post. Our piece on how many creators to seed covers the numbers. On Collaboom, our seeding platform, creators across the US apply with their own TikTok account and a US shipping address, you pick who receives the product, and our team checks every post before it reaches you.

Keep the brief to what's required: the product name, claims to avoid, and disclosure. Translate your home-market brief word for word, with every benefit listed, and the video is likely to sound like an ad to US viewers. Let creators explain the product their own way.

Line up Amazon creator videos

Creators in the Amazon Influencer Program can upload videos to their storefront tied to specific products. Amazon says those videos may also show up on the product's detail page once the creator has 10 approved videos and has signed up for onsite commissions. Because each video links to a live product, uploads happen after your listing opens. Recruit and ship before launch so videos start arriving right after it. Amazon, not the brand, decides where they appear. They are separate from Amazon's customer ratings, and your request to creators should never ask for star ratings. Our guide to Amazon creator videos explains the setup.

What should happen in the first 30 days after launch?

Now the content you planted starts working, and the job is to connect it to the places people buy.

• Give creators a purchase link they can put in their bio, so interested viewers have somewhere to go.
• Check your Amazon product page each week for creator videos.
• Shortlist the videos with the strongest comments, and write down the phrases and questions that keep coming up. That list is your brief for the next phase.
• Before you run any creator video as an ad, get usage rights from the creator. Unless an agreement says otherwise, sending free product doesn't give a brand the right to put someone's video in paid media. Our guide to Spark Ads and usage rights covers the options.

Disclosure needs attention here as well. The FTC treats free product as a material connection, and it wants the disclosure in the video itself, not only in the caption. US rules apply whenever it's reasonably foreseeable that a post will affect US consumers, even if your company is based elsewhere. "Gifted by [Brand]" is enough only when free product is the only thing the creator received. TikTok's policy also requires creators to turn on the commercial content disclosure toggle for gifted products. Hiring an outside firm doesn't move the responsibility off the advertiser. Our FTC disclosure guide goes deeper.

Judge this month by search and conversation, not sales. Watch branded search volume, mentions of your brand on TikTok, and what people ask in the comments. Sales can lag behind those signals, and judging the launch on first-month revenue can push you to change direction too early.

How should you spend in days 31 to 90?

By now you know which messages and creators got a reaction. Put money behind those, and only those.

Paid partnerships with micro creators come in here. Brief them on the benefits and questions that came up during seeding, and check drafts before they go live. Then put ad spend behind the strongest videos from either source, as long as you hold the usage rights. Keep a smaller seeding program running in the background, too. New videos showing up month after month keep your brand visible in search.

Where first-quarter plans usually go wrong

Two mistakes come up again and again. One is putting the whole budget into a single large creator. You get one video, and if it misses, you've learned almost nothing. The same money spread across many smaller creators gives you many videos and real data on what works. The other is leaving regulatory and import checks until the end, where they can hold up inventory and every creator shipment along with it.

After 90 days done well, you should have a brand that shows up in search, creator videos on your product page, and a clear view of which messages land. If videos piled up but search and comments didn't move, look at positioning or price before you change the marketing.

Frequently asked questions

When should we start working with creators before a US launch?

Aim for 30 to 60 days before your listing or store opens. Creators need time to receive and use the product, so starting at launch leaves your first weeks with little to watch. Recruit Amazon creators ahead of time too, even though their uploads wait for the live listing.

Do US disclosure rules apply if our company isn't based in the US?

Yes. The FTC says US law applies when it's reasonably foreseeable that a post will affect US consumers. Free product counts as a material connection, and creators need a clear disclosure in the video, plus TikTok's disclosure toggle on that platform.

Is it a failure if sales are slow in the first 90 days?

Not necessarily. The first quarter is mostly about search presence and learning which messages work. If plenty of videos went live but branded search and comments stayed flat, revisit positioning or price.

Can creators post before our Amazon listing is live?

On TikTok, yes. That's the point of pre-launch seeding. Amazon storefront videos are tied to a specific product, so they go up after the listing opens.

If you have a US launch date and want to work backward from it, send us the details.

Sources

• Pew Research Center, Social Media Fact Sheet (survey Jan. 30 to June 18, 2026)
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA)
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection, E-Commerce FAQs (updated September 2026)
• Federal Register, Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Merchandise Arriving Through All Modes Other Than the International Postal Network (June 24, 2026)
• Amazon Associates Central, How do I upload videos to my storefront? (as of 2026)
• FTC, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers
• FTC, FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking
• TikTok, Branded Content Policy (as of 2026)