I’ve made some expensive mistakes with influencer partnerships in LATAM, and most of them came down to the same problem: I thought high follower counts and decent engagement rates meant the creator was trustworthy. Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
I partnered with a macro-influencer in Mexico who had 500K followers and a 4% engagement rate. Numbers looked great. But within three posts, I noticed something odd—the comments were generic, the followers didn’t seem real, and the actual conversions were terrible. By then I’d already signed a three-month deal.
That’s when I realized I needed an actual vetting process, not just Excel sheets with vanity metrics.
I started researching what other agencies do, and I found that the best partners build what they call “partner vetting playbooks.” Basically, a repeatable checklist for screening creators before you commit real budget.
Here’s what I built:
1. Audience authenticity checks:
- Scroll through recent comments. Do they seem like real people, or generic bot responses?
- Check audience geography. Does it match where they claim to be active?
- Look at posting consistency and engagement patterns. Do the numbers spike unnaturally?
2. Collaboration history review:
- Ask for past brand partnerships and results. Do they have case studies?
- Check if they’ve worked with competitors. How did those campaigns perform?
- Ask for references. Then actually call one.
3. Creative alignment fit:
- Request content samples that match your brand voice. Can they adapt, or do they only post one way?
- Look at their audience sentiment across posts. Do people actually LIKE their content, or just follow them?
- Check if they’ve done similar products to yours. What happened?
4. Communication and professionalism:
- How quickly do they respond? How detailed are their messages?
- Do they understand contracts and basic commercial terms, or do they ghost when money gets real?
- Have they worked through contract disputes professionally before?
The difference between using this playbook and just trusting my gut has been night and day. I’ve rejected creators who looked great on paper but were actually problematic. And I’ve found solid mid-tier creators who don’t have huge follower counts but deliver real results.
The honest truth: authenticity can’t be faked if you actually dig. But most brands don’t dig.
How do you actually vet creators? Have you built a system, or are you still hunting for the right approach?
Вот это ДА—вот то, о чём я говорю с брендами каждый день! Так много компаний приходят со списком инфлюенсеров с AirBnB или какого-то другого агрегатора, где написано “500K followers, 4% engagement”—и думают, что это гарантия успеха.
Твой вет-лист отличный, и я начал рекомендовать примерно то же самое своим клиентам. Но я добавляю ещё один слой: личное общение. Я всегда делаю звонок или видеозвонок с инфлюенсером перед контрактом. За 15 минут я узнаю больше о профессионализме и подлинности, чем из всех других источников вместе.
Мне нравится, что ты упоминаешь “communication and professionalism”—это реально фильтр, который работает. Половина проблем с кампаниями происходит потому что люди не договарились заранее.
Твой пост вдохновил меня—я хочу собрать шаблон вет-листа для нашего сообщества. Может быть, мы вместе можем закончить несколько вариантов для разных типов креаторов?
Кстати, у меня есть сеть из 20-30 проверенных микро и нано-инфлюенсеров в LATAM, которые прошли через подобный процесс вычисления. Если кому-то нужны рекомендации—я помогу соединить. Лучше рекомендация от друга, чем через агрегатор.
Отличный практический пост. Я добавлю ещё один параметр, который стоит проверять: историческую стабильность метрик. Возьми последние 30-50 постов инфлюенсера и построй график engagement rate, reach и comment качества по времени. Если вижу резкие скачки или падения без явной причины—это красный флаг.
Я также проверяю соотношение followers к views. Если follower count 500K, но каждый пост собирает только 10K views—это говорит о фейковых followers.
Одна метрика, которая меня спасала не раз: “comment-to-like ratio”. Лайки легче купить, чем качественные комментарии. Если ratio неправильный—это указывает на фейк.
Кстати, ты использовал какой-то инструмент для анализа, или делаешь вычисления вручную?
Спасибо за реальный пост. На моём опыте расширения в Европу я тоже столкнулся с этой проблемой—искал инфлюенсеров и получал список с числами, но никаких реальных результатов.
Твой четырёхслойный вет-лист очень практичный. Я бы добавил пятый фактор: проверку принципов инфлюенсера. Даже если números выглядят хорошо, если их ценности не совпадают с брендом—это будет выглядеть поддельно. Я чувствую это, когда смотрю на контент.
Мне интересно: как ты управляешь отношениями после вычисления? Значит ли это, что ты с отклонёнными инфлюенсерами больше не работаешь, или ты даёшь возможность на пилотную работу?
This is the real talk brands need to hear. I’ve built my agency on the exact opposite approach to this—we do deep vetting because it saves money in the long run. One bad partnership costs more than the time spent vetting five creators properly.
Your four-point system is solid. What I’d add: create a tiered vetting process. Nano and micro-creators get 80% of your vetting intensity. Macro creators get 120% because the dollar exposure is higher and the mess is messier.
Also, I always require creators to do a small paid test first—maybe 500-1000 bucks for one piece of content—before we commit to bigger deals. Tells you everything real fast.
The reference check point is huge and most brands skip it. That’s where you find out if someone’s professional or a pain to work with.
YES thank you for this. As a creator, I hate when brands just assume fake engagement = bad creator. Like, some creators have really engaged followers but low volume, and that’s actually MORE valuable than 500K lazy followers.
I want to say: actually TALK to the creator about their audience. I know my followers by segments. I can tell you exactly which posts get responses from my most engaged audience, which content drives DMs, which drives actual purchases. Most vetting processes skip this conversation entirely.
Also—please ask about usage rights and content timeline. I’ve had brands not vet me properly on this and then get upset when I repost content for my own portfolio two weeks after the campaign ends. Setting expectations upfront saves so much drama.
Your vetting list would be 10x better if it included: “Does the creator understand what success looks like for THIS campaign?” because if they don’t, it doesn’t matter how authentic they are.
You’ve identified a real problem, but let me add a data layer: algorithmic authenticity signals. Beyond manual checks, look at creator metrics that are harder to fake.
Save rate (how often followers save posts) is harder to fake than likes. Share rate (how often followers share to DMs or Stories) indicates real resonance. Ratio of followers who follow back other followers in the same niche (social proof clustering) tells you if the audience is real.
Also, run a bot detection tool. There are APIs that can scan a profile and flag probable fake followers with decent accuracy.
The collaboration history point you made is crucial. But push deeper: ask for negative case studies too. How did they handle a campaign that didn’t perform? That tells you their resilience and professionalism more than success stories.