Hiring the right influencer marketing agency can make or break your campaign. Get it wrong, and you waste money on mismatched influencers and weak content. But get it right, and you’ll see rocketing engagement, sales, and loyalty.
So, how do you find the right agency?
Read on to discover the best approach to selecting an agency that performs.
Put simply, an influencer marketing agency helps brands run influencer marketing campaigns. Instead of handling the process in-house, brands outsource the strategy and management to a team of experts.
Companies typically hire agencies when they lack time or expertise. It’s like hiring a mechanic to fix your car. Without the right skills, trying to repair it could leave you worse off than you started. And even if you know what you're doing, it still costs time and effort.
In short, you’re contracting professionals to ensure the job’s done well and reduce operational complexity.
As a general rule, influencer marketing agencies offer all or some of the following services:
An agency that runs influencer marketing campaigns may also have expertise in other channels, such as paid advertising or PR, allowing you to launch a unified multi-channel strategy.
The agency you select will affect every aspect of your campaign.
So think carefully about the following questions.
Before you look for an agency, analyse your own goals and audience.
Below are the most important pre-search considerations:
You don’t need to know everything – an agency will work closely with you to understand your brand and objectives.
However, a solid grasp of goals, brand values, and target audiences helps during the selection process. You can also share these details during the first contact to give agencies an idea of what you’re after.
You must be sure the agency can do everything you need it to. Some agencies are small, local teams with few staff members and highly specialised offerings. Others are large, global companies.
Agencies can specialise in many different areas, including:
If you’ve defined the right audience and goals, you can probably eliminate a few agencies from the list immediately. For example, disregard a Gen-Z agency if your goal is connecting with Millennials.
Yes, some agencies do it all. And they can be very successful at it. However, niche brands may be better off picking a team with deep knowledge of their sector and target market.
You’re hiring an agency for its skills, expertise, and experience. The industry moves fast, and agencies must keep up to stay competitive.
Keep in mind that almost anyone can set up an agency, so due diligence is needed. Review case studies, LinkedIn posts, and reviews. Many agencies also have reasonably active Instagram accounts displaying content from previous campaigns. When reviewing their case studies, check whether any previous clients resemble your brand.
In addition, examine their style. Are they very creative? Or is the content more authentic and relatable? What kind of influencers do they work with? Would your target demographic connect with any of their content?
Don’t lose focus on your goals. If you want to increase sales, discovering that an agency’s influencer campaign generated one million impressions won’t be relevant. It’s a common issue that influencer marketing is hard to measure, but an agency should be able to produce accurate reports.
An agency will likely be activating multiple influencers simultaneously, running complex campaigns. But they can’t lose sight of your brand and the conversations around it.
There is always some risk, however small, that your audience won’t connect with the content or influencers. This can tank brand sentiment fast, causing a flurry of negative comments.
Ask the agency how they monitor content and approach influencer selection to protect your reputation.
Can the team get your campaign on the road in six weeks? Or is it struggling for time and unavailable for the next six months?
These practical considerations ensure your influencer campaign aligns with other marketing strategies. For example, you'll have a set timeframe if you're using influencer marketing to promote a product launch.
In addition, there’s the question of where the team communicates. Find out whether they work in person or remotely and how quickly they reply. You need an easy collaboration partner.
The bottom line is that agencies can charge anywhere from £1,000 to upwards of £20,000 per campaign.
So what factors determine how much an agency costs?
Most agencies offer custom quotes based on campaign needs, so pricing varies widely.
Before contacting agencies, determine a rough budget. But remember, outsourcing a campaign won’t be cheap.
Here’s a list of the top influencer marketing agencies in the UK.
House of Marketers specialises in TikTok influencer marketing. Founded by a former TikTok employee, the agency focuses on helping brands scale through TikTok strategies.
House of Marketers is a global agency with an office in London. It matches clients on TikTok with relevant creators, whether micro- or mega-influencers. The powerful agency can handle any campaign goal, whether you want to drive awareness or sales.
Core services:
Case study: House of Marketers partnered with Rimmel London to boost brand awareness through an omnichannel influencer campaign. Working with 30 diverse TikTok creators, the campaign resulted in 18 million impressions, and Rimmel’s mascara even sold out seven times.
Disrupt is a specialised agency that connects brands with young audiences, focusing on Gen Z and Millennials. It primarily connects brands with potential customers via TikTok campaigns. But it also handles other social media platforms.
Disrupt is a creative powerhouse with impressive content production facilities. Its roots are in the UK urban scene, and it celebrates modern youth culture. Stevie Johnson, an ex-Made In Chelsea star, leads it.
Core services:
Case study: Disrupt has worked with Asahi, TOMS, and Disney. It collaborated with Wasabi to improve brand awareness and engage Gen Z audiences on TikTok through trend-driven, funny content. The campaign resulted in over 1.5 million views and achieved a 17% engagement rate.
The Goat Agency runs full-service influencer marketing campaigns. It’s one of the biggest agencies in the UK and has a vast global team. The agency is flexible and can meet any client's request. Its extensive database contains details of over 100,000 influencers. Goat has offices in London, New York, and Singapore.
Core services:
Case study: Goat has worked with household names like Wayfair, Dell, and Odeon. Persil wanted to increase awareness and engagement for its “Dirt Is Good” campaign. The agency activated diverse TikTok creators to produce engaging, story-led videos. The campaign led to 7.5 million views and a 13% engagement rate.
Billion Dollar Boy, founded in 2014, is a full-service agency that can handle high-performance influencer campaigns.
The agency works closely with brands, connecting them with the right influencers, content tracking, and reporting. It has offices in New York and London.
Core services:
Case study: Billion Dollar Boy has executed campaigns for global brands like Heineken, LEGO, and L’Oréal. It partnered with 11 creators to promote Ray-Ban on TikTok and Instagram. The campaign generated 1.8m impressions, 63k engagements, and 553k value-added impressions.
Buttermilk is an influencer marketing agency that does it all. The medium-sized business has over 270,000 creators in its pool. It has offices in London, Miami, and Dubai.
Core services:
Case study: Buttermilk’s previous clients include Prada, GAP, and Armani. Mark Jacobs tasked Buttermilk with rekindling love for its The Tote and The Snapshot handbags. The agency activated 178 micro-influencers, generating over 625,000 views and a 9.9% engagement rate.
As of 2021, approximately 18,900 companies globally offered influencer marketing services.
Yep, your influencer campaign has the potential to transform your brand and rocket you to virality.
But an agency isn’t the right road for everyone. Let’s explore why. Better results
An agency is a good choice if you don’t have a large marketing team or they’re overwhelmed (as many are).
Choose a full-service agency, and they will handle everything, from ideas to reporting. You can sit back and watch a team of experts select great influencers who create great content. It’s a massive relief for many brands. And it often results in high performance campaigns.
However, the downside is that agencies are more expensive. You also need to make a good decision, as if you select the wrong one, you’ll be out of pocket with little to show for it.
One of the best things about in-house influencer marketing is the flexibility in price, risk, and approach. For example, if you run a gifting campaign, your only costs will be postage and packaging.
There are also emerging tactics, like affiliate marketing, which reduce costs and risk. The Kolsquare State of Influencer Marketing in Europe Report found that 53% of UK brands now run affiliate campaigns. It allows you to run a sales-driven influencer marketing using a pay-by-commission model. That means, by definition, you can only make a profit.
Want to learn about affiliate campaigns? Our in-depth affiliate report explains why this tactic is taking off in 2025.
When it comes to content creation, you can rely on influencers. The truth is creators are professionals at connecting with their audiences. If you match their followers and your target audience, you likely already have access to an expert content creator.
In addition, the relationships you build with these influencers are yours rather than the agency’s. If an influencer performs well, you can introduce longer term models, such as sponsored posts or brand ambassadorships.
There is a learning curve here, but you can start with small, low-risk campaigns and then expand. However, for some brands it will be more than they can manage.
If you decide to go it alone, you will need data to choose the right influencers with the right audiences and monitor campaigns to determine what's working.
If you’re tempted by running a campaign yourself but lack some insights, an influencer marketing platform may be the solution.
A platform like Kolsquare stores all the data you need about influencers. It’s like a vast search engine that lets you access insights into millions of influencers. Just like Google, all you need to do is run a semantic search. Then you can filter for influencers based on key data like audience demographics, follow counts, and more.
Here’s an example: A kitchen utensil brand wants to run a promotional campaign with chef influencers. Their target audience is male UK Millennials. They simply access the platform and type “chef” into the semantic search. Then, they select the platform and add a filter specifying the age group, gender, and location.
In addition, the platform will show you an influencer's previous collaborations so you can ensure they haven’t recently worked with a direct competitor. You can also check for fake followers, how much buzz their past campaigns earned, and whether they’ve mentioned your brand before.
And it’s all at a much lower price point. Subscription fees typically start at just a few hundred pounds a month, making them an efficient choice if you only need data-driven decision-making.
Once your campaign is launched, you can monitor and manage it on the platform. You can also discover how each individual key opinion leader (KOL) is performing, helping you optimize tactics.
Think an agency could benefit you?
Book in for a Kolsquare demo today.
UK influencer marketing agencies must continue evolving to keep up with industry changes. We anticipate many more twists and turns ahead.
Here are the agency trends to watch:
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.
Since October 2024, Kolsquare has become part of the Team.Blue group, one of the largest private tech companies in Europe, and a leading digital enabler for businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. Team.Blue brings together over 60 successful brands in web hosting, domains, e-commerce, online compliance, lead generation, application solutions, and social media.
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