When Toral Patel left Estée Lauder to join the clean body care brand Kopari Beauty in 2021, she knew she was stepping into a different world. Toral took joining Kopari as an opportunity to transform how the indie beauty brand approached influencer marketing. She knew it was time to move beyond transactional partnerships to build what she calls “authentic community.” Kopari would benefit from this fresh perspective.
It only took her three years to prove that leaning into community would fuel growth. In 2024, Kopari had one of the highest conversion rates in prestige skin care for influencer marketing, growing the brand into an eight-figure business. The secret wasn’t only about getting the right creators to work with you or throwing the biggest events. Toral created a system that turns what used to be one-off collaborations into months of profitable content, shared across multiple channels.
Here’s how she did it—and how you can apply her framework to your own business.
Starting with product truth, not marketing spin
Toral’s first move at Kopari was to dig into the why of what made people love the product.
“You really have to believe in your product and that your product is differentiated,” Toral says. “All you want for [influencers] to do is to try the product, because if they love it … it will make its way into multiple pieces of content.”
Really listening to what your customers are saying, unbidden, requires a certain level of patience. The second part of active listening, using that information to inform actions your brand takes, requires you to be brutally honest with yourselves about what your customers think versus what the company wants the customer to think. “Internally, what you think is a differentiator may not be what the creator community or your customers find to be the most compelling benefit about the product,” she notes.
For Kopari, this meant pinpointing qualities like ease of use and the distinctive glow its SPF products created on skin. These were benefits creators wanted to showcase in their content, not the brand’s overarching clean beauty message. Lucky for Kopari, this user-originated messaging translated well to social media.
Before investing in an influencer strategy, spend time understanding why people genuinely love your product. Survey existing customers, analyze reviews, use social listening, and pay attention to how people talk about your brand—whether or not you’re in the room. Starting from a place of authenticity, responding to what customers are already saying about you, allows you to grow your customer base organically. And, this type of feedback loop will make every subsequent partnership more effective.
Building relationships, not just campaigns
While many brands focus on maximizing reach per dollar spent, Toral took the opposite approach at Kopari. She prioritized depth over breadth, creating meaningful connections with a smaller group of creators rather than casting a wide net.
“We really keep them more intimate,” she says about Kopari’s creator events. “Not in any way to be exclusive—our brand really prides ourselves in being inclusive—but more so because we do want to actually get to know everyone that’s there in a deep and meaningful way.” This philosophy extends to how they structure partnerships. Instead of one-off sponsored posts, Kopari supports year-long relationships with creators who genuinely use and love their products. They started by tracking which creators included Kopari products in their “get ready with me” content without being asked—a strong signal of product love.
One standout example is Kopari’s partnership with Ella Halikas, CEO of Confidence and a curvy model who advocates for women of all sizes. Rather than just booking her for a standard product post, Kopari collaborated with her to host confidence sessions—first as part of an intimate creator event, then, later at a larger community pool party in LA.
The campaign resonated so strongly that members of Kopari’s community flew from out of state to participate. It was so successful that content from the event continued generating value across multiple channels for months. “It showed how we can work together with our creators in a different capacity than what you might expect or see every day,”: Toral says.
For entrepreneurs with limited budgets, this relationship-first approach can be more accessible than traditional influencer marketing. It all starts with identifying microinfluencers who are passionate about your product category.
Creating content flywheels, not just single assets
Beyond creating individual posts after Kopar’s events, Toral creates what she calls a “content flywheel,” where single pieces of creator content get leveraged across multiple channels and time frames.
When Kopari did a photo shoot with Ella, they didn’t just use the images for the initial campaign launch. One photo became an in-store display, which Ella then promoted to her community, encouraging fans to visit stores and tag both her and Kopari when they spotted the display. The result was organic user-generated content that extended the campaign’s reach far beyond the original investment.
By planning for multiple uses upfront, Kopari maximized the value of every creator relationship. TikTok videos were repurposed for paid ads, Instagram posts were adapted for email campaigns, and even casual creator content was considered for in-store displays.
Structuring both its marketing content and UGC with clear usage rights allowed Kopari to plan for versatility when it came to using this content as marketing collateral. Rather than thinking “We need a TikTok video,” it approached creators with “We need content that can work across TikTok, Instagram, paid ads, and potentially in-store displays,” Toral shares.
For other brands, this means negotiating broader usage rights upfront and briefing creators on the multiple ways their content might be used.
Measuring what matters, but still thinking long term
One of the biggest challenges in influencer marketing is attribution—proving that creator partnerships actually drive business results. Toral’s approach combines multiple data points rather than relying on any single metric.
Kopari tracks traditional metrics like earned media value (EMV), video views, and engagement, but also looks at broader indicators like organic traffic to the site, direct traffic, and post-purchase surveys asking customers how they heard about the brand.
And, while Kopari has certain metrics in place, the team recognizes that community building requires a longer-term perspective than metrics seen with traditional performance marketing. While paid ads might drive immediate sales, influencer relationships are about staying top of mind while building community and advocacy over time.
So, understanding that partnerships might fail to show immediate return on investment (ROI), doesn’t mean there is no value to building community and brand equity. The confidence sessions with Ella, for instance, were as much about reinforcing Kopari’s brand values around body positivity as they were about driving immediate sales.
Making every relationship mutually beneficial
Underlying Kopari’s success is the fact that creator partnerships benefit both parties. Rather than only asking creators to promote products, Toral always looks for ways to support creators’ own goals and passions.
The collaboration with Ella worked because it aligned with her mission of building confidence in women of all sizes. Kopari didn’t just pay her to post about their products—they also amplified her message and provided her with a platform to increase her reach. The events were also an opportunity for Ella to meet her community.
“If they’re really passionate about working out, host a workout event with that creator featuring your product and the brand, because the creator will be so grateful and happy to do so,” Toral suggests.
This approach creates an opportunity to deepen the loyalty between the creator and the brand. When creators feel genuinely supported rather than used only for promotion, they naturally become stronger advocates for the brand.
“You don’t have to jump into a big dinner event or a big splashy trip,” she notes. “If you do have a few really deep, strong relationships with some creators that have, even if they’re micros, … a really strong community, work with those creators.”
The strategy that transformed Kopari from a single-product company into an eight-figure business wasn’t built on massive budgets or celebrity endorsements. Instead, it was constructed on authentic relationships, strategic thinking about content leverage, and a deep understanding of what makes their products valuable.
The beauty industry may seem uniquely suited to influencer marketing, but the principles Toral developed at Kopari—authenticity, relationship-building, and strategic content leverage—apply across industries. Tune in to her full Shopify Masters interview to discover how she selects creators to work with, and produce content that resonantes beyond influencer audiences.
