Brand Deal Tracker: How to Track Brand Deals

A brand deal tracker is one place where every deal has a record, and each record shows the stage, the brand contact, the deliverables and due dates, the approval status, the invoice status and whether you've been paid. The field list below covers what most creators need to track for every deal, and the rest of this guide explains how to keep it current. In STAKD, each deal is a campaign, and the campaign is where those details live.

Why track deals at all

When you have one sponsor a month, you can keep it in your head and your inbox. Once you have three or four running at different stages, things slip:

• A draft deadline passes because it was buried in a contract PDF
• An invoice never gets sent because the video went live on a busy week
• A payment is 30 days late and you don't notice
• You agree to an exclusivity window and forget it when a competitor emails

A tracker doesn't need to be fancy. It needs one record per deal and the discipline to update it when something changes.

What to track for each deal

Stage

The stage tells you what needs to happen next. A simple pipeline:

1. Lead — brand reached out, or you pitched
2. Negotiating — scope and rate being discussed
3. Contracted — contract signed
4. In production — scripting, filming, editing
5. In review — draft sent to the brand
6. Live — content posted
7. Invoiced — invoice sent
8. Paid — money received
9. Lost / Passed — didn't happen

Keep lost and passed deals. They're useful later: a brand that passed at your rate last spring may come back, and you'll want to know what you quoted.

Brand and contacts

• Brand name
• Contact name, role and email
• Agency, if one is involved (agencies often handle the contract while someone else at the brand approves content)
• Who handles payment, if it's a different person

Many payment problems turn out to be "the invoice went to someone who doesn't process invoices." Get the accounts payable contact early. In STAKD, a campaign links to the brand contact saved in your contacts, so you aren't searching your inbox to find who handles which brand.

Deliverables and dates

One deal can have several deliverables. For each:

• What it is (dedicated video, integration, Reel, Story set)
• Platform
• Draft due date
• Posting date or window
• Link to the live post, once it's up

A deal with five deliverables is five sets of dates. STAKD campaigns list each deliverable with its own amount, due date and completion check, so they stay attached to the deal instead of scattered across notes.

Approvals

• Script approved? (date)
• Draft sent (date)
• Revisions requested (how many rounds so far vs. how many are included)
• Final approved (date)

Tracking revision rounds against the contract limit makes it easier to see when a brand is asking for more than was agreed.

Rights and restrictions

These dates outlast the deal itself:

• Usage rights type and end date
• Exclusivity category and end date
• How long the content must stay live

When a competitor emails six weeks later, this is what you check. For how these terms work, see usage rights and exclusivity fees.

Money

• Agreed fee
• Payment terms (net 30, net 60, etc.)
• Invoice number and date sent
• Payment due date (invoice date plus net days, or whatever the contract says starts the clock)
• Amount received and date
• Payment method

At year end, these records are also where your income figures come from. Brand payments may be reported to you on a 1099; see 1099 forms for content creators.

What to track for every deal: the full field list

These are the fields a complete deal record contains. The example values are made up.

Keeping the record clean

• Use a fixed list for stage and approval status. Free-text stages drift ("waiting," "pending," "sent?") and become impossible to sort.
• Set the payment due date the day you invoice. Invoice date plus the net days, or whatever the contract says starts the clock. A due date is what lets you notice a late payment on day 31 instead of day 60.
• Sort by the next date that matters. During production that's the draft due date. After posting it's the payment due date.
• Review it weekly. Ten minutes on the same day each week is enough to catch most problems.
• Keep documents with the deal. The contract, brief and email thread belong attached to the deal, not pasted into notes or left in your downloads folder.

Habits that keep a tracker useful

A tracker only works if it's current. A few habits help:

• Add the deal on first contact, not when the contract is signed. That way you have a record of what you quoted.
• Update the stage when you send something, not when you remember to.
• Send the invoice the day the content goes live, if the contract allows it, and record the payment due date immediately. See how to invoice a brand.
• Follow up the day after a payment is due, not weeks later. See what to do when a brand pays late.
• Check exclusivity before every new deal. Look at every deal with an exclusivity window that hasn't ended.

How STAKD handles this

The hard part of tracking deals isn't knowing what to record. It's that the same details end up copied into a tracker, an invoice and a calendar, while the dates that matter sit in a contract PDF. STAKD keeps them connected:

• Campaigns. Each brand deal is a campaign with its deliverables (amount, due date, completion), a status, notes, the linked brand contact and the linked invoices. Briefs and contracts can be attached to the campaign.
• Contracts. Upload a signed contract and STAKD's AI pulls out the key terms, such as dates, deliverables and payment terms, so you aren't rereading the PDF to find them. Usage and exclusivity details can go in the campaign notes.
• Brand contacts. The contact CRM keeps each brand contact with an outreach status and follow-up date, and follow-ups show on your dashboard calendar.
• Invoices. Start an invoice from the campaign and it's pre-filled with the brand's details and the campaign's deliverables. Send it through your connected Gmail with the PDF attached, and it's tracked as draft, sent, paid or overdue. For an overdue invoice, STAKD drafts a payment-reminder email for you to send.

STAKD is free to start on the Starter plan, with no card required, and includes a 14-day free trial of Pro features. Some features are on paid plans; see pricing.

Quick checklist

• One record per deal, added on first contact
• Stage uses a fixed list
• Brand, agency and billing contacts recorded
• Every deliverable has a draft date and post date
• Revision rounds tracked against the contract limit
• Usage and exclusivity end dates recorded
• Fee, payment terms and payment due date recorded
• Invoice sent and logged
• Payment received and logged
• Weekly review on the calendar

Related guides

• How to negotiate a brand deal
• Brand deal contract checklist
• How much to charge for a brand deal
• How to make a media kit