The industry of influencer marketing is now worth about $32 billion. This number is given as “$32 billion” by one vendor and “$32.5 billion” by another, so take it as a rough, unofficial range. Where the money is going is more clear to people who buy media. It is said that YouTube gets about $1 billion more in influencer spending than either TikTok or Instagram (EMARKETER, undated). About 37% of brands around the world use it for campaigns, and in the first half of 2025, sponsored content on the platform grew 54% year-over-year. Every one of those last numbers comes from a single source, but it's hard to argue with the direction of travel.

Not whether or not to buy on YouTube is the harder question. The harder question is who to buy from. Find out how to make a shortlist that can stand up to a media plan.

Instead of starting with the creator, focus on the audience.

Most research frameworks follow the normal order, but the most disciplined ones flip it. Instead of looking for big channels, first figure out who your customer is by how they act, and then pattern-match to the channels that already serve them. This is how ThoughtLeaders sees it: start with the audience. JoinBrands sees it as an “Ideal Creator Persona” that includes the brand's values, the style of content and the quality of production, as well as the location, age, gender, and interests of the audience.

It's important to know this because, surprisingly, relevance often beats pure reach. A small creator that is closely related to a larger channel can do better, according to SponsorRadar, The YouTube Tool, JoinBrands, and ThoughtLeaders. SponsorRadar says it straight out: a niche creator with 30,000 subscribers usually beats a creator with 300,000 subscribers in a nearby space. That's more of a best-practice opinion than a measured standard, but it's the most consistent opinion in the whole set of sources.

Stop relying on the number of subscribers

One thing that all independent sources agree on is that the number of subscribers is not a good indicator of performance. ThoughtLeaders, JoinBrands, ChannelCrawler, SponsorRadar, and Creators Agency all show it on their own. This is the only qualitative claim in the research that has the most support.

What you should look at instead:

  • Number of views to subscribers. Based on ThoughtLeaders' example, having 500,000 subscribers and an average of 400,000 views is fine, but having one million subscribers and an average of 50,000 views is big but not active. It's a red flag for JoinBrands when a 500K-sub channel only gets 10,000 views.
  • Not recent peaks, but recent average views. According to Creators Agency, a creator with 80,000 subscribers and an average of 35,000 views is better than a creator with 250,000 subscribers and an average of 25K views. Look at several recent videos instead of just one that went viral.
  • Engagement rate: the number of likes, comments, and interactions compared to the number of views, calculated by reading through several recent uploads.
  • The consistency of the content means how often updates have happened over the last 6 to 12 months.
  • When reaching out to an audience, make sure you read the comments, look at how the topics are presented, and ask for demographic information shared by the creator.

What creator tiers you should know

Micro creators (10k–100k subscribers) are loyal, highly engaged, and good for niche products. JoinBrands makes a clear distinction between them and macro creators (100k–1M+ subscribers), who increase credibility and reach. It's best for creators with 50,000 to 200,000 subscribers who have already done two or three sponsorships for a competitor, according to SponsorRadar. That mix shows both a good-sized audience and the ability to carry out a paid integration.

Look at the history of sponsorship as a sign.

The most useful way to find information is to reverse-engineer rosters. Creators who have done sponsorships before are usually better partners, and the way your competitors spend their money will tell you which channels are likely to be good for you. AdvertiserRadar lists categories where this can be seen: VPN brands (like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark), website builders (like Squarespace and Hostinger), and meal delivery services (like HelloFresh).

The Creators Agency has a strict version of the method: watch recent videos from similar channels and write down the date, sponsor, product, video link, and video name. Importantly, tell the difference between “this brand is hiring creators right now” and “an ad ran here once.” A single, out-of-date sponsor video shows that integration took place, but that doesn't mean that budget or openings exist now. As of July 16, 2026, the source logged the following public examples that show how detailed this can get: Monarch Money on The Financial Diet, SoFi on Graham Stephan, Relay on Minority Mindset, and Zapier on Modern MBA. There is no permanent roster here; these are just snapshots in time.

Beyond history, the sources point to a number of useful ways to find things:

  • Native YouTube search done right. ChannelCrawler suggests using a clean, dedicated research account to get the most accurate results, separating results by upload date using Filters → Channel, and watching two to three videos before deciding.
  • similar or recommended channels. In the sidebar of a good video, you can see that audiences tend to gather in groups, so creators that are close to you will often share the same audience.
  • Niche and category filtering. Search YouTube by vertical rather than searching the whole site.
  • Finding tools. ChannelCrawler advertises a searchable database of more than 21 million channels with filters for niche, active status, country and language, engagement rate, upload frequency, growth, and email availability. It also has a feature called “Brand Sponsorship Discovery” that was announced on August 10, 2025, and will show you who a brand is currently sponsoring. Instead of bios or hashtags, the YouTube Tool looks for creators based on what they post using the official YouTube Data API. This is a different way to find creators and is designed for mid-tier and micro discovery. (Note: none of these sources list prices in the text that can be read.)

The search engines' own discovery tools are changing.

You should include two first-party options in your media plan, and both of them are changing.

With the Creator Partnerships tab in the “Earn” section of YouTube Studio, brands can find creators who are eligible for the YouTube Partner Program. Creators can put out a media kit that can be customized and set the rates they want for long-form and short-form videos. By using Creator search, brands can search by keyword or channel handle, see profiles with insights, and sort results by audience demographics, subscribers, creator location, and engagement.

One big change is that the earlier requirement of having a Large Customer Sales or Google Customer Solutions assignment and spending over $1,000 on-Demand Gen or YouTube in the previous year is no longer being used. Google says that starting in June 2026, all active Google Ads accounts will be able to use core features like Overview, Creator search, and List management in all places where YPP is active. For those who looked at this tool before but didn't decide to buy it, it's worth another look.

Google Ads (Tools → Labs) has a self-service platform called YouTube BrandConnect that lets you find creators, build campaigns, and get performance data. Brazil, India, Indonesia, the UK, and the US are the only places that can join the beta right now. It's possible for brands to send up to 30 offers at once, get a suggested price based on past data and reach estimates, and use Search Lift and Survey Lift to measure lift.

Vet first, then talk

When you have a short list, the Creators Agency's checklist works perfectly for any industry. Define success metrics before you start reaching out, such as paid accounts, signups, downloads, or a rise in brand awareness. Look at the last 10 videos, compare demographics to your customer profile, check the average number of views over the last 90 days, and make sure that sponsored work from the past was done on time.

Regarding the mechanics of the deal, there are two things that you should plan to spend money on right away: most creators allow you 30 days to use their work, and negotiating longer usage rights after delivery costs 25–40% more than including them in the original brief. Use should be part of the first question.

To keep workflow tight but not controlling, add 30% to timelines, respond to creators within 24 hours, limit script approval to 48 hours, and give 3–5 talking points instead of a script word-for-word. As a general rule, you should get feedback on your script and video once.

Each reliable source says the same thing: figure out who the audience is, judge based on engagement and recent views instead of subscriber count, use the lists of competitors as a shortcut, and make sure you have full rights to use the content before you sign. That way, the discovery tools, whether they are first-party or third-party, will help you get to the list you wanted faster.