How do you find the right influencers for your brand?

Last updated · by Ela Diker

Start with a one-line brief (who buys, where they scroll, what you can pay). Then source creators from quickest to most hands-on: a marketplace with filters, native TikTok, Instagram and YouTube search, hashtag and competitor audits, then your customers. Before you hire anyone, vet them for audience fit, real engagement, fake followers, content quality, brand safety and past sponsored work.

What does influencer discovery actually mean?

Influencer discovery turns 'we should try creators' into a named, vetted shortlist. That means people whose audience matches your buyers, whose content suits your brand and whose numbers hold up when you check them. Finding influencers is the search, and identifying the right ones is the filter. Most of the work is in the filter.

Discovery is also the step brands most often hand to someone else. In Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 benchmark survey, creator discovery and vetting was the most commonly outsourced function, at 19.4% of outsourcing selections, ahead of content production. That shows where the time goes. A search returns thousands of profiles in seconds, but checking each creator's audience, engagement and past brand work takes far longer.

For a DTC brand, discovery should produce three things: a written creator profile (niche, platform, tier, audience location, budget), a long list of possible names, and a vetted shortlist small enough to brief properly. Without the profile, every search starts from scratch and every team member filters differently.

Nano vs micro vs macro vs mega influencers: which tier should you work with

How do you find influencers for your brand?

Work through the sourcing routes below, from the quickest to set up to the most manual. Agencies and tools come last because they are the paid add-ons. Start where filters do the heavy lifting, then use manual methods to find creators nobody else has approached. Hiring works the same way: you can hire through a platform's own marketplace, through a creator marketplace that handles briefs and payment, or through an agency that sources creators for you.

Most brands are now searching among smaller creators. In Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 survey, 52.8% of marketers planned to expand their use of micro creators and 51.4% their use of nano creators. For macro creators, plans to expand and plans to cut were almost level. Smaller creators are more numerous and less well indexed, which is why the manual routes still matter.

If you are a UK or US beauty, supplement or fashion DTC brand that wants vetted UGC and influencer creators to apply to a brief, a #Collabz marketplace brief fits that route.

Marketplace search with filters

This is the lowest-effort start. Creator marketplaces let you filter by niche, platform, location, audience and follower range, and many handle briefs, usage rights and payment in one place. The creators have opted into brand work, so they reply more often than to cold outreach. The downside is that every other brand can find the same people, so pair this with at least one manual route.

Native platform search

Instagram, TikTok and YouTube each run their own creator search for brands. They use first-party audience and performance data that scraped tools cannot match. The catch is that results only include creators who have opted in or qualify. Use native search to start your long list, not as the whole answer.

Hashtag and competitor audits

Search the hashtags, sounds and keywords your buyers use. Then look at the tagged and mentioned posts on competitor accounts to see who already creates content in your category. For a skincare brand, that means routine and ingredient tags rather than a generic skincare tag. Favour creators who post consistently over one-off viral hits, and check whether any are tied into exclusivity with a rival.

Your customers and followers

Some of your best-fit creators may already buy from you. Cross-check your customer list and followers against creator accounts, search for untagged mentions of your brand name, and look for reviewers who post content. These people already like the product, and their audiences tend to look like yours. You will find more nano creators here than anywhere else.

Agencies

An agency finds, vets and manages creators for you. It costs more but saves the most internal time. Agencies suit launches that need many creators quickly, or categories with strict claims rules such as supplements. Ask how they find creators, whether every client gets the same roster, and who owns the creator relationships if you leave.

Discovery and audit tools

Paid discovery databases index large numbers of public profiles and estimate each creator's audience demographics and how genuine it is. They are the fastest way to build long lists at volume and to screen for fake followers. However, their audience data is modelled rather than first-party. Use them to screen, then confirm finalists with screenshots of the creator's own insights.

What are the best influencer marketing platforms and tools

How do you choose the right influencer?

Pick the influencer whose audience matches your buyers and whose engagement is real. Then check content, brand safety, past partnerships and price, in that order. Follower count is the last thing to look at, not the first. The order matters because the most common problem does not show on the profile. In Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 benchmark, fake or bot followers made up 56.5% of the fraud and quality issues marketers reported. Templated comments (10.6%) and bought engagement (10.2%) came next. A creator can look healthy and still reach very few people you could sell to.

To find the right influencer for your brand rather than just any influencer, run this checklist on every name on the long list. Remove anyone who fails one of the first three checks before you talk about price.

Audience fit

Ask the creator for screenshots of their audience insights: country, age and gender split. A UK supplement brand needs a mostly UK audience in the right age range, whatever the follower count. Then read the comments. Are people asking where to buy, or are they mostly other creators? Fit is the one problem a better brief cannot fix.

Engagement quality

Look past the engagement rate to what is behind it. Compare likes and comments across recent posts: real accounts go up and down, while bought engagement often looks oddly flat. Count saves, shares and specific comments for more than likes. Only compare a creator with peers of a similar size on the same platform.

Fake-follower checks

Watch for sudden follower jumps without a viral post, and audiences concentrated in countries the creator never mentions. Comment sections full of emoji-only or generic praise from empty profiles are another warning sign. An audit tool speeds this up, but the creator's own insights screenshots are the best evidence. If a creator will not share them, take them off the list.

Content quality

Watch several full videos, not just thumbnails. Check the lighting and sound, how the creator shows a product, and whether the opening seconds hold your attention. For beauty and skincare, look for close-up texture shots and honest results. For fashion, look at fit and styling range. If you plan to reuse the content in ads, judge it as you would ad creative.

Brand safety

Scroll back through months of posts, captions, story highlights and replies. Search the creator's name alongside words like 'controversy' or 'apology'. Note any claims that would break the advertising rules in your category, especially health claims about supplements. Once you partner with a creator, their past posts become part of your campaign.

Past partnerships

Review recent sponsored posts: which brands, how often, and how they performed compared with the creator's normal posts. Too many competing brands weakens trust. If sponsored posts get a fraction of the usual engagement, treat that as a warning. Also check that those posts carried a clear ad label, because a creator who skips disclosure puts your brand at risk too.

Rates

Only ask for a rate card once a creator has passed the first six checks. Weigh the quote against the deliverables, usage rights, exclusivity and number of revisions, not just the fee per post. A higher rate from a creator whose audience matches yours usually beats a cheap post seen by the wrong people.

What is a good engagement rate (and how do you calculate it)

How brands source and vet creators

  • 56.5% of reported fraud and quality issues are fake or bot followers, the biggest single risk.
  • 10.6% of reported issues are templated comments, so read the comments, not just the engagement rate.
  • 36.7% of marketers use AI for creator discovery, the most common use of AI in influencer marketing.
  • 19.4% of outsourcing selections are discovery and vetting, the function brands hand off most often.

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub, Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, 2026

How do you go from a long list to a hired creator?

Go from long list to hire in five steps: write the creator profile, screen the long list, ask finalists for their own insights, run a small paid test, then rebook whoever performed. Each step removes people cheaply before you spend money on the expensive part.

Agree disclosure before anyone posts. The ASA and CMA's influencer guide explains when branded content must be labelled and how. In practice, a paid or gifted post in the UK needs a clear 'Ad' label at the start, and US posts need '#ad' or an equivalent. Gifted product still counts as an ad. Outreach wording, negotiation and payment terms are covered in our collaboration guide.

1. Write the creator profile

Before searching, write one paragraph covering the buyer, platform, niche, creator tier, audience location, content format, budget and what success looks like. For a UK fashion brand it might read: UK women aged 25 to 40, TikTok first, try-on hauls, micro creators. Everyone searching then uses the same filter, and the paragraph becomes the opening of your brief.

2. Screen the long list

Run every name through the vetting checklist. Cut anyone who fails audience fit, engagement quality or the fake-follower checks before you look any further. In a shared sheet, note why each creator stayed or was cut. Those notes save you redoing the work next quarter and help new team members see how you decide.

3. Ask for first-party insights

Contact finalists and ask for screenshots of their audience insights and recent post performance, plus their availability and rate card. How quickly and clearly they reply is a preview of how the collaboration will run. Keep the first message short and refer to something specific in their content.

4. Run a small paid test

Give a few finalists the same product and one clear deliverable each. Comparing them on one brief shows who drives the result you care about, whether that is sales through a code, saves or footage you can reuse in ads. Pay fairly for the test, because unpaid trials attract the wrong creators.

5. Rebook and build a bench

Rebook the creators who performed, put promising near-misses on a reserve list, and drop the rest. Keeping a bench of vetted creators means the next campaign starts with a refresh, not a new search. Long-term partners also tend to make better content as they get to know your product.

How do you collaborate with influencers (outreach, negotiation and payment)

What mistakes waste the most time when finding influencers?

The costliest mistakes are choosing on follower count, copying a competitor's roster, leaving disclosure terms out of gifting deals and searching in only one place. Each one saves time at the shortlist stage and costs you later. That cost might be poor results, a clash with another brand, or a complaint about a post with no ad label.

Most of these are shortcuts taken under deadline pressure. Build your shortlist before the campaign date is fixed, not in the week before launch, and most of that pressure disappears.

Sorting by follower count first

Starting with follower count leaves you with creators who are expensive, approached by every brand and more likely to have inflated audiences. Start with audience fit and content instead, and let budget decide the tier. A creator with a small, engaged following in your exact niche often sells more than a bigger generalist.

Copying a competitor's roster

Competitor audits show who works in your category. But signing the same creators makes your content look interchangeable and may break their exclusivity terms. Treat rival rosters as a guide to the type of creator that works, then find similar creators who have not yet worked with anyone in your space.

Treating gifted posts as unpaid

The FTC's Disclosures 101 guidance says free or discounted products create a material connection that must be disclosed. It also warns against assuming a platform's built-in disclosure tool is enough. In short, a gifted post is still an ad: label it '#ad' in the US and 'Ad' in the UK. Agree this in writing before you send any product.

Searching on one platform only

Native tools only show creators who have opted in. Many strong creators for UK DTC brands are also active on a different platform from the one you started on. Using at least two routes, such as a marketplace plus a hashtag audit, widens your options without adding much time.

How do you write an influencer outreach email or DM (templates that get replies)

Sources and further reading

Frequently asked questions

How do you find micro-influencers in a niche such as outdoor gear?

Search with the niche's own vocabulary rather than broad tags: trail names, kit brands, route hashtags and specific activities like bikepacking or wild swimming. Check who gets tagged by specialist retailers and clubs. Filter marketplace or native searches to smaller follower ranges in your target country.

How do you find local influencers?

Filter native search and marketplaces by creator location and, more importantly, audience location, because a London-based creator may have a mostly overseas audience. Then check geotagged posts around your shops or events, and see which creators local independents, gyms and cafés already repost.

What is influencer casting?

Influencer casting means choosing creators the way you would cast an ad: against a brief that defines the look, voice, audience and on-camera skills the content needs. It suits campaigns where the creative matters as much as reach, such as a launch film or paid social ads made from creator footage.

What is an influencer audit tool, and do you need one?

An influencer audit tool estimates how genuine a creator's audience is. It flags suspicious follower growth, bot-like accounts engaging with posts, and audience locations that do not fit. For a handful of creators who share screenshots of their own insights, you can manage without one, but it saves time once you are vetting dozens.

Can you find social media influencers for free?

Yes. Native search on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, hashtag and competitor audits, and your own customer list cost nothing but time. Paid tools and marketplaces earn their fee when you need filters, audience data, briefs and payment for many creators at once.

How do you find the best influencers for your brand?

The best influencer is the one who moves the metric you care about with your audience, and you only find that out by testing. Shortlist several creators who pass the vetting checklist and give each a small paid brief. Rebook the ones whose content performs and drop the rest.

How do you find YouTube influencers outside Creator Partnerships?

Search YouTube for the phrases your customers type before buying, such as product comparisons, routines and honest review videos, and note which channels keep ranking. Check video descriptions for past sponsor disclosures. Look for buying questions in the comments, which show the audience is ready to purchase.