Vetting, because the numbers lie
Follower counts are purchasable and engagement is fakeable. We check what matters: audience geography against where you can actually ship, comment quality, story view ratios, past brand work and whether their last five collaborations looked like adverts. A 20,000-follower creator with a real local audience routinely beats a 400,000-follower one with bought reach.
Buy the usage rights, always
A post that performs for 24 hours and then legally cannot be reused is a wasted budget. We negotiate usage rights into every deal so winning content can run as a paid ad, live on your own channels and appear on your site. For most brands this reuse is worth more than the original post.
Whitelisting is where it compounds
The real unlock is running ads from the creator's own handle. It keeps the social proof, carries the voice people trust, and reaches far beyond their followers at media cost. We set up whitelisting access as part of the deal, then scale whichever creator's content performs best as a standing ad.
Barter, paid, and knowing which
Product-only deals work for genuinely desirable consumer products with modest ticket sizes, and insult creators above a certain size. Paid works when you need reliability and rights. We tell you which applies to your category rather than running barter outreach that burns relationships for a quarter.