How to contact an influencer for collaboration: selection, first message, briefing and rules

The procedure is simple: first select an influencer whose audience matches your customers, then send them a brief personal message with a concrete offer, and after agreement, draft a briefing and written agreement. From the start, factor in that paid collaboration and gifts must be clearly labeled as advertising.

This guide is intended primarily for e-shops, small businesses, and freelancers trying creator collaboration for the first time. The rules concern Instagram, but the procedure applies similarly to TikTok and YouTube as well.

How do I select an influencer worth contacting?

Audience match decides, not follower count. An influencer is a content creator whose recommendations influence their followers' decisions; they have value for you only if they are followed by people who might buy your product.

Before you start writing messages, write down who you want to contact: age, region, interests, and the problem your product solves. You can search for candidates through hashtags, locations, or in the list of Czech and Slovak influencers. Then verify each one:

• Topic and style: Does he speak about things related to your industry? Would your product fit naturally into his regular content?
• Audience: Ask for screenshots of statistics from the app (country, city, age, gender). A Czech company needs primarily an audience from the Czech Republic.
• Engagement: Engagement rate is the ratio of reactions (likes, comments, shares, saves) to follower count or views. How to calculate and interpret it is described in the article about calculating engagement rate.
• Quality of comments: Do people respond to the content, ask questions, discuss? Generic comments without context are a warning sign.
• Previous collaborations: How the creator presented other brands, labeled advertising, and whether they promote competitors.

Large or small influencer?

For a small business, it makes sense to start with smaller creators with a narrowly focused audience. Collaboration is cheaper, communication more personal, and results easier to evaluate.

Type of creator	Advantages	What to watch out for
Small, narrowly focused profile	Close relationship with audience, lower compensation, willingness to try a smaller form of collaboration	Smaller reach, less experience with contracts and disclosure
Mid-tier profile	Combination of reach and trust, often an established working method with brands	Higher compensation, audience composition must be verified
Large profile or celebrity	Large reach and brand awareness	High compensation, broader audience, communication through a manager or agency

What to write in your first message to an influencer?

Your first message should be short, personal, and specific. The creator should understand within a few seconds who you are, why you're writing to them specifically, and what you're offering.

Use the business contact from their bio if the creator lists one. Don't send mass-copied messages: Instagram's Community Guidelines explicitly ask not to contact people repeatedly for commercial purposes without their consent. One polite message and one follow-up after a week is enough.

1. Greeting and introduction: name, company, one sentence about what you do.
2. Why them specifically: a specific post or topic that caught your attention. Show that you know their content.
3. Offer: which product it is and what form of collaboration you have in mind (for example, one video and two Stories).
4. Compensation: fee, product, sales commission, or a combination. If you're unsure, ask for their rate.
5. Next step: ask for their rates, audience statistics, or a brief call.

Hello, my name is Jana and I run an e-shop with handmade ceramics for cafés and households. I have been watching your videos on home coffee preparation for a while and I appreciate how honestly you test equipment. I would like to offer you paid collaboration: a set of our mugs to try and one video review. Could you send me your rates and audience overview? Thank you, Jana

Avoid promises you cannot keep, pressure for a quick response, and demands that the creator only praise the product. An honest review comes across as more credible to the audience.

What should a briefing for an influencer contain?

A briefing is a short document that explains the collaboration goal and guidelines to the creator, but leaves room for their own style. The clearer the brief, the fewer revisions and misunderstandings.

• Objective: brand awareness, e-shop traffic, or sales with a code?
• Product and main message: 2–3 things the audience should know, and facts that the creator must not misrepresent (composition, price, availability).
• Deliverables: format (Reels, i.e. short vertical video, Stories, post), quantity, duration, publication dates.
• What is prohibited: false claims about effects, comparisons with competitors, inappropriate topics.
• Ad disclosure: how and where the collaboration will be disclosed.
• Links and codes: URL, discount code, tracking parameters for evaluation.
• Approval: whether you want to see the content before publication and how many rounds of feedback are included in the price.
• Evaluation: which statistics the creator will send you after the campaign (reach, views, clicks).

What to include in an influencer contract?

A written agreement protects both parties; for a small collaboration, a clearly confirmed email is sufficient. It should mainly cover deliverables, compensation, content rights, and responsibility for compliance with advertising rules.

• scope and deadlines of deliverables, duration of publication (for example, whether the post will remain on the profile),
• amount and payment terms of compensation, what happens in case of non-delivery or delay,
• content rights: whether you can share the video on your profile, on your website, or use it in paid advertising, and for how long,
• exclusivity: whether the creator will not work with direct competitors for a certain period,
• mandatory advertising marking and procedure if the creator omits it.

On Instagram and Facebook, there are so-called partnership ads, which are paid advertisements displayed under the name of both the creator and the brand. According to Instagram's help, the creator can create for the brand a code for partnership ads and permission to manage or remove it later (as of November 2026). If you plan for this, write into the contract for how long and for what compensation.

The Advertising Regulation Act in § 6b distinguishes between advertisers, processors, and distributors of advertising. If someone processes advertising for another person, according to it they are liable the processor and advertiser for content jointly and severally. As a company, you cannot simply transfer responsibility to the creator. This is general information, not legal advice; for larger or long-term collaborations, have a lawyer review the contract.

How to properly mark paid collaboration?

Paid promotion must be clearly identifiable to the viewer at first glance. This applies to payment, but also to gifts or sales commissions.

The European Unfair Commercial Practices Directive includes among practices prohibited in all circumstances the promotion of a product for which the trader has paid without it being clearly identifiable to the consumer. The Czech Trade Inspection Authority, in cooperation with the European Consumer Centres Network, calls on influencers to clearly mark advertising and avoid hidden or distorted promotion.

In addition to the law, platform rules apply. According to Instagram's help, the paid partnership label is used, when the brand pays the creator, when they receive a product for free or borrowed, and also for affiliate links with commission; it is not used for promotion of own products (as of November 2026). For a detailed overview of how to formulate and place the label, see the article on rules for marking advertising with influencers.

1. In the brief and contract, specify that the collaboration will be marked with the paid partnership label and a clear word 'advertising' or 'collaboration' at the beginning of the description or directly in the video.
2. Before publication, check that the label is visible without clicking on the description.
3. After publication, save the post as proof.

How to evaluate whether the collaboration was worthwhile?

Measure the result according to the goal you set in the brief. Without pre-agreed data, collaboration is evaluated only by impression.

• Ask the creator for screenshots of post statistics: reach, views, link clicks, saves, and shares.
• In your tools, track visits from the unique link and use of the discount code.
• Note down what worked and what didn't. Approach successful creators for longer-term collaboration; repeated mentions usually appear more credible than a one-time post.

When paid promotion makes sense and when it does not?

Before collaborating, the influencer also views your profile. If it is new and almost empty, a package of followers can serve as initial social proof, a signal that the profile already interests someone, alongside your own quality content, not in place of it. However, keep in mind that Instagram's Community Guidelines do not permit artificial acquisition of likes and followers, so reach or account restrictions cannot be ruled out; the same is explicitly stated by terms of service (Art. 3.3).

Purchased followers will not bring sales, comments, or creator interest, will not replace content, and may worsen the engagement-to-follower ratio that influencers and brands commonly monitor. They make no sense if your profile has no content, if you want to meet verification or monetization requirements, or if the account already has warnings or restrictions. If you decide to purchase them, you will find details on the page followers on Instagram and current prices in price list.