US K-Beauty Marketing Terms: What Do They Mean?

Most mix-ups in a first US creator campaign come from terms the brand and the agency define differently. Both say "seeding," but one expects posts and the other doesn't, and the product ships before anyone asks whether the videos can run as ads.

So this glossary is grouped in the order a campaign runs: find creators and send them product, try it small on a college campus, put ad spend behind the best videos, measure the results, sell through TikTok Shop, then get onto a retail shelf. Every entry gives the working meaning and one thing the brand and its partner should settle before starting.

Which terms come up when you send product to creators?

The first step is finding creators, choosing among them, shipping product with instructions and counting what gets posted, and the terms below follow that order. The posting conditions and disclosure method you set here carry over when you later run ads and sell on TikTok Shop.

Seeding

Sending product to creators for free so they can try it. With no fee and no posting requirement, it is gifted seeding; once posting is a condition, it becomes a collaboration where what gets posted, and when, is agreed in advance. Settle first: decide whether posting is required before anything ships, and say so in the note that goes in the box. For how many creators to send to, see How Many Creators for a US Seeding Campaign?

Outreach

There are two ways to find creators for seeding. Outreach means contacting creators first to propose a collaboration; the other route is to announce a campaign and take applications. BAZZAAL's seeding runs on applications: creators apply, and product ships only to those who confirm they want it. Settle first: ask how your partner finds creators. For outreach, ask whose account or email the messages come from; for applications, ask where the call goes out.

Nano creator

A creator with a small following. Influencer Marketing Hub puts nano creators under 10,000 followers, and most participants in BAZZAAL's gifted seeding fall in that range. Settle first: agree on a number for "nano" with your partner, and use follower count only as a floor. Above it, compare engagement and recent content; the criteria are in How Do You Choose Creators for a US Seeding Campaign?

Engagement rate

The first number used to compare nano creators: likes, comments and other reactions on a post, divided by followers and multiplied by 100. Influencer Marketing Hub also divides by impressions instead of followers. On a TikTok account whose views far exceed its followers, the two methods can differ several times over. Average engagement rates fall as follower counts grow, so compare creators within the same size band. Settle first: agree whether the denominator is followers or impressions (views, on TikTok), and whether saves and shares count, before you trade numbers.

Fake followers

What to rule out before trusting a follower count or an engagement rate: followers that were bought or generated by bots. Fake followers inflate the follower count, and the likes and comments bought alongside them inflate engagement, so both numbers can look healthy on a padded account. In Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 survey of about 600 marketers, fake or bot followers accounted for 56.5% of the fraud and quality problems respondents reported. Settle first: ask what your partner checks before approving a creator. At minimum: whether recent comments read like real conversation, and whether the follower count jumped in a short stretch.

Creator brief

The instructions that ship with the product to each creator who makes it through screening; BAZZAAL calls it a guideline. It covers how to use the product, shots to include, claims to avoid, how to disclose and when to post. Settle first: write it to help, with lines like "for this concern, use it like this" in place of "go buy this," and have the brand set limits in advance on claims that need evidence, such as efficacy.

Disclosure

The one item every brief needs: a creator telling followers that a post involves a brand relationship. The FTC says free product alone is enough to require it, in a way that is hard to miss. Plain words work: "Thanks to [brand] for the free product," or terms like "ad" and "sponsored." Vague tags like "sp" or "collab" do not. Settle first: even with no posting requirement, include a note that asks recipients to disclose the gift and tag the brand.

Posting rate

The first number to check once product is out: the share of shipped products that turn into posted content. Ship 100 and get 70 posts, and the posting rate is 70%. BAZZAAL plans around roughly 70%, a conservative figure drawn from its past campaigns, so 30 posts means shipping about 43 (30 ÷ 0.7). Settle first: agree on how posts are counted: how many days the posting window runs, and whether stories that vanish after a day are included.

What changes when you test seeding on a college campus?

A US college campus is a place to run that seeding on a small scale first. During sorority rush, rushees post outfit and makeup videos every day for about ten days, so product sent to a few students shows up on screen again and again in a short window. Because the window is short, settle the dates and the students with your partner before anything else.

Sorority

The organization behind rush: a women's social and service group at a US college. The same organization has chapters at many schools and takes a Greek-letter name, such as Alpha Delta Pi (ΑΔΠ). The men's equivalent is a fraternity. Settle first: each school's chapter decides on partnerships and terms for itself, so a plan should name the school's chapter, not just "Alpha Delta Pi."

Chapter and Greek life

A chapter is a sorority's or fraternity's branch at one school. Some chapters run a chapter house where members live together. Greek life is the umbrella term for sorority and fraternity life on campus. Settle first: partnerships that use a chapter house take more product and bring school rules into play, so start a first campaign with individual students. CeraVe's 2026 makeover of the Tri Delta backyard at Florida State into a sunscreen spot shows what a house partnership looks like.

Panhellenic Association

The council of sorority chapters at one school, which runs recruitment registration and the schedule. Settle first: sponsoring a chapter or an event brings in school, chapter and Panhellenic rules that differ by campus, so agree with your partner on who contacts the school's fraternity and sorority life office, and do it before committing.

Rush and recruitment

The period, run by the Panhellenic Association, when sororities choose new members; the formal name is recruitment. Alabama's 2026 rush opened with online registration on May 1, and Alabama Panhellenic reported 2,506 registrations. Settle first: registration opens in May, so pick the school and the student list by spring. For campaigns brands ran during rush, see How Can a K-Beauty Brand Reach US College Sororities?

RushTok

TikTok videos documenting rush, and the hashtag that collects them. Rushees post their outfit and makeup each day of recruitment, and Business Insider reported 2 billion views on the hashtag as of 2023. Settle first: send product to students who will actually post during rush, and mark on the list whether each one is a rushee or a current member.

PNM

Short for potential new member: anyone eligible to take part in recruitment. The term comes from the National Panhellenic Conference, and school schedules and recruitment guides use it too. Settle first: find PNM early move-in on the school's schedule. At Alabama in 2026 it was August 6, and videos start that day, so product should arrive earlier, by the end of July.

Bid Day

A bid is a sorority's invitation to join. Bid Day is the last day of rush, when PNMs open their envelopes and run to the house of the chapter that chose them. Settle first: new-member events and videos continue after Bid Day; Alabama's 2026 welcome events ran through October 10, so keep checking posts past Bid Day.

What do you need to run those videos as ads?

When a creator video does well, from a campus test or a regular seeding run, the brand usually wants to put ad spend behind it or work with that creator again on a paid basis. That takes the creator's rates, rights and permission, none of which come with a shipped product.

UGC

Creator videos that could become ads are usually called UGC, short for user-generated content: content made by people rather than the brand. In practice it usually means the videos and photos creators shoot while using a product. Settle first: list where you might reuse creator videos (ads, product pages, email). That list becomes the scope of your usage-rights request.

Rate card

To work with a UGC creator again on a paid basis, start with the rate card: the creator's price list for paid work. It prices each deliverable, such as a feed post, a reel or a TikTok video, and often lists usage rights and exclusivity as add-ons. The companion document, with follower size, engagement and past brand work, is the media kit, and creators often send both. Settle first: before comparing prices, check what each covers. A rate that leaves out the number of deliverables, revision rounds or a usage period usually costs more once those are added.

Usage rights

Permission for a brand to use a creator's content elsewhere, such as in paid ads. Shipping product does not grant it. Settle first: ask the creator separately, with a period (for example, 30 days) and the channels (paid social, product pages) spelled out. For how to ask and what it costs, see What Does It Cost to Pay a Creator for Usage Rights?

Exclusivity

If usage rights set how a brand may use the content, exclusivity limits the creator's other deals. It is a contract term that keeps the creator from working with competing brands for a period, usually only within the same product category. Because it limits what the creator can earn elsewhere, it is normally paid for separately. Settle first: write the scope (a category such as cushions, or a named list of brands) and the period (for example, a number of days after posting) as specific terms. Gifted seeding pays the creator nothing, so exclusivity is hard to ask for there.

Whitelisting

With rights and exclusivity settled, the next question is whose name the ad runs under. Whitelisting is industry shorthand for a brand running ads under a creator's handle. Each platform has its own name for it: partnership ads on Instagram and Facebook, Spark Ads on TikTok. Settle first: pick the platform first. On Meta the creator approves the brand as a partner; on TikTok the creator sends an authorization code for the post, so what you collect differs.

Partnership ads

Meta's format for running ads with a partner such as a creator; both accounts appear at the top of the ad. Once the creator approves the brand as a partner, the brand can run the creator's posts, stories or reels as partnership ads. Settle first: nothing runs without the creator's approval, so request it together with usage rights.

Spark Ads

TikTok's format for running existing organic posts as ads, including a creator's posts with their authorization. Views, comments, likes and follows gained while the ad runs stay on the original post and account. Settle first: match the length of the creator's ad authorization to the usage-rights period.

Which terms come up when you measure results?

Once content is live, from seeding or from ads, what remains is deciding which numbers count. The same campaign can read as a win or a miss depending on the metric, so settle the definitions before the first report arrives.

Reach and impressions

These are the first two numbers in most reports. Reach is the number of accounts that saw the content at least once; impressions count how many times it appeared on screen. If one person sees a post three times, that is a reach of 1 and 3 impressions. Meta separates the two this way in its ad metrics. Settle first: decide which of the two goes in the report. For organic posts only the creator can see these numbers, so agree on screenshots and a date to send them by.

EMV

Earned media value puts a dollar figure on reach and engagement: an estimate of what the exposure from creator content would have cost as paid media. There is no single industry formula. Kolsquare, for example, puts a value on each like, each comment and each 1,000 impressions and adds them up, while other tools use their own weights. It is an estimate, separate from actual sales. Settle first: if EMV is in the report, ask which tool's formula produced it, and don't set it beside campaigns measured with a different tool.

ROAS

Where EMV is an estimate, ROAS measures actual sales against ad spend: revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost. $1,000 in spend that brings in $4,000 in sales is a ROAS of 4, or 400%. Meta calculates purchase ROAS from purchase values recorded by the Meta Pixel or Conversions API. Settle first: decide which sales count. Purchases Meta records, or those plus sales on your own site and Amazon over the same period, will give the same ads a different ROAS.

Which terms come up when you sell on TikTok Shop?

Once the numbers show which videos work, the next step is selling from the video itself. On TikTok Shop, viewers check out without leaving the video, and creators become a sales channel paid on commission.

TikTok Shop affiliate

The TikTok Shop program in which creators promote a seller's products through videos, LIVEs and links, earning a commission on each item sold through that content. The seller sets the rate. Settle first: decide whether to run an open collaboration that any creator can join or to invite specific creators. For how to set the rate, see TikTok Shop Commission: What the Number Actually Buys.

Target collaboration

One of the two ways to set up affiliate deals: the seller picks specific creators and offers them selected products at a set commission. The other route, open collaboration, shows the products and terms to every creator. TikTok Shop's seller guidance sets commissions between 1% and 80%, and creators invited through a target collaboration get the target rate in place of the open rate for the same product. Settle first: move creators who did well in seeding onto a target list, and decide whether to offer them more than the open rate.

Free samples

TikTok Shop's way for creators to request product from a seller at no cost. It looks like seeding, but TikTok Shop opens free samples only to creators with a sales record: as of September 2026, US guidance requires TikTok Shop sales in the last 120 days, and each request needs seller approval. Creators without recent sales can use refundable samples instead, buying the product and getting the money back once they hit the seller's sales goal. Settle first: set a free-sample quantity and approval criteria for each product. Seller Center can limit requests by a creator's main content category, follower count, sales volume and number of shoppable posts.

Shoppable video

The videos creators post with those samples are usually shoppable videos: TikTok videos with a product link attached, so viewers can open the product and buy while watching. As of October 2026, TikTok Shop's seller guidance caps creators under 5,000 followers at five shoppable videos a week. Settle first: if you work with nano creators, plan their posting schedule within that cap.

GMV

The number that comes up most when TikTok Shop results are discussed. Gross merchandise value is the total value of goods sold on a platform over a period, including sales from shoppable videos and LIVEs. It is counted before returns and fees, so a brand keeps less than its GMV. Settle first: before discussing results with a partner, agree whether you are reporting GMV or sales net of returns. For TikTok Shop US beauty figures, see K-Beauty on TikTok Shop US.

What do you need to know before going into retail?

With a sales record on TikTok Shop, stores like Ulta and Sephora come next. At this stage most of what the brand and its partner settle is about the product: shade range and darkening for cushions, US paperwork for sunscreen, and an Ulta-only product to lead the pitch.

Darkening

A cushion or foundation turning darker on the skin over the hours after it goes on, often called oxidation. In October 2026, BAZZAAL counted public Ulta reviews for two groups: four K-beauty cushions, and 84 foundations from 32 brands Ulta already sells (MAC, Maybelline and Fenty Beauty among them). Darkening came up in 9.1% of cushion reviews and 2.2% of foundation reviews, so cushion buyers raised it about four times as often. Settle first: agree with your partner to put a shade-matching card in the seeding box and ask creators to film the product on skin in daylight. The full count is in What Does Ulta Look for in K-Beauty Brands?

Shade and undertone

A shade-matching card has to use both of these terms correctly. A shade is one color in a base product's range; Korean teams usually call it a "ho" number. Undertone is the warm, cool or neutral cast beneath the skin's surface color. Settle first: before counting shades, agree with your partner on three checks: how light and how dark the range goes, whether the steps between neighboring shades are even, and whether warm, cool and neutral undertones are all covered.

OTC sunscreen

Sunscreen faces a different gate: paperwork. The US regulates sunscreen as an over-the-counter drug. It can only use ingredients that meet FDA requirements, and it needs facility and product registration, a Drug Facts label and cGMP manufacturing. Settle first: a sunscreen can't go on a shelf, or even into a seeding box, until the US label and registration are done, so put that paperwork first on the timeline you build with your partner.

Exclusive

With the product and paperwork in place, the pitch can lead with an exclusive: a brand or product sold through only one retailer. In the second-quarter results Ulta reported in August 2026, nearly half of its K-beauty sales came from Ulta-exclusive brands or products. Settle first: before pitching, decide whether there is a product or set you can offer Ulta alone.

What should you do once the terms are settled?

The "seeding" mismatch from the top is easier to avoid when these points are on one page before launch. List posting conditions and the disclosure method, how creators are found and how posts are counted, and the delivery date for a campus test. Add what a rate includes, the usage-rights and exclusivity terms, how ad permission is granted and which metrics go in the report. Finish with commission and sample rules, and shade range and sunscreen paperwork for retail. When the brand and its partner check that page together before launch, they have fewer terms to renegotiate after the product ships.

Where to read next depends on your first channel. For creator seeding, start with How Do You Choose Creators for a US Seeding Campaign? For TikTok Shop, start with How to Sell K-Beauty on TikTok Shop US. For retail, start with What Does Ulta Look for in K-Beauty Brands?

Sources. TikTok Ads Manager Help Center, About Spark Ads (updated June 2026); Meta Business Help Center, About partnership ads; TikTok Shop Seller University (US), affiliate commission and shoppable video guidance; Setting Up Affiliate Collaborations (2026-07-16); Guide to Samples: Free and Refundable (2026-09-24); Meta Business Help Center, reach, impressions and purchase ROAS metric definitions; Influencer Marketing Hub, engagement rate formula; 2026 influencer marketing fraud and quality survey; Kolsquare, Earned Media Value (EMV), 2026-07-23; Make Influence, Exclusivity Clauses in Influencer Contracts; Hypefy, influencer rate card guide; FTC, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers; FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking; National Panhellenic Conference, Recruitment Logistics training concept (2023); Influencer Marketing Hub, influencer tier definitions (2026); Business Insider, Sorority Influencers Are Building Careers Off the Back of Rush Season, 2023-09; Alabama Panhellenic Association, Instagram posts (@uapanhellenic), 2026-07-18 to 2026-08-18; BeautyMatter, Back-to-School Beauty: The Brands on Campus, 2026-09-10; Ulta Beauty, fiscal 2026 second-quarter results; BAZZAAL research: public Ulta product-page reviews (collected October 17, 2026); BAZZAAL internal data: seeding posting-rate baseline from past campaigns.