Choosing the wrong creator in a market this size costs you more than the fee. It costs you a launch night with no bookings, a client who now believes influencer marketing does not work, and a quiet reputation for being the brand that pays anyone with a ring light. This is the checklist we run before we put a single name in front of a client.
Start With the Objective, Not the List
The most common mistake happens before anyone opens Instagram. A brand decides it “needs influencers”, asks for a list, and works backwards from the list to a strategy. Write the objective down in one uncomfortable sentence first. “Fill 40 covers on a Tuesday in August.” “Get 60 test drives booked in six weeks.” Each of those produces a completely different shortlist, and awareness campaigns rarely share creators with bookings campaigns.
The Checks That Actually Matter
Audience location beats follower count. A creator can live in Juffair and still have an audience that is 70% Saudi and Emirati. Wonderful if you are a hotel chasing causeway weekend traffic; money set on fire if you are a restaurant in Adliya that needs people driving ten minutes on a Wednesday. Ask for the country and city breakdown from their insights before you ask about rates.
Engagement quality beats engagement rate. Saves and shares over likes, comments containing actual questions over emoji strings. Real comments trickle in over 48 hours; pod comments arrive in a tidy cluster within minutes, from the same fifteen accounts, every time.
Authenticity. Bought followers are still sold openly in this region. Look for vertical growth spikes with no viral post to explain them, and views sitting far below follower count.
Brand safety. Go back six months. If they posted a competitor hotel a fortnight ago and called it their favourite staycation in the Kingdom, your campaign starts with a credibility problem. In a market where the same thirty creators appear at every launch, category exclusivity is basic hygiene, not a luxury clause.
Rates, and what the fee actually buys. How many assets, how many revisions, how long the content stays live, and whether you may put paid media behind it. Usage rights are where most disputes start.
The Response Is the Test
Ask any shortlisted creator, in writing, for screenshots of their last 30 days of insights, audience location and story view range. Professional creators send them the same day, often unprompted. Defensiveness, delay or a cropped screenshot tells you exactly how the relationship will go when you ask for post-campaign numbers. And never open with a twelve-month deal: one paid collaboration, measured against the objective you wrote at the start, tells you more than any media kit.
Vetting is part of what Fabianca does every week, and sometimes the most useful thing we do is tell a client that two of their five names are fine and three are not.
If you want a shortlist checked properly before the budget moves, speak to Fabianca about influencer campaigns for your brand →
