Finding the Right Creators (vs paying for the wrong ones)

11 min · video · Intermediate

You DM 100 creators with the same offer. 18 respond positively. You pay them all. 4 deliver well, 6 deliver mediocre, 8 deliver content that's unusable or never goes live. You spent A$5,400 to get 4 winners. The vetting work that separates the 4 winners from the 14 time-wasters takes 90 minutes per creator before you commit. Today: the 5-signal framework.

Why vetting matters

Creator partnerships fail at predictable points. Three reasons account for most failures:

Audience-product mismatch. Creator has good followers but not your customer. A fitness creator posting about pet products converts at 0.2% versus a pet creator at 2.5%.
Engagement decline. Creator had a viral moment 18 months ago, audience has gone cold. Engagement rate <2% means the audience isn't showing up for the creator anymore.
Reliability issues. Creator misses deadlines, posts low-effort content, doesn't respond to feedback.

The 5-signal vetting framework catches most of these before you commit money.

"I used to just DM 50 creators and pick the first 5 who said yes," said an Adelaide pet operator. "I'd spend A$3,000 and get maybe A