I run a mid-size agency and probably 60% of my time used to be spent on partner sourcing and vetting. We’d find influencers through friends, mutual connections, random outreach, and honestly, a lot of it was waste. We’d spend weeks talking to someone only to find out they weren’t interested or they weren’t a good fit or the numbers were inflated.
When we started expanding beyond our home market into other regions, the problem got worse. Suddenly we couldn’t rely on personal networks. We didn’t have the direct relationships. And the time cost of vetting went through the roof.
So we built a structured screening funnel. And I want to be clear—this isn’t a magic bullet. But it cut our sourcing time in half and the partnerships that come out the other end are way more solid.
Here’s roughly how it works:
Tier 1: Initial Screen (48 hours). We pull: audience demographics from their public profiles, engagement rate, posting frequency, brand history. We’re not moving forward if the audience doesn’t match our brief or if the numbers look manipulated. We also do a quick vibe check—do they seem like someone we’d actually want to work with? This takes maybe 30 minutes per creator.
Tier 2: Sample Content Deep Dive (1 week). We look at 20–30 of their recent posts. What’s the quality? What kind of engagement are they actually getting? Are the comments real or bot commentary? Do they have brand partnerships we can reference? This is where a lot of influencers get filtered out because we can see they’re declining in performance or the engagement is getting less authentic.
Tier 3: The Conversation (2 weeks). We do a call or detailed message exchange. We ask very specific questions: What’s your actual rate? Have you worked with brands in our space before? How do you handle performance reporting? What’s your timeline for content delivery? This is also where I’m listening for whether they actually care about ROI or if they’re just looking for a check. The good ones ask us questions back.
Tier 4: Pilot Terms (1–2 weeks). Before we commit to a major campaign, we do a small pilot. One video, one bundle of content, whatever. We pay fairly for it, but the commitment is small. We’re seeing: do they deliver on time? Is the quality what they promised? Do they get back to us when we ask questions? This filters out the flaky ones and the overpromisers.
Only after the pilot do we know if we can actually work together long-term.
Where this gets complicated is cross-border work. An influencer in Russia or Southeast Asia might be amazing, but if they don’t speak English or don’t understand the US content landscape, it’s going to be painful. So we’ve added specific checks for that: can they take direction clearly? Do they understand brief translation? Can they pivot format if needed?
The whole process takes maybe 3–4 weeks per influencer, but it’s compressed. We’re running three or four in parallel. By the time we move to a pilot, we’ve spent real money on screening but we’re pretty confident it’s going to work.
I’m curious how other people are doing this. Are you building networks organically through relationships? Are you using tools? How do you actually vet without burning out on the sourcing grind?