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Most skiing influencer marketing advice stops at "work with micro-influencers" and "be authentic". We wanted to see what the biggest skiing brands actually do, so we pulled the 50 most recent sponsored posts for each of the most-searched skiing brands in the US and looked at who posted, how each deal was disclosed, and which posts took off.
Here's why skiing 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 skiing brands that ads and product pages can't:
These are the most-searched skiing 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ikon Pass | Multi-resort season ski pass | Paid | Mid-tier | Creators racing its pass-price deadlines |
| Smartwool | Merino base layers and socks | Paid | Mid-tier | Creators layering its merino for cold days |
| Stio | Mountain apparel and ski outerwear | Affiliate and paid | Micro | Affiliates sharing short sale codes |
| Smith Optics | Goggles, helmets and sunglasses | Paid | Mid-tier | Pro skiers and riders on its athlete roster |
| Goldbergh | Luxury skiwear and activewear | Paid | Macro | Fashion creators it books again and again |
16 of Ikon Pass's last 50 sponsored posts push a date to buy by, mostly the December 11 last day for this season and then an April 16 price rise for next season. 13 mention Mammoth Mountain, and retired athletes like NFL quarterback Matt Leinart and soccer's Kelley O'Hara posted from its slopes. 33 of its creators are based in the US, all 50 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and only one includes a code.
What to take from it: Let creators be funny about the sport. @brettneustrom's "i just wish someone told me…at least i still have my Ikon Pass" got 2.4M plays and 142k likes, Ikon Pass's most-viewed post and more likes than any other post across the five brands.
26 of Smartwool's last 50 sponsored posts are about its merino layers, worn on ski days (14 posts) and winter runs. 8 promote its Altra collab sold at REI, all posted in October 2024. Its creators are based in the US (25) and Canada (11), 47 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and only one includes a code.
What to take from it: Speak to people who find winter intimidating. @vanessa_chav, a creator with 15k followers, opened with "a lot of us didn't grow up with winters" and shared tips for layering and staying warm, and the post got 1.5M plays, about 100 times their following.
29 of Stio's last 50 sponsored posts carry #stioaffiliate, and 17 include a code. 7 went live within four days in January, each with a W2630 code for a 30% off sale that creators called "ambassador-only" or "influencer-only". Its creators are small, with a median of 29k followers, and all 32 with a listed location are in the US.
What to take from it: Give small creators a link and let them post their own ski days. @mtnjohns, a creator with 12k followers, posted a Valentine's Day ski photo in Stio kit with a discount link in bio and got 48.5k plays, about four times their following.
Smith's last 50 sponsored posts go back to November 2023, and 17 are skiing and snowboarding, mostly from pro riders, including a signature goggle launch from snowboarder @elenahight. The rest cover mountain biking, gravel racing and sunglasses. Its creators are based in the US (15), Austria (4) and Canada (3), 49 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and only one includes a code.
What to take from it: Let pro riders show what the gear is for. @teagan.maddux, a skier with 103k followers, posted Smith's Guides Choice sunglasses in a new colorway with ChromaPop lenses, and the post got 28.7k plays, about 28% of her 103k followers, and 717 likes.
Goldbergh books big fashion creators, with a median of 546k followers, and 31 of its last 50 sponsored posts are on the slopes or in the mountains. 8 come from its summer, tennis and pilates looks, 3 from a trip to watch the women's downhill at the Cortina Olympics, and 9 tag retailers like Sportofino and Mytheresa. Its creators are based in France (6), the UK (5) and Turkey (3), and none use a code.
What to take from it: Book creators who make skiing look fun, not hard. @itsjulialouise posted "We're shreddinggggg (the bunny hill)" in a Goldbergh suit and got 2.9M plays, nearly 20 times their following.
Looking across all 250 posts, four patterns stand out:
Here's how to run a campaign step by step, using what the top skiing 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 skiing brands' posts show both goals at work. Stio's sale codes and Ikon Pass's December 11 deadline posts are built to drive sales that week. Goldbergh's Olympics trip and Smith's pro riding edits are built for reach.
Pick one metric per campaign so you can compare creators fairly afterwards.
Follower count is the last thing to filter on. A snowboarder with 9k followers wrote about learning to ride at Mammoth Mountain and coming back to it after riding all over the world, and the Ikon Pass post got 423k plays, 47 times their following. It's the home-mountain story every pass holder knows. Across all five brands, creators under 50k followers got about two and a half 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 skiing influencers for free, for example by searching the hashtags your buyers follow.
Most skiing posts are paid. Ikon Pass, Smith and Smartwool disclosed 50, 49 and 47 of their last 50 posts as paid partnerships. Stio is the exception, with 25 labeled as affiliate posts.
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 skiing brands point to three formats that carry most of their creator content:
Whatever the format, ask creators to name the product and the conditions they wore it in, like a powder day or a cold chairlift, so followers know what it's built for.
Stio is the only one of the five that leans on codes, with personal codes like W2630-KATYROBIN tied to a short sale. Ikon Pass uses dates instead: its creators tell followers the last day to buy before prices go up.
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 skiing brands rebook more than most: 38 of their 200 creators posted more than once. Ikon Pass booked @frontporchdad three times across one season, from a family ski trip in December to dads chasing powder in Japan in April.
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 skiing creator work, and every sponsored post we analyzed for the five most-searched skiing brands ran there. TikTok is worth testing too: in our survey, marketers rated TikTok videos the highest-performing deliverable (53.2%).
Ikon Pass, Smartwool, Stio, Smith Optics and Goldbergh are the most-searched skiing 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 skiing posts we analyzed, creators under 50k followers got about two and a half 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 skiing influencers to see who's already out there.