How Orttu Whitelisted Over 1,000 Creators & Launches 15-20 Whitelisted Ads Per Week using Refunnel

Orttu is a Ukraine-based men's fashion brand founded in 2018, focusing on unique apparel for a highly specific and eccentric demographic. While the team prefers to maintain privacy and does not publicly share founder details, the brand is operated by a tight-knit, private group. Orttu specializes in men’s fashion, primarily selling via Shopify, and has a vibrant community, including a private Facebook group with over 6,000 members. 

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Their primary marketing channel is Meta and Google.

For Orttu, their creators and community are everything. They've built a brand where people genuinely want to share content, not for money or free products, but just to get featured. With 3,500+ UGC posts piling up and whitelist approvals coming in every week, they needed a way to stay organized, track permissions, and actually turn all that content into ads.

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We sat down with the Orttu team for a deep dive into how they manage whitelisting at scale, their creator selection process, community dynamics, and approach to paid and organic content.

Before Refunnel

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Before implementing Refunnel, Orttu’s workflow for managing whitelisted ads and creator collaborations was cumbersome, fragmented, and manual.

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No Centralized System for Whitelisting: Dario described their previous process as lacking real overview and organization. The team relied on Facebook's built-in Business Manager features to manage ad whitelisting from creators, but this approach was "very buggy" and made it "hard to see which ads have been launched and which ads… which kind of content we've already used."

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Manual Organization and Tracking: Without Refunnel, they would use a combination of Facebook tools and Google Sheets, attempting to piece together a system for tracking which creators had been contacted, who had signed up for whitelisting, and which pieces of content were in use. This led to "too much time" spent on manual management and difficulty tracking emails and signups across their creator community.

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Operational Inefficiency: There was "no real overview" of historical campaigns, influencer outreach, or content usage. The lack of a streamlined process made it challenging to quickly identify top-performing UGC, repurpose assets, or launch ads efficiently.

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Limited Analytics & Content Pooling: Data on performance and creator engagement scattered across Meta's Ads Manager and other tools rather than available in a single dashboard. UGC was stored across disparate places, making it harder to surface and repurpose content for ads, newsletters, and promotions.

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The result: Orttu's influencer and ad whitelisting workflow was slowed by manual effort, struggled to stay organized, and missed out on the convenience and visibility that Refunnel brought, especially for a brand with thousands of pieces of UGC and a highly active customer community.

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How ORTTU Uses Refunnel:

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Refunnel serves as a streamlined content management dashboard for Orttu, providing the team with a centralized hub to source, organize, and select user-generated content (UGC) for paid advertising and email campaigns. The core value of Refunnel is its convenience, offering a simple, visual overview where they can sort through creator-approved assets and quickly decide which ads to launch.

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4 Ways ORTTU is Using Refunnel

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1. Whitelisting UGC for Meta Ads: Orttu primarily uses Refunnel to identify and whitelist creator content for advertising on Instagram and Meta platforms. Once creators approve usage within Refunnel, the team selects the most engaging posts and launches 15-20 new ads each week, relying on visual sorting rather than granular analytics.

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2. Social Listening Content Library: Refunnel consolidates thousands of pieces of organic content, from Instagram stories, reels, and feed posts created by their community. This organization enables the team to easily navigate a library of UGC, choose which content to feature, and download assets for various marketing channels.

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3. Email Content Sourcing: Orttu pulls UGC from Refunnel to enrich their email newsletters, using visual assets contributed by their community highlighting top customers or tastemakers who fit the brand aesthetic.

4. Streamlined Workflow & Whitelist Requests: The platform simplifies what used to be a fragmented, time-intensive process, replacing buggy Facebook Business Manager workflows and Google Sheets tracking with a single, organized dashboard. This has helped the team save time and reduce friction when sending whitelist requests or approving ads.

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The Results

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Before Refunnel: Manual whitelisting and content sorting using Facebook’s business tools and Google Sheets. No centralized overview. The process was time-consuming and hard to manage, with limited visibility into which ads were launched and which content had been used.

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With Refunnel: Centralized UGC management and streamlined whitelisting using Refunnel. Over 3,500 pieces of creator content collected and organized in one place. The Orttu team has whitelisted over 1,000 creators using Refunnel. Weekly launches of 15–20 ads based on engagement, with quick access to approved UGC and clear sorting for whitelisting.

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What this means:

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• Refunnel replaced a time-consuming, manual, and fragmented workflow with one organized dashboard.
• All UGC is now easily downloadable and repurposed across ads, emails, and newsletters; centralization saves hours and enables more frequent ad testing.
• Ad iteration increased: With more content available, the team tests and launches more ads weekly, increasing their odds of discovering high-performing winner ads.

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Refunnel enabled Orttu to simplify UGC management, increase ad launch frequency, and make the most of their creator community for ads & campaigns, yielding a streamlined workflow and more chances to find winning ads.

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