“The US has the money, the UK has the data”: Sedge Beswick on creator marketing and the realities of selling an influencer agency

The creator economy may be global, but the way brands approach influencer marketing still varies sharply depending on which side of the Atlantic they operate on, according to SEEN Connects founder Sedge Beswick.

Beswick told The Daily Influence that American companies tend to move faster and invest more heavily in creators, while UK brands are often more focused on measurement and proving the return on their campaigns.

“I was really surprised how easy it was for me to get in the room,” she said of expanding into the US market. “Americans love a founder, love a CEO. They love the American dream, a success story, and that really helped to gain first conversations.”

That openness, Beswick said, often translated into larger marketing budgets and faster decision-making around creator partnerships.

“We’re doing it in the UK,” she added, “but we’re not investing at the scale or at the level that the US is.”

Beswick founded influencer marketing firm SEEN Connects in 2016 and spent eight years building the business before selling her shares in 2023. During that time, she said the firm leaned heavily into campaign measurement, particularly when working with e-commerce brands willing to grant access to backend sales data.

“For every pound they were spending, they were seeing a return of 17 pounds,” she said, describing campaigns where the team could monitor basket values, click-through rates and conversion data week by week.

“We had the receipts that we were a really great agency.”

Data over hype

That same evidence-based thinking also shaped how Beswick approached one of the industry's most persistent debates: whether brands are better served by micro-influencers or bigger creators.

While industry conversations often frame the choice as a binary one, she said the more relevant question is what the brand actually needs the campaign to deliver.

“If you want to create lots of user-generated content that you can use across paid, organic and [customer relationship management], then micro influencers are great,” she said. “But if the goal is really moving the dial and driving [return on investment], I’ve never worked on a campaign where micro influencers have delivered a higher return than bigger creators.”

Beswick began exploring a sale of SEEN Connects around the same time rival The Goat Agency was also in discussions with buyers – a process she said was widely known within the industry despite the NDAs typically surrounding deals.

Goat, whose co-founders had more prior experience of dealmaking, ultimately sold to advertising group WPP – a transaction that helped fuel investor interest in influencer marketing agencies. 

Beswick, by contrast, found herself navigating the same moment with less experienced advisors and learning the mechanics of private equity largely in real time.

‘Money changes people’

Exploring the sale of SEEN Connects in the wake of The Goat Agency’s headline-grabbing sale proved to be a double-edged sword for Beswick.

The moment brought significant attention from private equity firms, but also exposed how dramatically incentives can shift during negotiations.

“Money changes people,” Beswick said, reflecting on the deal process.

At one stage, the business attracted offers valuing it at around £24 million.

“I did not have the right advisors for me,” she said, adding that some advisers were focused primarily on closing the deal rather than representing her interests. “They were very much looking after them.”

The process unfolded while Beswick was pregnant – something she says quickly altered the dynamic of negotiations.

“When I then said I was also pregnant, it was like I hit the nuclear,” she said. “They really could not compute why I had chosen to have a child at such an inconvenient time.”

Beswick said she suggested pausing the discussions and revisiting the process after maternity leave, but advisers encouraged her to keep pushing forward as the deal moved closer to completion.

Ultimately, she pulled out of the process.

“It was literally two weeks before my daughter came that I fully was like, absolutely not.”

Her shares were later bought by existing investors and a family trust, bringing the process to an end and allowing her to step away from the company she had built on her own terms.

Looking back, Beswick said making that decision – despite the pressure to keep the deal moving – was the right one.

Today she describes herself as having a portfolio career, investing in female-led businesses, advising brands on creator strategy and running accelerators through her venture NXT LVL.

She has also launched a YouTube channel aimed at encouraging more women to start businesses and back their own ideas.

“I keep saying, if I give one woman the confidence to launch her own business and to back herself, then it was worth it,” she said.

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