- Platform
- Mobile App
- Duration
- 16 weeks
- Industry
- Media & Communication, E-commerce
- Read time
- 6 min read
In short
RaftLabs built Sponzee, a TikTok-style social commerce mobile app that connects brands and creators on one platform for influencer marketing campaigns. Brands search and connect with creators, negotiate terms through in-app chat, and track sales through unique affiliate links and collaboration codes. The platform achieved 200% user engagement growth in month one and a 25% boost in brand sales. Four distinct user types (creators, brands, end users, and admins) each have role-specific access and workflows. Delivered in 16 weeks using Flutter, React.js, Hasura, and AWS Cognito.
Brand-creator collaboration happened across DMs, email threads, and spreadsheets. Brands had no structured way to find creators by audience fit. Creators had no single view of their active deals. Performance tracking (which creator drove which sale) was guesswork without a proper attribution layer.
Sponzee's founders wanted to change that. We built a social commerce mobile app where brands discover and connect with creators, negotiate campaign terms through in-app chat, and track sales through unique affiliate links and collaboration codes, with TikTok-style content discovery at the center so users encounter products through creator content rather than ads. User engagement grew 200% in the first month. Brand sales increased 25%.
before & after
What changed
- Brands sourced creators across multiple platforms with no way to filter by audience size, category, or platform: discovery was manual and inconsistent
- Campaign negotiations happened over DMs and email with no structured terms, no documented collaboration details, and no clear handoff to the content creation phase
- Attribution was guesswork: no affiliate link or collaboration code system tied a creator's post to actual purchases, so brands could not measure campaign ROI
- Creators managed multiple active brand deals across different channels with no unified view of pending requests, active collaborations, or promotional assets
- No content moderation layer existed to maintain feed quality as creator and brand volume grew: the platform had no way to approve content before it reached users
- Brands search and filter creators by category, audience size, and connected social platforms; collaboration requests go directly through the platform
- Brands and creators negotiate in real-time in-app chat; collaboration terms, codes, and affiliate links are documented within each collaboration record before content creation begins
- Unique affiliate links and collaboration codes attribute every purchase and campaign interaction back to the specific creator and promotion that drove it
- Creators manage all active and pending collaborations from a single dashboard with full visibility into terms, promotional assets, and posted content status
- Admin portal reviews and approves all content before it appears in the platform feed, with analytics on collaboration volume, post performance, and platform-wide user activity
What we had to solve
- 01
Building a content feed that drives purchase behavior without burying the brand-creator collaboration layer
A social commerce app has two simultaneously competing design goals: a consumer-facing content feed that feels like entertainment, and a B2B collaboration layer where brands and creators negotiate and execute campaigns. Letting either one dominate breaks the other. The feed needed to feel like TikTok (scroll-first, discovery-forward) while the collaboration workflow needed to feel like a structured business tool. Keeping those two experiences in the same app without one feeling bolted onto the other was the product design challenge at the core of the build.
- 02
Tracking affiliate attribution reliably when creators share links across external platforms
Creators promote products on Sponzee, but they also share affiliate links on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. A link shared on an external platform goes through redirects, URL shorteners, and platform-specific tracking that can strip or corrupt attribution parameters. Building a link system that maintained attribution across those paths, and flagged patterns that looked like link manipulation rather than organic sharing, required designing the attribution layer before any campaign mechanics were built on top of it.
outcomes
What we achieved
Brand-creator collaboration required sourcing, negotiation, campaign execution, and attribution tracking across five separate tools with no shared data layer.
Without affiliate links or collaboration codes, brands could not measure what their influencer spend was actually driving. Campaign ROI was estimated, not measured.
Existing platforms were either social networks with no commerce layer or influencer marketplaces with no content feed. Sponzee's video-first feed created the engagement pattern that drove purchase discovery.
What clients say
Most clients stay.
Some say so on camera.
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
USAI was pleased with RaftLabs team's quality, consistency and execution.
Your brand runs influencer campaigns but cannot track which creator is actually driving sales?
the build
What we built
Sponzee is built around a single mechanic: every collaboration starts in discovery, moves through negotiation, executes through tracked promotional content, and closes with attribution data that tells both sides what actually worked.
Collaboration requests start in the platform, DMs and email no longer the entry point
Brands search creators by category, audience size, and connected social platforms. Creators link their existing social accounts to their Sponzee profile, making their audience data visible to brands searching for a match. Collaboration requests go directly through the platform: the process that previously happened across DMs and email now has a structured starting point.
Terms agreed and documented in one place, no tracking across inboxes or spreadsheets
Brands and creators negotiate terms through in-app chat. Once both sides agree, the collaboration record is created with the product to promote, collaboration code, affiliate link, and terms documented in one place. Creators see all active and pending collaborations from their dashboard. No tracking in a separate spreadsheet or inbox.
Brands see per-creator results, not aggregate numbers that hide who's delivering
Each collaboration generates a unique affiliate link and collaboration code that the creator uses when publishing promotional content. Every purchase or campaign interaction traced to that link attributes back to the creator and collaboration that drove it. Brands see per-creator performance data: clicks, conversions, and sales, not aggregate campaign numbers that obscure which creators are delivering.
Admins review and approve content before it reaches the feed: quality holds as volume grows
Users discover products through an endless scroll feed of short-form promotional content from creators they follow. Admins review and approve content before it appears in the feed, maintaining quality as platform volume grows. The admin portal surfaces analytics on collaborations created, posts published, and platform-wide user activity, giving the Sponzee team visibility into what is performing and what needs attention.
Engagement
How we worked together
- 01Weeks 1–2
Discovery and scoping
We map the problem before writing code. Two weeks of technical audit, stakeholder interviews, and prototype — so both teams align on scope and risk before sprint one.
- 02Ongoing
Two-week Agile sprints
Each sprint ends with working software, not a status update. You review a real build, request changes, and approve before we move forward. No surprises at handover.
- 03Ongoing
Daily async updates
Slack for daily progress, Asana for task visibility, weekly video calls for decisions. You have full visibility without needing to attend every meeting.
- 04Final
Handover and warranty
Full code handover with deployment runbooks and documentation. Thirty-day warranty period for production issues at no extra cost.
stack
Why we chose this stack
- 01A social commerce mobile app required a consistent experience across iOS and Android. Splitting creator and brand users by device type would have fragmented the community. Flutter's single codebase handled video feed rendering, camera access for content creation, and real-time chat without maintaining two separate implementations. Performance on both platforms was production-ready from the first release.Flutter
- 02The admin portal and web-facing surfaces needed rich client-side interaction for collaboration management, content review queues, and analytics dashboards. React's component model supported the complex filtering, multi-state views, and real-time update requirements of the admin workflow without a page refresh per action.React.js
- 03The collaboration workflow spans discovery, negotiation, campaign creation, affiliate link generation, content moderation, and analytics, each requiring its own data access pattern. Hasura's auto-generated GraphQL API eliminated repetitive endpoint development, and real-time subscriptions kept chat messages and collaboration status updates instant for both parties in a negotiation.Hasura
- 04Four distinct user types (creators, brands, end users, and admins) each needed separate authentication flows, role-based access controls, and social login support. Cognito handled the identity layer for all four without custom auth infrastructure, and its role-claim model enforced what each user type could access across both the mobile app and admin portal.AWS Cognito
Common questions about Sponzee
When a creator shares a Sponzee affiliate link on an external platform, the link goes through a server-side redirect that preserves the attribution parameters regardless of how the destination platform handles URLs. Most external platforms cache or redirect links in ways that strip client-side tracking parameters, so the attribution relies on the server-side redirect layer rather than URL query strings. For cases where a redirect is followed but the attribution parameter is unavailable, the system uses the last known valid referral to assign credit. Patterns that look like link manipulation (the same affiliate link triggered from many distinct IP addresses in a short window) are flagged for review rather than credited automatically.
A brand searches for creators by category and audience fit, reviews profiles, and sends a collaboration request through the platform. The creator accepts or declines. If accepted, both sides move to in-app chat to negotiate terms: product, messaging, timeline, and compensation. Once agreed, the collaboration record is created with the product details, collaboration code, and affiliate link. The creator publishes promotional content using those assets on Sponzee and their other social platforms. The brand sees real-time performance data as views, clicks, and purchases come in. The entire process (from first contact to tracked published content) happens without leaving the platform.
All content goes through an admin review queue before it appears on the platform timeline. Admins review each post against platform guidelines before approving it for the feed. This applies to all creator posts, not just first-time publishers: the queue is the single gate between content creation and feed visibility. The admin portal shows all pending posts with creator details, collaboration context, and the submitted content, so reviewers have the information they need to make an accurate decision without chasing down context separately.
Existing influencer platforms are B2B marketplaces: brands find creators, run campaigns, and track performance, but the end consumer's experience is off-platform. Sponzee is built around a consumer-facing content feed. Users discover products through creator content in a scroll-first experience, not through ads or search. The brand-creator collaboration layer is underneath that feed, not separate from it. The result is that promotional content on Sponzee functions as both a campaign execution tool for brands and a content consumption surface for buyers: the same post drives attribution and engagement simultaneously.
We delivered Sponzee (Flutter mobile app for iOS and Android, React.js admin portal, Hasura GraphQL API, four-role authentication with AWS Cognito, creator search and filtering, in-app chat, affiliate link generation and attribution tracking, content moderation queue, and analytics dashboard) in 16 weeks. The most complex pieces were the attribution layer (reliable tracking across external platforms) and the dual-mode design (consumer content feed coexisting with a B2B collaboration workflow). A platform supporting one user type or without cross-platform affiliate attribution would be faster. Contact us to scope based on your user roles, attribution requirements, and content moderation needs.
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