Influencer Advisory™How do you find influencers for your brand?
Find influencers for your brand by starting with your own customers and followers. Then vet each one and reach out in volume to see who replies.
Founder · November 10, 2026 · 2 min read
One tactical place to start is your existing customers and followers. There are tools that help identify influencers who have already bought from you or follow your brand.
Malomo lists the places brands find creators: a search in a discovery tool, an application form on your site, customers who join as affiliates after they buy, and direct messages on Instagram and TikTok. Many brands run several of these at once. (Malomo)
Where do I find influencers who already like my brand?
Start with the people who already buy from you or follow you.
- Quad Squad first reached out to its active customers. Now it gets 900 applicants for 35 spots, so it can pick the people who promote best, according to 33voices. (33voices)
- Alo Yoga's CMO says most ambassadors come from yoga, fashion and beauty creators, organically, because they already love the brand.
Transparent Labs took the affiliates a rival was using, and Bloom signed the influencers one retail buyer followed on Instagram.
Once you have a list of names, check each one before any money goes out.
How do I vet an influencer before working with them?
Check the audience, the engagement and the comments by hand.
- Social Snowball vets in four steps: the profile, the audience demographics, the engagement and how real it looks, then a manual read of the content and the comments. (Social Snowball)
80% of the creators you onboard don't perform, and you only find out after paying them.
PrettyGreen describes brands with strict rules on fit, like a dog brand that only shows casual, non pedigree dogs, or a hair care brand that needs many hair types. (PrettyGreen)
Ex. If your ad library has a lot of creators from a single ethnicity, we can take formats that are already working and find more diverse creators to deliver them.
Vetting cuts the list down fast, so you need plenty of names going in.
How many influencers should I reach out to?
Contact them in volume and test which account size replies best.
Online Optimism emails 350 new micro influencers every month, each one matched to the brand's age, gender, region and niche. (Online Optimism)
The hosts of the Operators Podcast say they use Saral for their new brand to find creators, send outreach, ship product and track posts. (Operators Podcast)
Doing this every week by hand is where most small teams run out of time.
Can someone find and vet influencers for my brand?
Finding, checking and contacting creators is the part we take off your plate.
Get creators coming to you, and asking for less money.
For qualified brands planning their next quarter. They apply and tell us the one thing they want their program to do next.