What to Look for Before Hiring an Influencer Marketing Agency

May 8

Influencer marketing is one of the highest-leverage tactics available to consumer brands right now. A well-run program can generate millions of views, drive business revenue, and fuel your entire content strategy. A poorly run one burns budget, frustrates your team, and leaves you with screenshots and no results to show for it.

Most brands that struggle with influencer marketing don't fail because of bad luck or bad creators. They fail because the agency or partner managing the program wasn't set up to run it well.

After 13+ years of building and managing influencer programs for brands across skincare, haircare, consumer products, hospitality, and real estate — and 1,000+ creator partnerships, here's exactly what I'd tell a brand to evaluate before signing anything.

1. Do They Have Real Case Studies (Not Just a list of logos)?

Recognizable brand names on a website don't tell you much. What you actually want is documentation: what the goal was, what the program included, and what the results were.

Strong case studies include:

What was the client's goal?
What did the program include?
What were the measured results in real numbers?
What are a few examples of the best content received?

Here's what that looks like in practice. Veyo Pool Resort came to us to drive resort awareness and bookings through creator content. The influencer program we built generated 5.4M video views, 200K+ engagements, and 67 posts — and contributed to a 20% increase in resort revenue. Eterno Skincare wanted content volume and paid ads support. The program delivered 4.3M video views, 15K+ engagements, and a 267% ROAS from influencer content used in paid social.

Those are the kinds of specifics that tell you whether an agency can actually execute, not just present.

Also, pay attention to whose results they're showing. Influencer marketing for a CPG brand looks very different from a home builder or a resort. Relevant industry experience matters.

2. Can They Handle the Full Program, Not Just the Strategy?

Many agencies pitch a polished strategy and then hand day-to-day execution to junior staff. The operational side of influencer marketing is where most in-house teams get overwhelmed: finding the right creators, building outreach lists, negotiating contracts, coordinating product fulfillment, reviewing content, tracking deliverables, and reporting on results.

Ask directly: who handles outreach? Who negotiates with creators? Who manages the relationship once the contract is signed? Where is the content saved?

At Kellen McAvoy, Inc., our programs are managed end-to-end — from strategy and creator sourcing to briefs, content review, FTC compliance, W9s, payment coordination, and reporting. When a brand hires us, they hand off the program to me (Kellen) and my trusted team that I’ve been working alongside for over 10 years.

3. Do They Understand How to Measure Campaign Performance?

Ask any agency you're vetting: how do you define success for our influencer marketing program?

The answer should be specific, and it should align with your actual business goals. Impressions matter, but so does engagement quality, ROAS, affiliate revenue, and other conversions data. A strong partner connects program performance to the metrics that matter to your business.

Our programs track organic social performance (video views, tagged content volume, engagement) and paid social performance (ROAS and revenue from creator content used in ads). We also track affiliate conversions where programs are structured for it.

H2O Audio's influencer program, for example, generated 6.3M video views and 500K+ engagements — and $13K+ in affiliate revenue in six months.

An agency should be able to tell you which metrics they optimize for and why those are impactful for your goals.

4. Do They Know How to Make Creator Content Work Beyond a Single Post?

This is one of the most underutilized levers in influencer marketing, and it separates programs that compound from ones that just produce content.

The brands seeing the strongest returns are using creator content across their entire marketing ecosystem: paid social ads, organic feeds, email, website, and landing pages. When you structure contracts and briefs with content usage rights built in, you get more than a post. You get a library of authentic, high-performing content you can deploy anywhere.

We’ve helped brands like Lulani Faucet Co., It's a 10 Haircare, and Live Ultimate use influencer programs to move entirely away from stock imagery and renders, replacing them with lifestyle content that performs better on social, in ads, and on product pages.

If an agency isn't discussing content usage rights during the strategy conversation, that's a gap worth asking about directly.

5. Are They Building a Program or Running One-Off Campaigns?

There's a difference between a mass gifting campaign and a more strategically targeted influencer program. Both can be beneficial, depending on your goals, but they require different tactics, tools and costs. Gifting campaigns are great for scaling and gathering tons of content, but can also mean more products to give away, less control over the content, and not as personalized outreach. A structured, recurring program may have fewer partners, but can lead to a more reliable content pipeline and relationships with creators who genuinely understand your brand (and want to keep working with you!).

Our programs tend to be smaller, more structured campaigns working with an average of 50-200+ aligned creators annually per brand. This is the format we used to turn a Candlelight Homes influencer program into 42 creator partnerships, 100+ pieces of content, nearly 700K video views, and at least one directly attributed new home sale.

Regardless of which program you choose, both require a sustained investment.

6. Do They Have a Point of View on Strategy and Are They Willing to Push Back?

A good agency should be able to tell you which creator tiers make sense for your goals, what a realistic negotiation fee looks like in your category, and what timeline to expect before you've committed to anything.

That transparency is part of what we bring to every partnership. If the goals aren't clear, the budget isn't realistic, or the brand isn't in a position to get the most out of influencer marketing right now, we say so.

7. Will It Feel Like a Partnership or a Vendor Relationship?

Influencer marketing programs work best when the agency behaves like an extension of your team, looped into your broader marketing strategy, not just executing a deliverable in isolation.

Before signing, ask: How do you communicate throughout the program? What does a monthly report look like? Who is my day-to-day contact? How do you shift tactics if the content isn’t resonating or if the messaging doesn’t feel aligned?

Questions to Ask Before You Hire an Influencer Marketing Partner

Can you walk me through a case study in my category or a comparable one?
Who manages creator outreach, negotiations, and relationships day-to-day?
How do you measure success, and what does a monthly report include?
Do you structure contracts to include content usage rights for paid social?
Here are our goals. How many influencers do you think we would need to partner with to achieve them?
What’s an average cost we can expect to pay when working with influencers?
What do you expect from our team? (IE: Help with product fulfillment, payments, etc.)

The Bottom Line

The right influencer marketing partner doesn't just connect you with creators. They build a program designed to produce content, deliver performance tailored to your goals, and integrate into your broader marketing strategy.

Look for documented results, operational depth, honest measurement, and a team that thinks like a growth partner.

Learn more about our influencer marketing service or how you can apply to work with us today.

For more tips like this, follow me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest social media trends, news and features.