How to Vet Instagram Creators for Successful Brand Partnerships

So, you’ve found Instagram creators that align with your brand and the communities you’re trying to reach. Now, it’s time to start the vetting process—and asking creators for more information.

“What you see is not always what is actually going on behind the scenes.”

Delaney Henson, Senior Influencer Marketing Manager at Oura Ring.

As Delaney sums up so well here, you can never make assumptions about suitability of a creator—no matter how great a match they might seem on paper!

This is why you should ALWAYS have a solid checklist when vetting creators on Instagram. This ensures you have the bases covered, and don’t waste time reaching out to creators who end up being unsuitable for your program or campaign.

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The basics for vetting Instagram creators

• Follower legitimacy
  • Verifying that a creator has an authentic follower base is crucial to avoid collaborations with creators who have inflated their follower counts using bots or spam accounts.
  • While there’s no foolproof way to do this, checking follower lists and comment sections provide a good indicator of any suspicious activity. Fake follower accounts are typically very sparse on information, such as:
    • The profile names containing random letters/numbers
    • No photo or bio
    • No or very few posts
    • Very few followers
• Bad PR
  • Always check that a creator hasn’t been involved in any controversies, or said anything negative about your brand or the values your brand is aligned with.
  • This is especially important if you have a largely Gen Z audience; there’s potential for huge backlash if you partner with a creator who your audience sees as not being aligned with your brand’s values!
• Posting cadence
  • Consistency is key when it comes to maintaining audience interest. Regular posting schedules (at least 3-4 times a week) helps to sustain engagement and indicates that the creator is active and committed to their community.
• Previous brand partnerships
  • So, why is it important to check a creator's previous brand partnerships?
  • Checking past influencer partnerships ensures that a creator hasn’t worked with a direct competitor, or said anything negative about your brand or other brands that may be problematic. This also gives you a sense of what types of content lean into and how they typically conduct themselves when working with brands.
  • “When I go onto someone's account, usually the first thing is: “what's their community vibe?” It's not like, oooh 10 million followers: Done! It shouldn't stop at the number the minute you open the account.” Kendall Dickieson, Head of Social and Influencer at Graza.
  • Also consider how selective a creator is with the brands they promote. Are they putting their name against a lot of products, or only a curated few that they are very passionate about? A creator who chooses partnerships carefully will maintain more credibility with their audience, and is more likely to be effective in driving engagement.
• Interest in your brand
  • This one is simple. When you set up a call with them, what’s the vibe? Do you get along, or does the interaction feel kind of awkward? Remember: You only want to partner with Instagram creators who are genuinely interested in your brand.
  • It’s a good idea to combine vetting with seeding programs so you can approach creators who have already received product. Do they have a strong testimonial? Do they have any content ideas featuring the product in use? If they are super receptive, this is a sign of a great creator partnership

If your creators passed this round, it’s time to delve deeper…

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Dive into engagement

As is ever the case on social media, you can’t take anything at face value. In other words: Don’t be fooled by follower counts.

Vetting Instagram creators via follower counts is highly misleading. As Bren illustrates, micro and nano creators often boast the highest ROI of any partnerships, especially if they have high levels of trust within their communities:

“With mommy bloggers, we found that if they were smaller than 80k, they converted much, much better. And we had a lot to choose from, because there's a lot of mommy bloggers out there.”

Bren Daniel, Associate Director of Partnerships at Caraway.

As Lydia explains, engagement rate is your best measure of how much audiences are interacting with a creator’s content:

“I really don't work with any creators that have less than a 2-3% engagement rate depending on your follower count. Because at that point, like, you're influencing your mom and most of your followers are bots.”

Lydia Lee, Chief Executive Officer at For The Clout.

Engagement helps influencer marketers to answer a critical question: Does a creator have a community, or an audience?

An audience consumes content. But if they aren’t inspired to take further action, this is of little value to your brand. A community actively engages and trusts a creator’s advice and recommendations, which makes them much more receptive to brand partnerships.

Activity such as comments and shares can provide valuable insights into how strong this community connection is. But not all comments are alike; tons of comments of the 🔥 emoji is NOT evidence of an engaged audience! Check that followers are asking questions, making insightful comments, and generally taking the time to interact properly with content.

💡 The higher your brand’s AOV (Average Order Value) the higher a creator’s engagement rate needs to be to secure conversions. Be aware that when a product is expensive, it’s less prone to impulse buys and audiences will need repeated exposure.

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Ask for the right Insights

As an influencer marketing manager or program coordinator, it’s more than acceptable to ask for further info about an Instagram creator’s performance. In 9 of 10 cases, the creator (or their agent) will be more than happy to offer up these insights. After all, these are the figures that help to close deals!

But if you face any resistance, pass on that creator. A lack of transparency is a big 🚩 . It’s not worth your time (or budget) if you don’t have the analytics you need to make an informed decision.

The metrics that are most important when Instagram vetting will depend on your program goals. Are you aiming to boost direct conversions, or raise brand awareness more generally?

“Different brands look for different things in influencers. If you're a more established brand, you might be looking at brand awareness…getting the word of your product out there on social media platforms and not looking for direct response conversions right away.”

Milan Freeman

In either case, getting Audience Insights from the creator is vital to ensure their audience and your brand’s is aligned. There are 3 parts to this: Age, Gender, and Location:

• Age: Age is a big factor depending on the price point of your products. Generally, you want aim for an audience over the age of 25. Why? Because you want to focus on communities that have more disposable income. While it’s nice for your brand to trend amongst younger consumers, this is unlikely to translate to sales if you’re selling a more expensive product.
• Gender: A creator’s audience should always reflect who your brand is trying to target. For example, if your brand is in women’s health and wellness, you want to look for creators who have a majority female following.
• Location: Where is their audience predominantly located? Is it majority U.S-based, or elsewhere? If your brand is trying to penetrate new global markets, this is an important consideration when selecting creators.

If direct conversions ARE the core goal of your influencer program, this is where more detailed performance metrics will come into the picture:

• Story Views: Look for at least 10% engagement.
• Story Link Clicks: It’s ideal to see at least 2 - 5% engagement on Link Clicks.
• Reels Reach + Impressions: Look for at least 25% engagement on Feed content

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Look for content longevity

Content on Instagram is here one second, gone the next. But skilled Instagram creators know how to take advantage of different formats and tools to give content (and partnerships) more permanence.

So, what role should content longevity play in selecting Instagram creators for partnerships?

Be thoughtful of selecting creators who are skilled in maximizing different formats and tools to give brands more airtime. For conversion-focused partnerships, look for Instagram creators who use highlight covers to give affiliate links a permanent home beyond 24 hours. If increasing awareness is your goal, lean into creators who are skilled at creating long-form, educational content:

"Lean into people that are creating more long-form content and Stories that are doing that educational and awareness work for you; it's doing more brand storytelling to get your product, your service, your brand, in front of the eyeballs of that specific audience.”

Korina Sanchez, Performance Marketing Manager at Chomps.

Creators who are experienced at deep diving into the features and benefits of a product are going to accomplish more in building awareness than creators who typically just feature products as part of their routine. These creators will need less coaching in how to present and talk about your product, because they are already accustomed to doing it.

Remember: behind every great influencer partnership—whether that’s Instagram or any other social platform—is a consistent vetting process that looks beyond surface-level metrics to find genuine performance and brand fit. By prioritizing engagement and letting your program goals guide the process, you can find the right creator partners to drive real results for your brand.

Let’s move onto sourcing on our next social platform: YouTube!

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Why is engagement rate more important than follower count when vetting Instagram creators?

When a creator boasts high engagement rates on Instagram, it means they have very active followers who are more likely to trust their recommendations. Those followers are more receptive to branded content and more likely to take actions such as visiting a website or making a purchase— even if their overall follower count is smaller. A large follower count on Instagram may look impressive on paper, but if it’s mostly a passive audience who doesn’t really engage, then content is unlikely to drive direct response.

What are the key metrics I should ask for when evaluating an Instagram creator's performance?

The most important metrics when vetting an Instagram creator will depend on the goals of your campaign or program. For conversion-focused partnerships, Story Views, Story Link Clicks, and Reach + Impressions on Reels are most important to assessing whether an influencer is good to generating direct response through their content. For brand awareness partnerships, checking that a creator’s audience demographics (age, gender, location) are aligned with your brand is most important, as well as looking for a high engagement rate of 2-3%.

How can I verify if an Instagram creator's followers are genuine?

To verify the authenticity of an Instagram creator's followers, check whether they are an active community or passive audience. Comment sections provide good evidence of authentic engagement with a creator’s content, as well as taking a good at follower lists. Fake follower accounts that creators have purchased to inflate their count usually easy to spot, as they often have no photo or bio, limited posts, and limited followers.

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