One of the things you’ll need to succeed in influencer marketing is DATA.   There’s millions of creators out there. There’s billions of pieces of content. Thousands or even more possibilities and options for working with them.   It’s overwhelming if you seriously think about it, and that’s why most brands and marketers find influencer to be one of the most confusing channels to get a grasp on out there.   Some think the key is QUALITY over everything else. Some think it’s volume at the cheapest rates and everything else be damned. Very few manage to balance the two to build a truly successful program from scratch.   And each approach has its problems.   Quality first approach is good at first sight but completely ignores a few crucial facts: quality is VERY subjective when it comes to creatives and content and in the beginning the criteria of quality shift from week to week based on new learnings and testing.    There’s also a lot of biases that get introduced in the influencer/content “quality” assurance process, depending on who’s calling the shots.   With volume, all that matters is getting the highest number of influencers to post, month over month and it’s very similar to the spray and pay approach. One of the main downfalls of volume first is hitting ceilings FAST – how many creators do you think you can find after all to keep topping up your pipelines and also keep your team sane AND also avoid audience fatigue and ALSO keep a semblance of quality?   A mixed approach is generally what I recommend going for but the question is:  how do I dose volume vs quality to make the most out of scale and gather actually valuable insights?   The answer is different for each brand, there’s a formula that you have to find for yourself.   But there’s one thing that’s consistent for all of them: It takes a TON of insights to reach that sweet spot. So here’s how I’m going to break down this for you from my experience of scaling programs from 0 to working with 100s of influencers a month:   What DOES scale even mean and how do I know it’s the right thing to do? How do I plan and allocate resources properly for scale? Where do I even start? How does growth and maintenance of an at scale program looks like? How do I measure the impact? The guide is meant to give you a better understanding of what scale means in the specific context of your business, industry and available resources and provide a light framework for each step to growing your program and getting to a size that works best for you.   What DOES scale even mean and how do I know it’s the right thing to do? Scale can mean a lot of things for different people, depending on different criteria. “Thanks, Andreea that’s super helpful!” IKR? Okay I’m gonna do my best to “categorize” scale for influencer programs so we can have something to refer to throughout this guide based on what I consider to be scale: Tier 1 – 50+ creators/month (600+ a year) Tier 2 – 100 – 500+ creators/month (1k – 6k a year) Tier 3 – 500 -1000+ creators/ month (6k – 12k a year)   One thing I want to mention is that as soon as we go into the 2nd tier and beyond it’s usually a mixed at-scale program with both elements of volume and quality but also multi-dimensional from the point of types of collabs, creators and content created (example mix of paid, affiliates an gifting).   What I see a lot of people misunderstanding about an at-scale program too, is consistency in the growth of the program (I’m referring only to creator numbers here) doesn’t have to look like a traditional growth model month-to-month.   Below you can see a few different examples of how starting and figuring out a scale influencer program can look like, depending on various factors: Goals – Depending on how much ROI you want to see out of the program and what you want it to do for your brand specifically,  Resources – How much budget you have to spend and use? You can see a few representation of how at-scale programs can look like in a month to month breakdown, for different approaches: Here’s how to know you should aim for scale first – “quality” later: You’re new to influencer marketing – you don’t know what good content, “quality” and performance looks like in a program for your specific brand. You think you do, but you don’t. So you need data and you need LOTS of it. Your competitors are ahead of you and heavily invested in influencer marketing – if they’re putting out hundreds of pieces of content each month, your “10 super quality creators” won’t make a dent. Your moves should go attention first > retention second. You have a short sales cycle product – that means that gifting is your best friend at this stage – run the numbers and go for the MAX number of product you can put out there for the next 3-6 months. In other words this is your chance to go CRAZY. You’re leaning heavily into Paid ads – nothing burns through content faster than the Paid channel – so you’ll need a healthy pipeline of content to test every month. Depending on how much you spend anywhere from 50 to 2-300 a month. Does it mean that if I go at scale I’ll have to compromise on quality completely? Not at all I’m gonna walk you through how to properly set up for handling scale so that it doesn’t turn into a 100% compromise on this or that situation. How do I plan and allocate resources properly for scale? I’m gonna be fully honest with you – if you’re serious about scale – you are going to need