The Art and Science of Brand Fit: How to Determine if an Influencer Is the Right Match
October 22, 2024
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6 mins
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In our survey about how influencer marketers vet influencers, 44.8% of participants said they consider brand fit to be one of the most important factors.
But ‘brand fit’ is one of those vague terms in influencer marketing that gets tossed around a lot, with little to no actionable advice.
So I spoke to two influencer marketing pros, Tamara Torrecillas Gutiérrez (Influencer Marketing Manager at Dialect) and Michael Todner (Influencer Marketing Lead at Gear4Music) to understand:
- What does ‘brand fit’ actually mean
- How to assess brand fit via influencer profiles
- How important is brand fit for a successful collaboration
What exactly does “brand fit” mean?
It's hard to pin down the exact meaning of brand fit – partially because it depends on each individual brand, and partially because it's just difficult to actually define.
Brand fit boils down to whether an influencer will accurately represent your brand, products, and values. It encompasses an influencer's content style, personality, and sometimes even looks or aesthetic. An influencer who is a great brand fit will feel like a natural collaboration, and their audience won't be surprised at a collaboration with your brand. Sometimes, you might be looking for a particular archetype, like a metalhead or a popular beauty influencer, and sometimes, it'll be about the positive vibe that shines through an influencer's content.
Michael Todner divides brand fit into three components: metrics, content, and personality. While he goes on to say that metrics and brand fit are something different, we've decided to include metrics in the conversation – as it's intrinsic to making a great influencer/brand match.
1. Metrics:
Metrics are the benchmarks you have for your campaigns’ objectives to prove influencer marketing ROI. They also include any influencer requirements you have (like they need to be from a certain location, have a particular demographic of followers, engagement rate, etc.). These metrics can bend depending on your campaign goals and social media platform.
For Michael, while metrics and brand fit are separate, it's critical to start from metrics and build off of that foundation to find a great brand fit.
To me, brand fit is very much like a brand identity, it's hard to quantify a lot of the time. It's feelings and ideas over numbers and data. Brand fit exists in a vacuum for me. Someone can be a brand fit that represents us, our values, and aligns with everything. But, if their metrics just simply aren't there, a partnership won't be worthwhile for us.
Michale mentions that starting with metrics helps you avoid disappointment (and save yourself some time).
Tamara explains the platform differences exceptionally with her own example:
We've tried campaigns on TikTok, but we've seen little ROI here so far. On Instagram, we've done some creative campaigns through Stories and Reels with profiles that potentially share our target audience, some of which have kind of worked. Whilst on YouTube, we've found some little treasures that are working great in terms of sales.
She also adds that which platform and content type works for you (and, by extension, which metrics matter) might also depend on the stage of your business.
YouTube is where people come to spend ‘quality’ digital time. When you watch someone's videos regularly, it is because you really like what they do, you trust what they have to say. Influencers take the time to explain things, give honest reviews, and show how things work. That makes people trust a product and a brand. And trust is not built through 15-second Stories.
2. Content: once you’ve shortlisted creators who match your metric criteria, the next thing you need to evaluate is whether an influencer’s content matches your needs. Michael says he examines various things in an influencer’s content – such as:
- whether or not they’re brand-safe
- whether or not they follow platform-specific guidelines, especially for sponsored content
- whether or not they have used the company’s products before (huge plus!)
- how often an influencer shares sponsored content and who they partner with (& whether or not it’s direct competitors)
- audience reception to their content – whether the sentiment is positive or negative
Tamara also evaluates all of the above. She explains why examining audience sentiment is crucial for her:
They must be highly engaged with their audience, but in a very authentic way, not just emojis. For example, I love when their audience writes to ask specific things, looks for their advice/recommendations, and influencers take the time to reply carefully.
In addition to this, Tamara also looks at whether an influencer shares Dialect’s brand values:
Even though this is not the main selling point, we produce eco-friendly and cruelty-free products and it also helps to reach audiences who value that.
Examining influencer content also means evaluating aspects that don’t fit into a spreadsheet. For example, do you want to partner with creators who are relatable or aspirational? Do they have followers who match your target audience? Is their profile a right fit for the specific product you’re looking to promote?
Many of these components can’t be neatly filtered for using data-driven benchmarks. However, evaluating them is equally vital in ensuring a creator’s the right brand fit.
3. Personality: if an influencer matches the above two criteria, Michael reaches out to them and starts a conversation. It helps him get an idea of the creator’s personality – are they excited about the collab, do they offer up their own ideas, etc.:
I like to see influencers who are engaged with the opportunity or bring a lot of ideas to the table – which aligns with how we want to work. It's always good to get an influencer's thoughts on the niche they're working in. I think this really lets me understand if they fit our brand ethos and what we're looking to achieve for our campaigns and customers.
Michael says if an influencer has all three (to varying degrees, more on that later) – they fulfill the metric, content, & personality requirements and their rates align with the budget, then he considers those influencers a great brand fit.
Why care about brand fit?
Does it really matter whether or not an influencer is a brand fit? So what if your vibes don’t match? Michael says it can make a huge difference:
Having an influencer that fits the brand helps massively with authenticity. It's a buzzword that often gets thrown around but having an influencer who aligns with your brand, understands your product/offering, and is a real believer in it, makes a world of difference.
He also explains with an example from his experience: Gear4Music sells musical instruments, equipment, and software. One of their influencer campaigns was aimed at their budget-friendly guitars. Michael and his team found one creator who firmly believed that no one needs to break the bank to purchase a guitar. The result? A wonderful, authentic influencer partnership:
He loved our offer, and had feedback on how to improve it and we applied his feedback. We're able to improve our products whilst also showing this creator that we genuinely care. As a result, he feels more than confident to wholeheartedly get behind our campaign and his passion comes through in the content. This is true authenticity. It's a real collaborative effort from both sides.
He also adds the lucrativeness of this brand-fit influencer partnership;
The results of the campaign (and his content in particular) are evidence of this. [His collab post is] one of his best performing pieces of content for the year, great ROI on our side, and a great reception from his audience.
Michael also explains what happens when an influencer is clearly not a good brand fit: the audience can smell it and scroll away without a second thought. Plus, your brand name now leaves a sour taste in their mouth.
When an influencer is not a good brand fit, it leads to content feeling very "throwaway" and forgettable. No care is given from either side. Audiences see right through this and simply do not engage and often will walk away with a poor view of the brand.
Tamara agrees. She adds that it’s also much easier to work with influencers who are a good brand fit:
It's easier to work with these profiles. You get more authentic, credible content and reach a relevant audience, briefs are easy to follow because they understand the brand, they are consistent in their communication because they know what they're doing, and it's easier to close long-term deals when they feel aligned with the brand and love the product.
Brand-fit influencer partnerships just…click, you know? You don’t have to try as hard and the audience also just seems to “get” you when an influencer who’s a good match stands as your spokesperson.
Not to mention: you wouldn’t want completely off-brand influencers to represent your brand publicly. It’d taint your reputation and credibility, even if the short-term results are promising.
How to vet an influencer for brand fit in 4 steps
Here’s a quick step-by-step guide for finding influencers who are a brand fit:
Step 1: Get specific and clear about your brand requirements and campaign goals
Your brand values, personality needs, and campaign goals are the foundation for assessing whether an influencer is a good brand fit.
For Andreea Moise, it's about completing that crucial ICP research and prioritizing your end customer first.
Creative alignment should always be done on goals, and not metrics (outcomes). This is where ICP research plays the biggest role. Usually brands go "the influencer has to fit us," but it's more of "the influencer has to appeal to the viewer" which end up being very separate things.
She continues, mentioning how knowing what your ICP wants can help focus your goal setting.
One of the reasons you need ICP research is that it creates realistic goal expectations. For example, if from research we know our customers spend time on TikTok to get entertained, so there's not much direct measurable or attainable lift, but that doesn't mean the impact isn't there. I know TikTok is TOFU, high recall content only – so I'm going to adjust my influencer fit criteria based on that.
Answer the following questions:
- What are my campaign goals? What kind of influencers will help me reach them? Which influencers have audiences your content will resonate with? Nail down the specifics here – the desired follower count, social media platform, audience demographics, etc.
- What metrics will you use to assess an influencer’s content? This can include their responses to comments, production quality, core values, engagement rate, and more. The idea is to jot down at least a few particulars of what high-quality content looks like for your brand’s needs.
- What is your expectation from the creator’s personality? Maybe you want an influencer who shares lots of ideas and provides feedback. Or perhaps you’d like a creator partnership where you share an influencer brief and the job gets done with minimal back-and-forth. There’s no right or wrong here – and your answer may differ from campaign to campaign. But knowing your expectations will help you assess whether or not a potential influencer partner is the right fit when you start communicating with them.
Step 2: Shortlist influencers who match your metrics criteria
Now that you know what you want, it’s time to get your hands dirty. The first thing you need to do is find influencers who fulfill your basic requirements – aka, the metrics. Use an influencer marketing software like Modash to speed up this process. Let’s say you want an influencer who has:
- 5k-15k followers on Instagram
- Live in the United States
- Have an engagement rate of at least 2%
- Have a following of 25-34 year old women in the U.S.
Modash is divided into two sections: influencer filters and audience filters. In the above example, the first three criteria are influencer filters. These are the metrics you can vet in an influencer’s profile directly, without touching their following.
The next set of criteria is filtering for the audience you want to reach – aka, the last criteria in the above example. In Modash, you can use percentage granularity in the audience filters to drill down on your requirements even further.
Once you enter your filters and click ‘Show influencers,’ you’ll find a list of creators who match your requirements to a T. You can add them to a customized list. You can also get a detailed report about their performance, audience, and content.
Find influencers who match your criteria on Modash for free.
⚡ Pro-tip: don’t apply all the above filters simultaneously. Apply a few, shortlist creators, and keep narrowing it down as you go. Doing this will ensure you don’t miss out on any gem influencers because you were too stringent from the beginning.
Step 3: Evaluate influencer content (including aspects that don’t fit into a spreadsheet)
Once you shortlist creators metric-wise, you can start evaluating whether their content is high-quality. Depending on your brand requirements and campaign goals, this can be a bit subjective. But if you’ve done step one right, you’ll know exactly what to look for in an influencer’s content.
Some things can only be examined manually. For example, let’s say you want to assess whether or not an influencer responds to their audience with eagerness and enthusiasm. To evaluate this, you’ll have to scroll down the comments of their recent content. There’s no shortcut.
But some factors can use the help of a tool. For example, if you want to examine paid post performance and quickly find all the sponsored posts a creator has done, Modash can help you find that in a few clicks.
A note here: it might be tempting to skip this step and directly start reaching out to creators whose metrics seem good on paper. But Michael warns that foregoing the manual, tedious labor might have poor long-term consequences:
Metrics do not tell you the whole story. You really need to deep dive into things when looking to maximize performance and see the best results. Of course this is more time consuming but if you as an influencer marketer don't care enough to put that time in, the results will show that.
⚠️ Caveat: even in this advice, everything is not black-and-white. Yes, you should examine influencers beyond metrics in most scenarios, but there might be some campaigns where that’s not possible. For instance, if you’re running a large self-serve brand ambassador program, it’s not feasible to manually evaluate hundreds and thousands of influencers’ content. Like with anything in influencer marketing, tailor the advice to your context – that’s the only way it’ll fit best.
Evaluate an influencer’s profile on all the content metrics and cut down on your list even further to eliminate those whose content you don’t like.
Next, you need to examine more fuzzy, non-tangible stuff. The thing with brand fit is…it’s not just about numbers. There are aspects you need to evaluate that aren’t data-driven, but a bit more intuitive and unmeasurable – like personality, archetype, etc. To quote Michael:
I think a lot of people (including myself at times) can get very bogged down in data and forget a human eye can tell you so much that data simply can't.
Saying this is easy. But how do you put it into practice? How do you actually inspect for these intangible brand fit components? Michael says it all comes down to the product or brand you’re pushing. You want an influencer who caters to your target audience.
He explains with an example comparing two products: VISION and Gear4Music. The VISION line sells beginner-friendly musical instruments. So it’s geared toward people who are new to playing instruments or are picking up a forgotten hobby. He elaborates on the kind of influencers he’d look for for VISION:
We're looking for an influencer that will appeal to younger players and, more importantly, to parents. We want wholesome, family friendly, etc. Even down to how they present themselves. We want an everyday person you would see in the street almost – as opposed to a through and through rock fan.
For VISION, Michael chose influencers like James Partridge who fit the memo perfectly. He’s a music teacher by day and also does live shows. James’ job, persona, and audience are a perfect brand fit for VISION.
On the other hand, Gear4Music is designed for experienced players. This line sells premium and budget-friendly products. Michael explains why James wouldn’t be a good brand fit for Gear4Music:
For this brand, we want real enthusiasts. We’re looking for influencers who are extremely knowledgeable on the finer details and nuances of playing. Their audiences are experienced – these are the bits they care about. We want that rock and metal aesthetic to match the products and brand. Whilst James is great and performs amazingly for us, he simply wouldn't fit our needs here and wouldn't perform anywhere near the same level.
For this brand, Michael partners with creators like Jamie Slays – who’s a true metal head. In his collaboration video with Gear4Music, he covers the guitar’s sounds, visuals, and hardware – stuff only experienced players would like to dig into.
Tamara evaluates non-tangible brand fit aspects by manually vetting her shortlisted influencer profiles. Specifically, she’s looking for creators who give an ‘everyday’ vibe – they should be able to connect with their audience while showing the realities of everyday life in an authentic and genuine way.
I usually look for simple moments like morning routines, vlogs, funny moments, chores, errands, tips, or everyday wins/fails. Everything they do and show resonates with an ordinary person that does ordinary things. They sometimes include their partners, family or friends in their videos and create spontaneous content.
She’s not looking for creators with a particular aesthetic because she wants creators who show the raw, unpolished, human versions of themselves. That’s what aligns with the brand. If an influencer’s content doesn’t hit the mark, Tamara doesn’t bother starting a conversation with them because she knows it isn’t the right brand fit.
⚠️ Note: Micheal and Tamara both agree that evaluating this fluffier side of brand fit should come into the picture after an influencer matches your tangible data requirements. For example, if you need an influencer with a UK-based audience and a 2% engagement rate minimum to make sense for your budget and brand, filter for these metrics first. Once you’ve shortlisted creators who meet this initial criteria, move on to evaluating the qualitative side of things.
To conclude, you want to find influencers who not only match your data requirements, but also pass the vibe check. Note down a few things you’re looking for in an influencer’s profile that can’t be measured with a clear-cut number.
For example, do you want a relatable kind of influencer who creates lifestyle content? Or do you want someone who caters to a more knowledgeable audience and creates educational content? The things you’re looking for will vary wildly from other competing brands (and might even differ from product to product or campaign to campaign). But this unmeasurable stuff is what might set you apart.
Step 4: Reach out to influencers who seem like the right brand fit
Now, you have a list of creators who match your brand fit criteria. Start your influencer outreach to them. You can use influencer outreach tools here to scale your efforts. In Modash, you can find creators, assess their profiles, and send them an email without ever leaving the tool by connecting your Gmail or Outlook account. This way, all your outreach efforts will also remain in one place and tracking response rates will be easy peasy.
💡 Looking for influencer emails/DMs templates you could use? Here are 14 influencer outreach examples from real brands.
Once a creator responds, start checking if they tick off all the boxes in your personality test. If you want a proactive influencer partner, are they showing enthusiasm and sharing potential content ideas? If you were looking for someone who can start creating influencer content right away, are they showing an eagerness to begin with quick turnaround times and sharing availability?
Like before, assessing whether an influencer’s personality matches your brand fit requirements is easier if you know what you’re looking for. This is why step one is so crucial – once you know your expectations, you can quickly start assessing whether an influencer is meeting them.
If the influencer’s personality is also a vibe match, the creator is a great brand fit.
You can start taking things to the next level by asking their rates or sharing your budget, deciding on the type of collaboration you want to proceed with, or drawing up an influencer contract.
Is it necessary for your influencer partners to be a 100% brand fit?
What if you find an influencer who matches your brand fit requirements…somewhat? Maybe they have all the right metrics and high-quality content, but their personality doesn’t hit the 10/10 grade. Should you abandon the partnership or give them the benefit of the doubt?
In our conversation with influencer marketers, almost no one says less than 100% brand fit is a deal-breaker for potential creator partners. Tamara and Michael both have certain non-negotiables, but they’re open to being flexible in some components. For example, Michael prioritizes the brand fit elements in this order:
- Metrics
- Is the influencer brand safe
- Content quality
- Growth trajectory
Tamara dedicates 50% of the company’s budget to work with influencers who are a great brand fit and are highly likely to perform well. In her case, this means partnering with creators who:
- Are based in the UK
- Have an audience that’s residing in the UK
- Can create relevant content for Dialect
She also has certain non-negotiables based on the influencer's size. For example, if they’re nano or micro-influencers, Tamara expects them to engage with their audience.
The rest of the budget is reserved to experiment with out-of-the-box creators, experiment, and reach new audiences. This often leads to surprising and serendipitous results:
We know marketing is a trial and error thing, so we are not scared of trying different options – sometimes we get surprised and we find new potential paths to explore!
So, find your non-negotiables. What are the metrics, content quality, and personality traits you wouldn’t budge on, no matter what? If a potential influencer partner doesn’t meet these requirements, they’re immediately disqualified.
But beyond those non-negotiables, be a little more open minded. If an influencer doesn’t appear to be a 100% brand fit but makes up for it in other areas, maybe you can experiment with them. Like Tamara, try to dedicate a portion of your influencer marketing budget – no matter how small – to test new creators and expose your brand to new audiences.
Because remember: brand fit isn’t the only criteria you should be assessing for. Here are six more factors you should look for in an influencer’s profile.
