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Collaborations

A collaboration represents a partnership between your organization and a content creator. Collaborations formalize the terms of a partnership — including deliverables, compensation, and timelines — and track the partnership through its full lifecycle.

Key concepts

ConceptDescription
CollaborationA partnership proposal sent to a creator with specific terms and deliverables.
Collaboration statusThe current stage of the collaboration lifecycle (see status definitions below).
Deal termsThe agreed cost, currency, and expected number of posts. Payment is managed outside the platform — Ace Influence tracks the terms but does not process creator payments.
Delivery trackingFor collaborations that involve shipping physical products to creators, you can add tracking numbers and monitor shipment status via 17track integration. See Managing Collaborations for details.

Accessing collaborations

  • All collaborations: Navigate to Collaborations in the sidebar.
  • Campaign-specific collaborations: Open a campaign and go to the Collaborations tab.

Collaboration lifecycle

Every collaboration moves through these statuses. Status transitions are manual — you update the status as the partnership progresses.

StatusDescriptionTypical trigger
PendingCollaboration has been created but not yet sent or acknowledged by the creator.You create a new collaboration after a creator shows interest.
NegotiatingCreator has responded and terms are being discussed.Creator replies to acknowledge the proposal.
FulfillingTerms are agreed. Content creation or product delivery is in progress.Both parties finalize the deliverables, compensation, and timeline.
CompletedThe collaboration is finished. All deliverables have been met.Creator delivers all agreed content and you confirm receipt.
CancelledThe collaboration has been cancelled by either party.Partnership will not proceed (see reasons below).

Status transition rules:

  • The typical flow is: Pending → Negotiating → Fulfilling → Completed.
  • You can skip statuses if appropriate (e.g., go directly from Pending to Fulfilling if terms are pre-agreed).
  • You can move a collaboration back to an earlier status if needed (e.g., revert from Completed back to Fulfilling).
  • You can cancel a collaboration from any status, and restore a cancelled collaboration to any status.

Cancellation reasons

When a collaboration is cancelled, a reason is recorded:

  • Creator declined — The creator rejected the collaboration.
  • Creator unresponsive — The creator did not respond within a reasonable timeframe (determined by your judgment — the platform does not auto-cancel).
  • Budget cut — Budget constraints required cancelling the collaboration.
  • Campaign cancelled — The parent campaign was cancelled.
  • Other — A custom reason provided at the time of cancellation.

Collaborations and outreach

Collaborations and outreach are complementary but separate features:

  1. You send outreach emails (via Bulk Send or Drafts) to contact creators.
  2. When a creator responds positively, you create a collaboration to formalize the terms.
  3. You can create a collaboration without having sent outreach through the platform (e.g., if you contacted the creator outside the platform).
  4. You can also send outreach without creating a collaboration (e.g., for initial interest gauging).

See Creating a Collaboration and Managing Collaborations for detailed guides.