Influencer marketing strategy across platforms — creator discovery, audience vetting, campaign tracking, ROI measurement, outreach, gifting, and affiliate programs. Covers platform comparison (Modash, influData, Creator.co, Hypefy, LTK, Influencity, Meltwater, Skeepers, Heepsy, CreatorIQ, NeoReach, Afluencer, Collabstr, Cloutboost, House of Marketers, Famesters, inBeat, HypeAuditor, Aspire, Influencer Hero, InstaJet, Open Influence, Viral Nation, trendHERO, Upfluence, GRIN, PlutoBa), discovery workflow (search, filters, lookalikes, audience analysis), vetting framework (fake followers, engagement authenticity, audience demographics), campaign setup and tracking (EMV, ROAS, CPM, sales attribution), creator outreach (email templates, negotiation, rate cards), product gifting and seeding, influencer affiliate programs, and creator payments. Use when unsure which influencer platform to pick, can't find the right creators for your niche, worried about fake followers or inflated metrics, campaign results aren't being tracked properly, creators aren't responding to outreach, or influencer spend isn't showing ROI. Do NOT use for platform-specific config (use /sales-modash, /sales-infludata, /sales-creatorco, /sales-hypefy, /sales-ltk, /sales-influencity, /sales-meltwater, /sales-brandwatch, /sales-skeepers, /sales-heepsy, /sales-creatoriq, /sales-neoreach, /sales-afluencer, /sales-collabstr, /sales-cloutboost, /sales-houseofmarketers, /sales-famesters, /sales-inbeat, /sales-hypeauditor, /sales-aspire, /sales-influencer-hero, /sales-instajet, /sales-openinfluence, /sales-viralnation, /sales-trendhero, /sales-upfluence, /sales-grin, or /sales-plutoba), TikTok marketing strategy (use /sales-tiktok-marketing), gaming influencer marketing strategy (use /sales-gaming-marketing), ad campaign strategy (use /sales-retargeting), or email marketing to subscribers (use /sales-email-marketing).
argument-hint
[describe your influencer marketing question — e.g., 'how do I find micro-influencers for my skincare brand' or 'what metrics should I track for influencer campaigns']
Helps the user plan and execute influencer marketing programs across platforms — from choosing the right tool and finding creators through vetting, outreach, campaign tracking, and ROI measurement.
Step 1 — Gather context
If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.
Ask the user:
What do you need help with?
A) Choosing an influencer marketing platform
B) Finding and discovering creators
C) Vetting influencers (fake followers, audience quality)
D) Outreach to creators (emails, DMs, negotiation)
E) Product gifting / seeding program
F) Campaign tracking and ROI measurement
G) Influencer affiliate program setup
H) Creator payments and contracts
I) Something else — describe it
What's your business type?
A) Ecommerce / Shopify store
B) DTC brand
C) SaaS / B2B
D) Agency managing multiple clients
E) Other — describe it
What's your current setup?
A) Starting from scratch — no influencer program yet
B) Manual process (spreadsheets, DMs, no tooling)
C) Already using a platform — which one?
D) Looking to switch platforms
Budget and scale?
A) Small (under $1K/mo, handful of creators)
B) Medium ($1K-5K/mo, 20-50 creators)
C) Large ($5K+/mo, 50+ creators)
D) Not sure yet
If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end.
Step 2 — Route or answer directly
If the request maps to a platform-specific skill, route:
Modash setup, config, or features → /sales-modash
influData setup, config, or features → /sales-infludata
Creator.co setup, config, or features → /sales-creatorco
Hypefy setup, config, or features → /sales-hypefy
LTK setup, config, or features → /sales-ltk
Influencity setup, config, or features →
/sales-influencity
Meltwater setup, config, or features → /sales-meltwater
Skeepers setup, config, or features → /sales-skeepers
Heepsy setup, config, or features → /sales-heepsy
CreatorIQ setup, config, or features → /sales-creatoriq
Afluencer setup, config, or features → /sales-afluencer
Collabstr setup, config, or features → /sales-collabstr
Cloutboost setup, config, or features → /sales-cloutboost
House of Marketers agency services → /sales-houseofmarketers
NeoReach setup, config, or features → /sales-neoreach
inBeat agency services or free toolkit → /sales-inbeat
Famesters agency services → /sales-famesters
Open Influence setup, config, or agency services → /sales-openinfluence
Viral Nation setup, CreatorOS, Secure, or agency services → /sales-viralnation
trendHERO setup, config, or features → /sales-trendhero
FansRevenue setup, creator monetization, or brand partnerships → /sales-fansrevenue
Affiliate program design (not influencer-specific) → /sales-affiliate-program
UGC galleries / shoppable content → /sales-tagshop
Ad campaign strategy → /sales-retargeting or /sales-b2b-advertising
Email marketing to subscribers → /sales-email-marketing
Otherwise, answer directly from the strategy knowledge below.
Step 3 — Influencer marketing strategy reference
Read references/platform-guide.md for detailed platform comparison tables, discovery workflows, vetting frameworks, outreach best practices, rate benchmarks, gifting programs, campaign tracking, and affiliate program guidance.
You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.
Step 4 — Actionable guidance
Platform recommendation — which tool fits their needs, budget, and tech stack
Discovery playbook — step-by-step search and filtering strategy
Vetting checklist — ordered checks to efficiently qualify creators
Outreach templates — personalized email/DM drafts for their specific situation
Campaign plan — tracking setup, metrics, reporting cadence
Program design — gifting, affiliate, or hybrid program structure
Gotchas
Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about pricing and platform capabilities that may change.
Fake follower rates are high across the industry. ~37% of influencer followers are estimated to be fake or bot accounts (2025 data). Never skip the vetting step, even for creators who look legitimate at first glance.
Response rates are low. Expect 20-30% response rates on cold creator outreach. Build your shortlist at 3-5x your target number of creators. Personalization significantly improves response rates.
Micro-influencers outperform macro for ROI. Creators with 10K-100K followers consistently deliver higher engagement rates and better ROAS for ecommerce brands. Don't chase follower counts.
Gifting ≠ guaranteed content. No-strings gifting has a 30-50% post rate. If you need guaranteed posts, use paid partnerships or contracted gifting with clear deliverables.
Platform databases overlap. Modash, influData, and Creator.co all index public profiles from the same social platforms. The differentiation is in analytics depth, workflow tools, and integrations — not the raw creator database.
API costs add up fast. Both Modash and influData charge separately for API access. If you only need discovery + management, use the platform UI rather than paying for API access on top.
Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.
Before recommending a specific platform skill
This skill covers a strategy domain across many platforms. Before pointing the user to any specific platform skill (any /sales-{platform} listed in ## Related skills, e.g., /sales-mailshake, /sales-klaviyo, /sales-apollo), read that platform skill's actual SKILL.md first. The 1-line description in ## Related skills is enough to identify a candidate — it's not enough to commit to it or to write a prompt that invokes it well.
How to read it:
If ~/.claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md exists locally, Read it.
For sales-* skills, WebFetch directly from this repo: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md — e.g., for sales-mailshake: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/sales-mailshake/SKILL.md.
For non-sales-* skills (third-party), look up {org}/{repo} in ~/.claude/skills/sales-do/references/skill-sources.md if installed and fetch the same skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md path under that repo.
After reading, ground your recommendation in something concrete from the SKILL.md (its scope, a sub-flow, its argument-hint shape, or a "Do NOT use for..." negative trigger). Align any generated invocation with the platform skill's argument-hint. If the platform skill turns out not to fit the user's situation, swap to another or handle the question here directly rather than recommending a poor fit.
Related skills
/sales-modash — Modash platform help — discovery, tracking, Shopify gifting, payments, API
/sales-infludata — influData platform help — AI creator search, audience analysis, social listening
/sales-creatorco — Creator.co platform help — London AI agent, UGC rights, affiliate tracking
/sales-hypefy — Hypefy platform help — AI campaign automation, zero-subscription pricing, content review, payments
/sales-hypeauditor — HypeAuditor platform help — AI analytics, fraud detection (53 patterns), Discovery (223.6M+ profiles), Campaign Management, API
/sales-aspire — Aspire platform help — word-of-mouth commerce, product seeding, affiliate tracking, UGC, paid social
/sales-influencer-hero — Influencer Hero platform help — all-in-one influencer marketing, 200M+ profiles, automated outreach, CRM, affiliate tracking, product gifting, API
/sales-instajet — InstaJet.io platform help — Instagram Stories influencer marketplace, 10K+ vetted creators, escrow payments, managed service
/sales-openinfluence — Open Influence platform help — AI-powered influencer agency + SaaS, image recognition search, paid media amplification, Studio OI
/sales-upfluence — Upfluence platform help — influencer and affiliate marketing for ecommerce, Live Capture, Jaice AI, commission-free affiliate tracking
/sales-grin — GRIN platform help — creator management, discovery, gifting, affiliate hub, social listening, Gia AI agent
/sales-trendhero — trendHERO platform help — Instagram influencer analytics, 95M+ profiles, AQS fake follower detection, Ads Database, REST API
/sales-later — Later platform help — includes Later Influence (influencer discovery, campaigns, content review, Reporting API)
/sales-sproutsocial — Sprout Social platform help — includes Influencer Marketing module (Tagger acquisition)
/sales-tagshop — UGC video ads and shoppable galleries for ecommerce
/sales-affiliate-program — Affiliate and referral program design (strategy, not platform-specific)
/sales-fansrevenue — FansRevenue platform help — creator monetization through affiliate brand promotion, CrakRevenue network
/sales-plutoba — PlutoBa platform help — AI influencer vetting, fake follower detection, brand safety scoring, rate benchmarks
/sales-zoomd — Zoomd platform help — mobile UA with integrated CGC creator content production
/sales-retargeting — Retargeting campaign audiences from influencer content
/sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do
Examples
Example 1: Choose an influencer marketing platform
User says: "I run a Shopify DTC brand and want to start working with influencers. Which platform should I use?"
Skill does:
Asks about budget, scale, and priorities (discovery vs. outreach automation vs. analytics)
Compares Modash, influData, and Creator.co on relevant dimensions
Recommends Modash for Shopify-first brands wanting gifting + affiliate tracking in one workflow
Notes Creator.co if they want AI-automated outreach, influData if they need deep analytics
Result: Clear platform recommendation with reasoning matched to their specific situation
Example 2: Build a micro-influencer gifting program
User says: "I want to send free products to 50 micro-influencers and track who posts about it"
Skill does:
Designs the gifting program: product selection, no-strings vs. contracted, expectations
Walks through discovery workflow to find 150-250 candidates (3-5x target for response rates)
Provides outreach template for gifting offers
Sets up tracking: content monitoring, post rate tracking, EMV calculation
Recommends Modash for Shopify gifting automation or manual process for smaller budgets
Result: Complete gifting program plan from discovery through tracking
Example 3: Measure influencer campaign ROI
User says: "I spent $10K on influencer campaigns last quarter — how do I know if it worked?"
Skill does:
Identifies what tracking was in place (promo codes, UTMs, affiliate links, or none)
Calculates available metrics: ROAS from promo code sales, EMV from content reach, CPA
Benchmarks results against industry averages ($5.78 per $1 spent)
Recommends attribution setup for future campaigns to get better data
Suggests A/B testing creators and content types to optimize spend
Result: ROI analysis with specific recommendations for improving measurement going forward
Troubleshooting
Low response rate on creator outreach
Symptom: Sending outreach to 100+ creators but getting under 10% response
Cause: Generic messaging, wrong creator-brand fit, or reaching non-opted-in creators who aren't expecting brand outreach
Solution: Personalize every message (reference specific content), verify creator-brand alignment before outreach, try DMs in addition to email, and consider platforms with opt-in marketplaces (Creator.co) for higher response rates. Test different offer types (paid vs. gifting vs. affiliate).
Can't tell if an influencer is worth the price
Symptom: Creator is asking for $X but you're unsure if the audience quality justifies it
Cause: Missing data on audience authenticity, demographics, and past performance
Solution: Run through the full vetting framework: check fake follower %, audience demographics, engagement quality (not just rate), and ask the creator for their media kit with past campaign performance data. Compare their rate to the benchmarks in this guide. Propose a paid test (one post) before committing to a larger deal.
Campaign ran but no measurable sales
Symptom: Influencer posted, got engagement, but no sales showed up
Cause: Missing attribution (no promo codes or tracking links), wrong audience fit, or content didn't drive purchase intent
Solution: For future campaigns, always set up promo codes or affiliate links before content goes live. Add post-purchase surveys ("How did you hear about us?") to catch untracked conversions. Review whether the creator's audience matches your buyer persona — high engagement with the wrong audience won't convert.
