Getting Past the Teacher's Desk
GPTZero had traction with teachers. With the students on the other side of the detector, it had almost none. The tool tells you whether a piece of text was written by a large language model, and over five months SideShift ran 22.3k creator posts that pulled 421.2M views for $53,740, a $0.13 CPM. GPTZero added more than a million new users.
Barriers
- Growth arrived in press spikes and flattened out between them.
- AI detection had no obvious shape on TikTok yet, and no format inside the academic conversation to borrow from.
- Awareness sat with educators, and the campaign had to reach the students they were checking.
Approach
- Student creators only. People who could talk about campus life, academic integrity and AI use as insiders rather than as observers.
- Skits, challenges and walkthroughs, made in the shapes students post in anyway.
- 600+ TikToks in the first month, with each batch built on what the last one showed.
- One message under every post: GPTZero protects original work.
Results
- 421.2M views
- 22.3k posts
- $53,740 spent, $0.13 CPM
- 5 month campaign
- 1M+ new users
Conclusion
Students were already arguing about what counts as their own work, and 22.3k posts joined an argument that was running with or without GPTZero. The posts changed shape constantly across five months. The line underneath them never did: GPTZero protects original work.
From the campaign
Creator content for GPTZero.
SideShift was a huge help for us in the Gen Z hiring process. We were able to fill 100% of our creator hiring needs in just a few weeks through the platform. SideShift is a cemented go-to for us whenever we are in need of creators.
Edward TianFounder, GPTZero
