InfluencerThe 14-day launch window.
Launches do not ramp. They spike. A campaign built around a launch or drop moment needs a shape of its own: warm-up, launch, wind-down - fourteen days pointed at a single hard date.
The short answer
A launch has a hard date, so its demand curve is a spike, not a slope. Run the influencer campaign over roughly 14 days in three phases: Warm-up (Day 1-6) to lock the roster, wire tracked links and get measurement live before a single post; Launch (Day 7-13) to drive pre-hype, countdowns and scarcity into the launch moment; and Wind-down (Day 14+) to bank repeat sales and prime the next drop. The engine that makes it work is mid-flight steering - moving budget to the creators who are actually converting, while the campaign is still live.
Why a launch is not an evergreen product
Most influencer playbooks are written for products you can buy any day. That world rewards the slow ramp: build an audience, warm it up, convert it whenever it's ready. There is no deadline, so there is no urgency, so patience wins.
A launch breaks all of that. There is a hard date on the calendar - a drop, a restock, a new app going live, a limited offer, a ticketed event. The moment passes and the window closes. Demand does not build in a smooth curve; it stacks up against the wall of the launch and then spikes. Urgency and scarcity are not side effects here, they are the mechanic. The job of the campaign is to point every euro of attention at one moment and let scarcity do the closing.
If most of the revenue arrives in the last three days, the campaign cannot peak in week one. It has to be built to crescendo into the launch. That is what the three-phase, fourteen-day shape is for - whether you are dropping a D2C product, opening a SaaS trial, releasing a fashion collection or selling out a night.
Phase 1 - Warm-up (Day 1-6)
The first six days are plumbing, not posting. Almost nothing goes public yet. This is where you set the campaign up so that when the spike comes, you can actually see it and steer it.
- Lock the roster. Mid-tier creators are the spine - the accounts whose audience actually fits the product and will act on it. See why micro beats macro.
- Wire per-creator tracked links. Every creator gets a unique link to the product, offer or checkout page, so every order can be attributed to the account that drove it - tracked links are the new attribution.
- Seed discovery content. Early TikTok posts built for cold reach, not for the existing fanbase - planting the product in feeds before the hard sell starts.
- Get measurement live first. The dashboard is running and reading real clicks, orders and revenue before the campaign proper begins, so you have a clean baseline.
That last point is the one teams skip and regret. If you turn measurement on after the posts go out, you never get a baseline, and without a baseline you are guessing at what moved. Measure before you post.
Measurement goes live before the first post - so the spike is a number you can read, not a mood you can feel.
Phase 2 - Launch (Day 7-13)
Now the campaign goes loud. The week before the launch is where the spike is manufactured, and the content shifts from discovery to conversion.
- Pre-launch posts. The roster starts pointing at the product directly - what it is, the reason to buy now, the tracked link in every bio and caption.
- Stories link-stickers and countdowns. Countdown stickers and swipe-up links turn the passive follower into a tapped-through buyer as the date closes in.
- Scarcity as the stock and offer move. "Final drop", "almost gone", "last 100", "offer ends Friday" - honest scarcity messaging that matches real inventory or a real deadline and pulls the fence-sitters over.
- Mid-flight steering. This is the whole game. While the campaign runs, you watch which creators are actually converting and shift budget and content toward them - before the launch, not in the wrap report.
Mid-flight steering is only possible because of what you built in Phase 1. If per-creator sales are live in the dashboard, you can see on Day 9 that two mid-tier creators are outselling the rest of the roster combined, and pour the remaining budget into them while it still matters. Without live attribution, you find out who won a week after the launch closed - too late to do anything but write it down.
Phase 3 - Wind-down (Day 14+)
The launch is not the end of the campaign, it's the raw material for the next one. The demand was real, the content performed, and those assets are the most persuasive you will ever have.
- Retargeting and repeat content. The proof clips - the product in use, the reviews, the sold-out feeling - land on everyone who clicked but did not convert, and on lookalikes of the buyers who did. That drives repeat orders and primes the next drop before it even goes live.
- The wrap report. Attributed revenue per creator, cost per order, what to keep and what to cut. Not a vanity deck - a decision document. See what a campaign report should prove.
The fourteen days, in order
- Day 1: Lock the roster - mid-tier spine that fits the product confirmed.
- Day 2: Brief creators; agree deliverables and dates.
- Day 3: Wire a unique tracked link for every creator.
- Day 4: Measurement live in the dashboard; baseline set.
- Day 5: First discovery content seeded on TikTok for cold reach.
- Day 6: Check early click data; confirm links attribute cleanly.
- Day 7: Pre-launch posts begin - roster points at the product.
- Day 8: Stories link-stickers and first countdowns go up.
- Day 9: Read the leaderboard; start mid-flight steering.
- Day 10: Shift budget to the creators actually converting.
- Day 11: Scarcity messaging as stock or the offer deadline tightens.
- Day 12: Peak push - final drop, last units, countdown live.
- Day 13: Launch. The 72-hour spike does most of the work.
- Day 14+: Retargeting content out; wrap report with attributed revenue.
Key takeaways
- Launches spike, they do not ramp - the campaign has to crescendo into the launch.
- A 14-day window in three phases fits one hard date: warm-up, launch, wind-down.
- Turn measurement on before the first post, so you have a clean baseline.
- Mid-flight steering wins the spike - move budget to who is converting, while it still matters.
- The wind-down is not the end; it is the engine for repeat orders and the next drop.
Frequently asked
For a launch or drop with a hard date, roughly 14 days works well - a warm-up phase to lock the roster and get measurement live, a launch phase to drive the spike into the moment, and a wind-down phase to bank repeat sales and prime the next drop. Longer runs tend to peak too early and lose urgency before the launch lands.
Very late. Across AURA-tracked campaigns, a large share of attributed sales lands in the final 72 hours around the launch moment, driven by scarcity and urgency. That is why the campaign peaks into the launch rather than ramping evenly across two weeks.
Reallocating budget and effort toward the creators actually converting while the campaign is still running. It only works if per-creator sales and orders are live in the dashboard, so you can move spend to the winners before the launch, not after.
Point every euro at the launch
AURA tracks every creator, link and euro of your launch campaign in one live dashboard - so you can steer budget to who is converting while the spike is still building.