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Most fitness influencer marketing advice stops at "work with micro-influencers" and "be authentic". We wanted to see what the biggest fitness brands actually do, so we pulled the 50 most recent sponsored posts for each of the most-searched fitness brands in the US and looked at who posted, how each deal was disclosed, and which posts took off.
Here's why fitness brands work with creators, the commonalities in their strategy, and a step-by-step way to run your own campaign.
Creators do a few things for fitness brands that ads and product pages can't:
These are the most-searched fitness brands in the US, according to Ahrefs. Deal types show how each post was disclosed (for example, with a paid partnership label or an ambassador hashtag). Creator tiers: micro 10k–50k followers, mid-tier 50k–500k, macro 500k+.
| Brand | What they sell | Most common deal type | Typical creator size | Signature tactic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lululemon | Premium activewear and athleisure | Paid and ambassador | Micro to mid-tier | Creators at its own races and pop-ups |
| Fabletics | Membership-based activewear | Ambassador | Micro to mid-tier | Ambassadors selling the VIP membership |
| Vuori | Performance and lifestyle activewear | Ambassador | Mid-tier to macro | Workout posts from bigger creators |
| Under Armour | Sportswear, shoes and training gear | Paid | Mid-tier | One hero product plus time-limited sale codes |
| Peloton | Connected bikes, treadmills and a fitness app | Paid | Mid-tier | Repeat partners whose lives look like its customers' |
10 of Lululemon's last 50 sponsored posts are about the SeaWheeze Half Marathon, a race Lululemon runs itself. Several more come from Sydney Marathon race week, where creators showed off custom race kits from pop-ups like the Print Shop at Pitt Street Mall. Its creators are spread across Australia (12), the US (12), Canada (9) and the UK (4), and none of the posts include a discount code.
What to take from it: Build your creator calendar around races and events your customers already train for, and give creators something to do there. Lululemon didn't just show up at Sydney Marathon race week. It set up a pop-up where runners could customize their race kit, which gave creators a reason to post. You can copy this at a smaller scale with a run club, a race-week pop-up or a stand at a local race.
36 of Fabletics' last 50 sponsored posts were labeled as ambassador posts, and #fableticspartner appears in 39 captions. Ten posts pitch the VIP membership rather than a single product, and eight push its jeans, often to curvier customers ("War is over for the curvier girlies"). Its creators are almost all American (38 of 42) and small: 22 of 42 have under 50k followers.
What to take from it: If you sell a membership or bundle, give every ambassador the same price hook to repeat. Fabletics' ambassadors use the same line ("70–80% off when you sign up as a VIP"), so a follower who sees three different creators hears one consistent offer, not three different pitches.
Vuori works with the biggest creators of the five (a median of 188k followers, including 10 macro creators), and 35 of its last 50 sponsored posts were labeled as ambassador posts. Its creators are almost all American (40 of 44), and #vuoripartner appears in 48 of 50 captions. 12 posts are workouts, like arm and glute routines, often with the outfit linked on LTK.
What to take from it: Ask creators for a routine followers can do in your gear, not just a photo in it. A workout gives people a reason to save the post and come back to it. And don't count out small creators on an ambassador deal: @deckrr's Vuori post got 14k likes from a creator with 12.5k followers.
Under Armour's sponsored posts from May to July 2026 center on one product, the Bouncy Tee, which shows up in 11 of 50 posts. Eight posts share a discount code during its summer sale, like "SUMMER" for 50% off or a personal 20% code. It also works across markets, with creators in the US (15), UK (7) and Turkey (4), and co-branded events like a padel tournament with Kiko Milano in Turkey.
What to take from it: Put a deadline on every creator code. Under Armour's creators shared codes with an end date ("till 6/26"), which gives followers a reason to buy that week instead of saving the post for later. @abbycatlin's post with her code got 302k plays from a creator with 70k followers.
Peloton posts less often than the others (its last 50 sponsored posts span four months), and 48 of the 50 were disclosed as paid partnerships. It leans on repeat partners: 34 creators made those 50 posts, and 9 of them posted more than once. @raddadbodtv and @laurenmantha posted four times each. Two of its partners even posted from Lululemon's SeaWheeze Half Marathon, tagging both brands.
What to take from it: Cast creators whose everyday life matches the reason people buy your product. Peloton's most-viewed post wasn't a workout demo. It was a dad explaining he runs on a treadmill so he can stay close to his family, the exact problem a home treadmill solves, and it got 2.3M plays from a creator with 34k followers. When a creator like that works, rebook them. @raddadbodtv posted for Peloton four times.
Looking across all 250 posts, four patterns stand out:
Here's how to run a campaign step by step, using what the top fitness brands do at each stage.
Decide what the campaign is for before you pick a single creator, because the goal changes who you book, how you pay them and what you ask them to post. The top fitness brands' posts show both goals at work. Under Armour's sale codes with end dates are built to drive sales that week. Lululemon's race-day posts and Vuori's workouts are built for reach and saves.
Pick one metric per campaign so you can compare creators fairly afterwards.
Follower count is the last thing to filter on. Peloton's most-viewed post came from a dad with 34k followers explaining why he runs on a treadmill at home: he'd rather be near his family. It got 2.3M plays, and his life looks exactly like the life of someone who buys a home treadmill. Across all five brands, creators under 50k followers got nearly three times the likes relative to their audience.
Our survey found niche micro-creators are outperforming mega-influencers: nearly 60% of marketers said niche influencers performed better in 2025 than in 2024.
You can also find fitness influencers for free, for example by searching the hashtags your buyers follow.
The top fitness brands pay creators in very different ways. Fabletics and Vuori labeled 36 and 35 of their last 50 posts as ambassador posts. Peloton disclosed 48 of 50 as paid partnerships. Lululemon mixed paid partnerships (24) and ambassador deals (18) with some gifting (6).
Commission-only is getting harder to sell, though. Over 23% of marketers in our survey said creators would take performance pay only if a flat fee came with it. If you run tiers, the average commission tiers in our affiliate research were 10%, 14% and 19%, and brands with more than one tier had more active affiliates.
The captions from the top fitness brands point to three formats that carry most of their creator content.
Whatever the format, give ambassadors one hashtag to use every time, like #vuoripartner or #fableticspartner, and list the claims they can and can't make (especially for supplements).
Under Armour was the only brand of the five to use discount codes, and only during its summer sale, with end dates like "till 6/26". Lululemon, Vuori, Fabletics and Peloton used none. They send people to a link instead, through LTK (11 posts) or "comment and I'll DM you the link" (14 posts).
Codes also leak. In our affiliate marketing research, 47.6% of marketers said they struggle with code poaching, where a creator's code ends up on coupon sites.
In Modash, each creator gets a tracked link and a code tied to your Shopify data, so sales from DMs, bios and stories all count toward the right person. Commission is calculated on net revenue after refunds and returns.
The top fitness brands keep coming back to the same people. Six of Vuori's creators posted twice in its last 50 sponsored posts, and even Under Armour, which mostly pays per post, labeled 13 of its 50 as ambassador posts.
Most marketers want to do more of this. In our influencer marketing trends survey, over 60% said they plan to invest more in long-term partnerships, but only 54% actually ran more of them last year.
The top brands avoid a few mistakes that trip up smaller programs:
It depends on platform, following and engagement. Micro-influencers often work for free product plus a fee in the low hundreds per post, or an affiliate commission. Larger creators charge more. Many brands start with gifting plus commission to test fit before committing to flat fees. To estimate what a specific creator is likely to charge, drop their handle into our free Instagram influencer pricing calculator.
Instagram carries most fitness creator work, and all five of the most-searched fitness brands run their programs mainly there. TikTok is worth testing too: in our survey, marketers rated TikTok videos the highest-performing deliverable (53.2%).
Lululemon, Fabletics, Vuori, Under Armour and Peloton are the most-searched fitness brands in the US, and all of them run active creator programs. See the breakdown above for who each one works with.
It depends on your goal. A launch chasing awareness leans bigger, a conversion play leans smaller and more trusted. In the fitness posts we analyzed, creators under 50k followers got nearly three times the likes relative to their audience size, so most brands should build their base with micro-influencers (10k–50k followers) and add bigger names for launches.
Track sales per creator with unique links and codes, then compare revenue against what you paid (fees, product and commission). Our engagement rate calculator and fake follower checker help you vet creators before you spend, and our guide to influencer marketing ROI covers the full calculation.
Find creators, manage relationships, pay them in 180+ countries and 36 currencies, and track every sale through Shopify – all in one place, with no fees taken out of creators' pay. Try Modash free, no credit card required – or browse the top fitness influencers to see who's already out there.