For enterprises with existing influencer programs.

The Story of Influencer Advisory

Started as a YouTube agency, then wanted to help bigger clients with bigger problems, moved to brands.

01Year by year
02YouTube coaching
03Affiliates
04Enterprises
05Paid media
06The ABCs
07Where we are now
08Interviews and podcasts

Year by Year

2020
Influencer Advisory starts
Founded in 2020 by Alice Ksendzova, the agency was built out of a background in AI technology startups and a conviction that influencer marketing had a data problem, not a creative one.
Two people built this because we had both been burned by how the business normally runs.
So we built the agency the way we wished someone had built it for us.
Dennis and Alice talking on the couch at the studio
2022 to 2025
Alice: two brands, then startups
2022, launched Vie Lariat, an e-commerce jewelry brand. It failed.
2023, started a sweatwear brand, Unthinkable. Also failed.
Alice launched two brands of her own and lost both of them, which is the fastest way anyone learns what it feels like to spend your own money on an ad that goes nowhere.
Summer 2023, began working with startups, leading marketing and growth initiatives.
2024, worked with FixonAI, a competitor to Stan Store.
2025, signed marketing contracts to assist WillowAI (YC-backed). Expanded my influencer agency.
What I noticed was that partnerships were only ever a small slice of the work, so I decided I could help brands far more directly and make a bigger impact doing this instead.
Pitching Fixon AI at the LaunchHub Angels event
2023
Dennis: Mengalo, then Influencer Advisory
My journey: Civil Engineer to Machine Learning Developer to AI-leveraged Marketing Systems to Data & Human Focused Influencer Marketer.
Full Stack Developer, Mengalo, Feb 2023 to Jan 2024.
Mengalo was a bet on ultra-human automated customer support for wellness and CPG brands. It found a foothold in the post-2022 OpenAI window, was dismantled when Claude Code took over in 2025.
I joined the team in 2023 after witnessing the value it was creating.
May 2023, Junior Influencer Partnership Coordinator. Jan 2024, Influencer Attribution Specialist. Sep 2025, Senior Influencer Partnership Manager.
Dennis working on his laptop
Alongside
Dennis on the creator side
I have worked every side of the creator business. I sold sponsorships for creators first, now I buy them for brands, and I coach YouTube channels on the side.
I coach YouTube channels into businesses, building a high ticket offer off the audience they already have, advising channels doing tens of millions of views a year including Football Fundamental, The Behavior Panel and Myles RVs.
Through Travoyce I ran translated channels for creators including Mentour Pilot and Anna Cramling, across a dozen or more languages.
That order matters, because sitting on the creator side first is why I price and brief the way I do now.
Dennis making a point at the lectern
Built along the way
Our own database
We built our own database and our own tools, and more importantly we worked out how to measure influencer attribution over long time horizons, including how it affects valuation, how to generate earned media value with influencer stunts, and how to host creator dinners.
That is why we can tell a brand what a creator actually charges, and why we can answer "has this creator worked with our competitor" in a minute rather than a week.
- 698,889sponsored videos, each with who paid for it
- 76,819companies seen sponsoring a creator
- 180,623YouTube channels
- 82,206Instagram profiles
Dennis by the fire
Dec 2025 to 2026
Our own media
We run the podcast ourselves, so we sit on the same side of the table as the creators we are asking a brand to pay.
Videos: the first public video on our YouTube channel went up on 15 December 2025.
Blog posts: the first went live on influenceradvisory.com/blog on 16 February 2026.
The collab wall: 6,327 paid creator collabs on influencermarketingexamples.com.
Alice on the podcast set

We Started by Coaching YouTubers

We tried YouTube coaching to help influencers.

I worked directly with YouTube creators at YouTube Advisor, helping them build their own products and monetize their audiences.

But we found that we weren’t able to help them make that much.

The relative amount that we helped them make was not a lot.

We wanted to make more money.

YouTube Advisory, youtubeadvisor.com

Then We Tried Affiliates

A cold round for Nami Matcha: 260+ creators emailed, 68 wrote back

We then landed on affiliates as being one of the most useful ways to help people.

We used to reach out to a thousand, get 50 responses, and get three influencers.

You’re reaching out to a lot of influencers and asking them for commission, and you’re getting ghosted by most of them, and they’re not interested.

If you have tried to get influencers on a commission-only basis, it’s tough.

A cold round we ran for Nami Matcha: 260+ creators emailed, 68 wrote back.

When we were an influencer agency

We would reach out to a thousand creators, hear back from about 50, and end up with three influencers who were actually good.

The good creators kept getting more expensive. Every year the CPMs went up, and now it’s not uncommon to see $50 or $100 CPMs, especially in educational spaces.

The cheap ones had views too small to move the needle.

When we were a talent agency

We managed our own roster, but every time a client handed us a really niche avatar, we were stuck choosing from the same 50 people.

Many of them weren’t even that interested in the product. So there was a lot of inconsistency there.

And the agency is negotiating against you, because it represents the talent.

We were doing that, but it wasn’t working out that well.

So We Moved to Enterprises

How many different years each of 1,155 YouTube channels ran an AG1 read, 2020 to 2026

So we continued on to helping enterprises.

Upon looking further, we found that for most companies, influencer was a really small channel.

It was a nice to have. It brought in a few percent extra in revenue.

But if turned off tomorrow, it would make no tangible difference in the company.

Then we started looking at companies which have grown extremely quickly as enterprises, companies which have amazing brand valuations, and found that behind each of them is a strong influencer system.

We solely focus on health & wellness brands: the trust-based need and the extreme scalability of the products.

AG1 kept 88 YouTube channels for 3 years or more. Our own deal rows, 2020 to 2026.

We Tried Paid Media

We did some paid media, but then we realized that was ineffective.

We’ve run plenty of campaigns ourselves at breakeven ROAS.

We used to do a lot of one-off campaigns, but we stopped, because with this new system we found that performance increased, and that’s what allowed us to scale influencer.

Instead of putting the entire budget into influencer fees, the creator program becomes the testing ground and paid media becomes the amplifier.

So We Built the ABCs of Influence

So we built a new model: short-term media buying and long-term influencer affiliates. We find the creators who already like your brand, keep them in a community, and run their best videos as ads. That’s the ABCs of Influence.

Chris Bumstead on stage at the Olympia
AAnchor
Anchor: a big name makes creators want to work with you.
See the full Anchor step
A creator with the fridge Gisou built and sent to her
BBoxes
Boxes: a box made for them gets them to notice you and post.
See the full Boxes step
Creators on Alani Nu’s brand trip to Miami
CCommunity
Community: a private group keeps them posting all year, and new creators ask to join.
See the full Community step
Three Purdy & Figg Meta ads made from creator videos
SScale
Scale: their best videos run as your ads.
See the full Scale step

Our mission is turning $1B+ brands into deca-billion enterprises using expensive, effective & aggressive influencer marketing strategies.

See how the ABCs fit your brand

Where We Are Now

Now we’re expanding quickly across North America.

We work with wellness and health enterprises above a billion dollars: beverages, supplements and functional medicine.

We are involved with over 200 talent agencies, we have part of our team in LA, and we are at the events where these deals get made.

Our contact list runs all the way up to the biggest shows. The Diary Of A CEO, Joe Rogan, Wizardliz and more, we talk with their teams directly and we are able to negotiate deals and move them fast.