Finding and managing creators (My Affiliates, AI Search, Lists & Groups)

This is for brand and agency operators who want to find creators, keep their roster organized, and feed the right people into outreach.

The quick version

Cruva gives you four ways to work with creators:

• My Affiliates — affiliates who have posted, earned, or requested samples for your store.
• AI Creator Search — find new creators across TikTok Shop's affiliate database that may have never interacted with the brand.
• Lists — saved sets of creators you upload or save from a search, used to feed an automation once. One list holds handles and emails together, so the same list can drive DMs or email.
• Groups — dynamic, rule-based segments of your own affiliates that an automation keeps messaging as creators match.

My Affiliates

Dashboard → Affiliate CRM → My Affiliates

This is your full roster of creators connected to the current shop. Per creator you see handle, followers, program status, lifetime GMV, units, videos, post rate, tags and demographics.

Use the date range on this page to filter performance during a certain time window for your affiliates, or select the date range then select all time to pull all time performance. You may find that there's less or no affiliates when selecting a time range, and this is because it only includes creators who have generated a sale or made a post during the period. To see all of your affiliates, we recommend filtering in all-time mode. Some filters and columns may be unavailable when searching in time-range mode, applying all time will show all filters.

Filtering and finding

Use the Filters button to narrow by status, GMV / video GMV / live GMV ranges, followers, post rate, Days Since Last Post, showcasing a specific product, has email / has phone / already messaged, and tags. Sample-request status is multi-select.

Tagging

Tags are free-form labels (e.g. retainer, beauty, do-not-contact). Add them to one creator from their row, or select multiple rows and use the bulk tag action. You can then include a tag as a filter here and inside Group rules.

"Do not contact"

There isn't a single global do-not-contact toggle. Use these instead:

• Tag the creators (e.g. do-not-contact) so you can spot and exclude them.
• For outreach, use the Exclude Affiliates button on the Automations page so a campaign skips them (you can exclude by tag/group, uploaded lists, or other automations).
• For samples, add them to Ignored Affiliates on the Sample Requests page (you can choose to ignore all their future requests too).

AI Creator Search

Dashboard → AI Creator Search

Type what you want in plain language and Cruva turns it into filters plus a similarity match. It has three tabs: natural-language (AI), Lookalike, and Image search.

Plan requirement

AI Creator Search is available on Growth and Scale plans. On a free trial / free plan the search is locked and you'll see an "Upgrade to use AI Creator Search" prompt.

What it searches (scope)

Results come only from creators registered in the TikTok Shop Affiliate program — Cruva's data is sourced directly from TikTok Shop's affiliate database. You can't use it to find creators who aren't in the affiliate program.

How to phrase a query

Be specific or broad — the AI reads natural language. You can search on:

• Performance: followers, 30d GMV, live GMV, engagement, average views, brand collaborations.
• Appearance/identity: gender, age range, language, etc.
• Category/niche: skincare, cooking, fitness, gaming, parenting, fashion, and more.

Example: "Latinx women who review skincare with over 1k followers" or "men with beards with over 10k live GMV". Use the What to search for link by the box for more examples, and the Filters / Advanced panel to fine-tune (min videos, recency window, strictness, AI-content).

Selecting results and saving them

The checkbox at the top selects everyone on the current page. To capture all results (including thousands across many pages), clear the selection and click Add All to List — it takes the whole result set, up to the cap you set on the slider in the dialog (1k–10k). With rows selected the button becomes Add (N) to List. Either way the dialog lets you create a new list or add to an existing one.

Uploading a creator list (CSV)

Dashboard → Lists → Create List

Use this to bring in creators you found elsewhere (e.g. an export) and blast them with an automation.

File format

There is no list type to choose — a list holds handles and emails together, and the file is read for both.

• Plain text only — .csv, .tsv or .txt. Excel/Numbers/Sheets files are rejected (even renamed ones) — open the file and use File → Save As → CSV.
• Columns are detected automatically. Titling them handles and emails is the surest route, but handle, username, tiktok handle, email address, contact email and similar all match. A file with both columns keeps both on the same creator.
• The @ is optional, and a cell is read for what it actually is — an address in the handle column is still treated as an email.
• No header row is fine; Cruva sniffs the first rows, falling back to reading the first column as handles.
• Up to 50,000 rows per upload.

A one-column file of bare handles works as it always has:

kylejones
beautybyanna
fitwithsam

For short lists there's also a Paste handles tab — one entry per line (commas and spaces work too), emails accepted in the same box.

What happens on upload

Every entry is matched against the creator database for your region and enriched: upload a handle and Cruva attaches that creator's email where one is on file; upload an email and it resolves back to a handle. The success toast reports what landed — Added 4,812 creators · 4,812 handles, 1,190 emails — plus any caveats (not matched to a creator, duplicates skipped, invalid rows skipped). Handles that don't resolve to a creator are still added, just without follower/GMV data attached; some of that is normal.

Adding to an existing list vs merging

• To add creators to a list you already have, open the list and use Add creator or email or Upload more, use Add to another list from a row or selection, or save into it from Creator Search.
• To combine several lists, use Merge Lists: it creates a new list and keeps the originals, de-duplicating overlapping entries.

Note: uploading emails on the My Affiliates page only matches emails to creators already in your CRM. To upload a fresh list to message, use Lists.

Sharing a list with your other shops

A list is owned by the shop that created it, but ⋮ → Share… (or Also share with… at creation) makes it usable in your other shops in the same region under the same account. It stays one list — members and edits stay in sync everywhere it's shared, rather than being copied. See Managing lists for the full rules.

Groups vs Lists

This trips a lot of people up. The difference is static vs dynamic:

• What it is — Lists: A static set of creators you upload or save (handles and emails together) · Groups: A dynamic segment of your affiliates defined by conditions
• Where — Lists: Dashboard → Lists · Groups: Dashboard → Affiliate CRM → Groups
• How an automation uses it — Lists: Messages each creator in order, then turns off at the end · Groups: Runs continuously, messaging creators as soon as they match — no manual updates
• Updates itself? — Lists: No · Groups: Yes

Building a condition-based group

Dashboard → Affiliate CRM → Groups → Create Group

1. Name the group.

2. Build the rule using the same filters as My Affiliates (status, GMV/units ranges, tags, product showcased, days since activity, etc.). A live preview shows who matches and the count.

3. You must set a title and at least one filter before you can save.

High-value groups to build first:

• Shipped but not Posted — status = shipment/content-pending only. Creators sitting on free product. Usually the biggest leak.
• Posted but $0 GMV — content that didn't convert; good for a follow-up brief.
• High performers — high lifetime GMV; candidates for retainers.

Linking a group to an automation

When you create an Automation (or Email Campaign), choose CRM Creators as the Outreach Audience and pick your group. (The audience options are Outreach = new affiliates, Saved Lists, and CRM Creators = a group.) The automation's audience stays in sync with the rule automatically. If you later try to delete a group that an automation or email campaign is using, Cruva warns you and lists what's linked.

Common problems

"CSV says 0 imported." Make sure it's a real plain-text .csv (not a renamed .xlsx) and that it actually contains handles or email addresses. There's no list type to get wrong. Handles that don't resolve to a creator are still added, so they're not the cause.

"AI search bar is greyed out." AI Creator Search needs a Growth or Scale plan.

"It only selects the page." The checkbox is per page. Clear the selection and use Add All to List to save every result.

"I can't add to an existing list — I keep making new ones." Open the list and use Add creator or email / Upload more, pick the existing list on the Add to existing tab of the Add to List dialog, or use Merge Lists to combine.