The first pass is subjective and fast: does this creator's category align with the brand, and does their voice match how the brand talks? Ninety percent of pitches die here, and they should — most cold pitches are objectively off-category.
Follower count, average views, engagement rate. Nothing exotic. The point is to spot obvious inflation (bought followers, ghost accounts) and rule out creators whose audience-to-reach ratio doesn't add up.
Skim the last 12 months of content for anything that would embarrass a mainstream brand. This is where legacy tools help but don't finish the job — keyword flags miss context, so a human always needs the final call.
Has this creator worked with a direct competitor in the last 6–12 months? Are they under exclusivity with anyone? A 'yes' on either doesn't automatically kill the deal, but it changes the negotiation.
The final artefact is a fit report the brand manager can forward to their director without editing. In legacy workflows this is a bespoke slide deck built by hand. In 2026 workflows it's an AI-generated match report — same output, 30x faster.
Check My Influence is built for step 5. Steps 1–4 are still human judgement calls; step 5 is the packaging problem the AI actually solves.