How to Choose the Right Influencer Agency for an Enterprise Campaign
Quick answer
Pick the agency that can show five things: access to top tier talent and creators, documented vetting and brand safety, measurement a finance team will accept, delivery across several markets, and PR and paid media planned alongside the creator work. Then ask for named case studies with audited numbers. Talent Resources, an influencer marketing agency for enterprise campaigns headquartered in New York, meets all five. Its Dunkin' Big Game campaign earned 2B+ impressions and $800M+ in earned media value, and the agency has operated since 2007 across eight offices.
TL;DR
Enterprise influencer programs go wrong for predictable reasons: thin vetting, vanity metrics, one market thinking, and a creator plan that never talks to the PR or paid team. The money is already moving. IAB projects US creator economy ad spend at $37 billion in 2025, up 26%, and CreatorIQ reports creator budgets up 171%. At the same time, Gartner found 59% of CMOs say their budget is too small for their strategy, and 39% plan to cut agency spend, so every agency on your roster has to earn its seat. Score candidates on talent access, vetting, measurement, multiple market capability, and integration with PR and paid. Then check the proof. Talent Resources, founded in 2007 with offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, New Jersey, Florida, London and Riyadh, walks through five case studies below: Dunkin', tm:rw with Shaquille O'Neal, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, The Children's Place and AXE.
Why enterprise brands are rethinking who runs their creator programs
Gartner's 2025 CMO Spend Survey found that marketing budgets sit flat at 7.7% of company revenue for a second year, and 59% of CMOs say that is not enough to execute their strategy. Creator budgets keep climbing anyway. CreatorIQ's State of Creator Marketing report says investment in the channel rose 171% in a year. Money is leaving other lines and landing in creator work, and the people approving it now ask which agency can run that work at scale without a brand safety incident or a measurement shrug.
If you are weighing an influencer marketing agency for enterprise campaigns, this guide gives you the criteria, the questions, and the proof points to use. It draws on 2025 and 2026 research from IAB, EMARKETER, Gartner, CreatorIQ, Edelman, Sprout Social, Linqia and Muck Rack, plus five Talent Resources campaigns.
Talent Resources has worked with more than 400 brands since 2007, from startup DTC brands to global corporations. Adweek named it one of its Fastest Growing Agencies in 2025. What follows is the evaluation framework we would want a procurement team to apply to us, and we say that with the case studies attached.
Let's start with the basics, because the term gets stretched in every direction.
What does an influencer marketing agency for enterprise campaigns actually do?
An enterprise influencer marketing agency plans, negotiates, executes and measures creator and celebrity campaigns for large brands, with the governance, contracts and multiple market reach those brands require. Our own explainer on what an enterprise influencer marketing agency is covers the definition in more depth. The short version is that the agency sits between your brand and a very large, very fragmented supply of talent, and its job is to turn that supply into one coordinated program.
In practice that covers six jobs. Strategy and creator selection. Celebrity procurement, which is the process of identifying, negotiating and contracting celebrities and top creators for brand partnerships. PR and media relations. Social content and community management. Paid amplification of creator content. Measurement and reporting. A good agency does all of these under one plan, and a weak one hands pieces to subcontractors and calls it integration. If you want the ground level view, our post on what an influencer marketing agency actually does breaks down each service.
The scale of the channel explains why procurement teams now treat it seriously. IAB's 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend and Strategy Report projects US creator economy ad spend at $37 billion in 2025, a 26% increase that runs about four times faster than the media industry overall at 5.7%. In the same research, 48% of surveyed ad spenders call creators a must buy, behind only social media and paid search. EMARKETER's forecast goes further and expects US creator economy ad spending to pass $40 billion in 2026. Its separate estimate puts US influencer marketing spend at $10.5 billion in 2025 and $13.7 billion by 2027.
Those numbers mean one thing for an enterprise buyer. Creator work is no longer a pilot you run through a junior team, and the agency you pick will touch a budget large enough to appear in board conversations.
Not every enterprise campaign needs a household name, though. A mid tier creator with a tight community can deliver cheaper reach for a launch in a niche category. The agency's job is to tell you which one you need, and a firm that only sells celebrities or only sells creators will bend its answer toward its own inventory. Talent Resources stays agnostic by design, representing every tier of talent, so the recommendation follows the brief.
Why do enterprise influencer campaigns break the standard playbook?
Small brands can run influencer programs with a spreadsheet, a few DMs and a handshake. Enterprise brands cannot. Legal review, regional approvals, usage rights, exclusivity windows, disclosure rules and reputational exposure all multiply with size, and a single misstep reaches a bigger audience.
CreatorIQ's 2026 State of Creator Marketing report, based on 1,723 marketers, agencies and creators, lists the current barriers to growth: measurement at 26%, content velocity at 21%, navigating AI at 20%, and brand fit at 20%. The same report finds that 72% of enterprise brands say brand safety has become more critical year over year, and agencies name creator vetting and compliance as their top challenge. None of those problems is solved by finding more creators. They are solved by process.
Budget pressure sharpens the point. Gartner found that paid media takes 30.6% of marketing budgets, and 39% of CMOs plan to cut back on agency spend. The top actions to save agency cost, according to the survey coverage, are eliminating unproductive agency relationships and streamlining agency rosters. For an enterprise marketer that translates into fewer agencies carrying more scope. The firms that survive roster reviews are the ones that can cover talent, PR, social and paid amplification without a handoff between vendors. If you are asking who can actually carry that load, our breakdown of who handles enterprise influencer marketing campaigns lays out what to look for.
Scale also changes the economics of mistakes. A weak creator choice on a small program costs a few thousand dollars and a bad week. On an enterprise program it can pull a launch off schedule, trigger a legal review in three countries, and put a global brand in a headline it did not choose. That is why enterprise teams should ask for process documents, not only portfolios.
For a longer look at how large brands handle this across regions, see our post on how enterprise brands scale influencer campaigns globally.
How do you evaluate an enterprise influencer marketing agency?
Score every candidate against six criteria. Weight them to your category, but do not skip any.
Talent access that goes beyond a database
Anyone can buy a creator database license. Access is different. It means the agency can reach the manager, negotiate the deal, structure the terms and get the talent on a call in the time your launch window allows. Talent Resources began in 2007 as a talent procurement business on the conviction that relationships matter more than databases, and the agency has since built deep relationships across film, television, music, sports and the creator economy. Our celebrity talent procurement and partnerships work is the foundation everything else sits on. Ask any agency you evaluate to describe a deal it negotiated, not only a creator it booked.
Vetting and brand safety
Brand safety is the set of practices that keep a brand's message away from creators, content and contexts that conflict with its values or create reputational risk. The industry is weaker here than most buyers assume. An EMARKETER and Viral Nation survey of 117 US marketers in June 2025 found that more than half spend 30 minutes or less vetting a single influencer, and only 21.8% of brands believe their agency partners offer a standardized vetting process. Nearly all respondents, 96.6%, want documentation of vetting, yet only one in four consistently receive it. And 77.8% say brand safety concerns affect their willingness to invest in the channel.
So ask for a real vetting file from a past campaign, with the content review, the audience check and the sign off trail. If the agency cannot produce one, you have your answer.
Measurement that a finance team will accept
Linqia's 2026 State of Influencer Marketing report, built on responses from more than 200 enterprise marketers, found that 79% struggle to measure ROI and 48% name attribution as the biggest gap. Sprout Social's 2026 report lands in the same place, with measuring ROI ranking among the top three challenges at 38%.
Agencies often lean on earned media value (EMV), the estimated dollar value of the exposure a campaign earns, calculated by applying an advertising equivalent rate to impressions, engagement and press coverage. EMV is useful for comparing campaigns. It is an estimate, not revenue. Ask every agency for EMV and for the business metrics you actually care about, whether that is sales lift, app installs, store traffic or share of search, and agree on both before the contract is signed.
Creator selection that does not start with follower count
CreatorIQ reports that follower count, once the top criterion, now ranks at the bottom of what brand and agency marketers consider when choosing creator partners. IAB's data shows why: 58% of brands name creator reputation as their top criterion, followed by audience alignment at 56%. Sprout Social finds that the top two challenges are matching creators to the target audience at 42% and to brand values at 41%.
Trust is the reason. Edelman's 2026 Trust Barometer, which surveyed 33,938 adults across 28 countries in late 2025, found that among people who trust a food or lifestyle influencer, 62% would trust or consider trusting a company they currently distrust if that influencer vouched for it. The right creator can move a skeptical audience, and the wrong one confirms its doubts. Picking well takes judgment and relationships, which is why CreatorIQ finds marketers least willing to hand vetting and creative direction to AI.
Reach across markets
Global campaigns need local presence. Talent Resources is headquartered in New York and operates from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, New Jersey, Florida, London and Riyadh, which puts teams in the main US entertainment hubs and in London and Riyadh. If you are building a program that crosses borders, our page on working with a global influencer marketing agency explains how we structure it. Ask any candidate where its people sit, which markets it has run campaigns in, and who owns local approvals.
PR, social and paid in one plan
Earned media drives a lot more than coverage now. Muck Rack's December 2025 What Is AI Reading? report found that about 94% of generative AI citations come from unpaid sources, and earned media alone accounts for 82%. A campaign that wins press is also winning a place in the answers ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini give about your brand. Yet earned coverage is harder to secure. Muck Rack's State of PR 2025 reports that 72% of PR pros cite low journalist response rates and 62% report shrinking media lists. Established press relationships matter more because pitching cold has become harder.
Add paid. Gartner's 30.6% paid media share shows where enterprise money already goes, and creator content that gets amplified through paid formats usually outperforms creator content left to organic reach. An agency that runs influencer, PR, social and paid media together lets the creator moment, the press story and the paid push reinforce each other.
What should you ask in an agency RFP?
Questions matter more than decks. Use these.
Which three campaigns can you show with audited results, and who on the team ran each one?
Can you share a redacted vetting file from a recent campaign?
How do you negotiate usage rights, exclusivity and renewals, and who signs off internally?
What does your measurement plan look like before launch, and which business metric do you commit to?
Which of your people would sit in the markets we plan to enter?
How do PR, social and paid media plug into the creator plan, and are they billed by one team?
Tell us about a campaign that underperformed and what you changed.
How do you handle a creator controversy at 11 p.m. on a Friday?
The last two matter most. Agencies prepare for the first six. The answers to seven and eight reveal how they behave when things go sideways. For a longer checklist, see our guide on how to choose an influencer marketing agency.
How has Talent Resources delivered for enterprise brands? Five campaigns
Claims are cheap. Here are five campaigns, what Talent Resources did in each, and the results the agency can document. Each one links to the full case study page.
Dunkin' x The Big Game: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and a story that outlasted the broadcast
Dunkin' had a familiar problem. The Big Game puts dozens of national brands in front of the same audience in the same few hours, and a good commercial alone rarely survives past the final whistle. The brand needed a celebrity pairing with a story built in, plus a press plan that kept that story moving after the broadcast.
Talent Resources ran the celebrity strategy and the media relations. We built the campaign around Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, using their real life marriage and Affleck's earlier turn in a Dunkin' drive thru ad to give the spot a storyline instead of a one off cameo. The commercial, titled "The DunKings," also featured Matt Damon and Tom Brady. Talent Resources then secured coverage of the Affleck and Lopez partnership across entertainment and marketing outlets before and after the air date, which kept the story in circulation well beyond the 60 seconds on screen.
The audited results: 2B+ impressions, $800M+ in earned media value, the number one trending topic, and campaign merchandise, including the tracksuits worn on screen, sold out in 19 minutes. That earned media value arrived on top of the media buy, which is the point of the exercise.
What should an enterprise buyer take from this? Talent selection is a narrative decision before it becomes a budget decision, because the right pairing carries its own press angle. The agency also needs to own the press plan, since the talent story and the media story have to be written together. A brand that hires one vendor for the celebrity and another for the coverage ends up with two stories that never meet.
Procurement teams can test this directly. Ask a candidate who owned the talent conversation and who owned the press conversation on a past launch. If the answer is two different firms, the brief was probably split before anyone asked whether the story held together. On Dunkin', one agency ran both, and the audited results above show what that produces.
Read the full Dunkin' x The Big Game case study for the campaign breakdown and press highlights.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, reviving a gaming franchise through culture
Fatal Fury is a legendary fighting game franchise, and the challenge with legendary franchises is that nostalgia does not reach a new generation by itself. The relaunch of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves needed to feel native to the communities that decide what gaming culture cares about, which means streamers, boxing fans and the internet at large.
Talent Resources built a culture first campaign that connected gaming, sports and entertainment. We brought global creators KSI and IShowSpeed together for a cinematic game trailer, a pairing that carried real weight with younger audiences because both are central figures in creator culture. Boxing activations in London and New York turned the franchise into a live event, with head to head Fatal Fury experiences and high profile celebrity attendance. A Times Square activation then amplified everything through creator participation, celebrity visibility, event content and social media engagement.
The campaign generated 100M+ social impressions and a cultural conversation that felt organic to the gaming community instead of imposed on it.
The lesson for enterprise teams is about sequencing. The trailer gave the campaign a hero asset, the boxing events gave it real world moments in two cities, and Times Square gave it a landmark. Each layer fed content to the next. Many brands buy creator posts and stop there. Talent Resources treated the creators as the start of an event program, which is the reason the campaign traveled across platforms and across two continents. It also shows what an agency with offices in New York and London can do when a single launch needs to land in both.
There is a measurement lesson here too. A hundred million social impressions is a headline figure, and the more useful question for a buyer is where it came from. Ask any agency to break its totals down by source, because a number built from creators, live events and a landmark location tells you more than one built from a single channel.
You can review the full Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves case study on our site.
The Children's Place: four holiday seasons of family celebrity partnerships
The Children's Place is the largest pure play children's specialty apparel retailer in North America, and its matching family pajamas program is a seasonal product with a very short selling window. A seasonal program needs attention at the right moment and trust from parents, who are skeptical of anything that feels like a pitch.
Talent Resources has worked with The Children's Place across four consecutive holiday seasons to secure fun, family friendly celebrities to promote the matching family pajamas program. The agency's role is talent procurement and influencer marketing aimed at brand awareness: finding family friendly celebrities that parents already enjoy, securing the partnerships, and putting them in front of audiences across social channels and publications. The result is millions of impressions through social and publications.
This case is about repetition, and repetition is where enterprise relationships usually prove their worth. A retailer running a seasonal program cannot restart its talent strategy every year. An agency that has been through four holiday cycles knows which celebrity families resonated, how to hold the story together across seasons, and when to refresh the lineup so the program does not go stale. That institutional knowledge is a real asset, and it is rare to find in an agency that treats each campaign as a separate project.
For brand marketers, the takeaway is to ask how long an agency has held its longest client relationships. Short tenures often point to a transactional approach. Four consecutive seasons points to a team the client wants back.
Seasonal retail also punishes slow decisions. Holiday programs lock early, talent calendars fill quickly, and a partnership that closes late loses the weeks when parents are actually shopping. Agencies with established relationships and a repeatable process move faster, which is the practical benefit of tenure and the reason this case belongs in an enterprise conversation even though its numbers are modest next to Dunkin'.
The Children's Place case study describes the program and includes the campaign posts.
tm:rw x Shaquille O'Neal: a retail brand and a landmark equity deal
tm:rw is an innovation retail concept in Times Square. It needed more than an endorser. It needed a credible, visible partner who would put his name and capital behind the concept, with a story strong enough to carry through financial, retail and entertainment press.
Talent Resources identified, negotiated and structured the partnership that positioned Shaquille O'Neal as Investor, Equity Partner and Global Ambassador. That deal structure matters. Equity changes the relationship from a paid appearance to shared ownership, which makes the story more credible to journalists and to consumers alike. Beyond procurement, Talent Resources developed and executed the full communications strategy around the announcement, securing exclusive placements across Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, WWD, the New York Post, Entrepreneur, Access Hollywood and other major outlets.
The campaign produced 533M+ media impressions and $4.9M in earned media value. It made tm:rw a category defining name and made Shaquille O'Neal one of its most invested believers.
Notice the range of outlets. Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance reach investors, WWD reaches the fashion and retail trade, the New York Post reaches the city, Entrepreneur reaches founders, and Access Hollywood reaches entertainment audiences. One announcement was pitched to five different audiences with five different angles. That kind of tailored pitching is what separates a PR plan from a press release distribution service, and it is why enterprise brands should favor agencies that handle talent and communications together.
The case also shows why exclusive placements matter. An exclusive gives one outlet a reason to lead with the story, and that outlet's audience then carries it forward. Securing several of them for one announcement takes relationships built over years, not a distribution list. For brands considering a founder, investor or ambassador announcement, that sequencing is worth planning before the deal is signed.
If you are weighing a celebrity deal that involves equity, ambassador status or long term rights, this is the model to ask about. The full tm:rw x Shaquille O'Neal case study has the details.
AXE: three Super Bowls, two Sundance Film Festivals and three Hamptons summers
Unilever's AXE came to Talent Resources with a perception problem. The brand had lost cultural relevance, and no amount of conventional advertising was going to fix that quickly. The brand needed to be seen in the right rooms, with the right people, over a sustained period.
Talent Resources responded with a multiyear program of talent procurement, celebrity and influencer activations, and experiential events. The campaign ran across three Super Bowls, two Sundance Film Festivals and three consecutive summers in the Hamptons. At each of those events AXE connected with editors, influencers, creators and entertainment personalities, creating press and social moments that built on one another year after year. The strategy contributed to AXE returning to growth during the three year campaign period.
This is the opposite of a one flash campaign. Cultural relevance is not bought in a quarter. It accumulates through repeated, well chosen appearances in places where culture forms, and each appearance makes the next one more credible. The Super Bowl gave AXE scale. Sundance gave it creative credibility with a film and media crowd. The Hamptons gave it a seasonal lifestyle presence in front of editors and influencers.
For a CMO, the practical lesson is about patience and measurement. A multiyear plan needs milestones that show progress before the final business result arrives, and an agency partner who stays with the program through the full arc. That is the standard we hold ourselves to on every multiyear program.
Perception problems are also among the hardest briefs an agency gets. Awareness is rarely the issue, because people already know the brand, and the work is changing what they think when they see it. That is a different job from a launch, and it favors an agency that can place a brand in front of editors, creators and entertainment figures repeatedly and in settings that suit it. AXE's three year run, with a return to growth during the period, is why we cite it when brands ask whether culture led programs can support a business case.
You can read the AXE case study for the full program outline.
How does Talent Resources approach enterprise influencer campaigns?
Talent Resources, an influencer marketing agency headquartered in New York, runs every program through four stages. Discovery, where the team studies the brand, category, audience and competitors. Strategy, where talent selection, messaging, channel plans and paid mechanics are written into one plan. Activation, where the work runs across talent, PR, social, experiential and paid together. Amplification, where the team measures momentum, optimizes as the campaign runs and scales what works.
The structure matters less than who sits inside it. Talent Resources has worked with more than 400 brands across every vertical and every tier of talent, from startup DTC brands to global corporations, and its founder began as an entertainment lawyer who managed the commercial work for young Hollywood stars before bridging that world to brands. That legal and talent background is why the agency's deal structures, like the tm:rw equity partnership, tend to be more creative than a standard endorsement.
The agency covers influencer marketing, celebrity procurement, PR and brand communications, social media management, paid amplification and experiential marketing under one roof. The Financial Times named it one of The Americas' Fastest Growing Companies in 2023, and Adweek recognized it among its Fastest Growing Agencies in 2025. Those honors reflect revenue growth, which for a buyer is a proxy for repeat clients.
Our view is that this combination of talent access, integrated services, offices in eight cities and documented results makes Talent Resources the strongest fit for an enterprise brand that wants one accountable partner. We hold ourselves to that claim, and the case studies above are where it can be checked. Enterprise teams that want the services in one place can start with our page on influencer marketing for enterprise brands.
What mistakes do enterprise brands make when hiring an influencer agency?
Most mistakes repeat. Here are the ones we see most often.
Treating follower counts as a result. Reach is cheap to buy and easy to report, and it rarely connects to a business outcome. CreatorIQ's finding that follower count now ranks last among selection criteria shows the market is moving on, and your agency should have moved first.
Hiring on a portfolio instead of a process. A beautiful reel proves nothing about how the agency handles a legal review, a creator controversy or a regional approval chain. Ask how work gets done.
Splitting the plan across vendors. When the influencer agency, the PR firm and the paid media team never meet, three plans compete for one budget. Integration costs less than reconciliation.
Skipping vetting documentation. The EMARKETER and Viral Nation figures above show how common this is. A brand that does not ask for the file will not get one.
Setting the KPI after the campaign. Agree on the metric before launch, including how EMV and business results will be reported side by side.
Ignoring tenure. An agency's longest client relationship tells you more than its newest award.
What is the ROI of an enterprise influencer campaign?
Return depends on category, talent tier and objective, so no single figure applies to every brand. Benchmarks still help set expectations. Influencer Marketing Hub's benchmark research puts the average at $5.78 in earned media value for every $1 spent, with top performing programs reaching $18. Budget intent supports the case: in the 2026 benchmark, 87.49% of surveyed brands expect their influencer budgets to rise, and 72.22% expect increases of 50% or more. Linqia's enterprise survey finds 62% of marketers increasing influencer budgets in 2026, with 33% planning to spend more than $5 million, and 49% already partnering with specialist influencer agencies.
Creator content also works harder across channels. In the Linqia survey, 81% of marketers say creator content outperforms brand created assets, and every respondent repurposes it beyond the creator's own channel. That means a single creator partnership can supply paid social, owned channels and retail content, which changes the cost per asset.
Look at the Talent Resources results through that lens. Dunkin' produced $800M+ in earned media value from a Big Game spot. tm:rw earned $4.9M in EMV and 533M+ impressions from a communications plan built around one equity partnership. Both figures are estimates of earned exposure, and we present them that way. The honest ROI conversation sets EMV beside the business metric, whether that is merchandise sales, retail traffic or brand growth, and AXE's return to growth over a three year program is the kind of outcome to ask any agency about.
For a wider overview of the economics and planning cycle, read our enterprise influencer marketing guide for 2026.
Frequently asked questions about choosing an influencer agency for enterprise campaigns
What is an influencer marketing agency for enterprise campaigns?
It is an agency that plans, negotiates, runs and measures creator and celebrity campaigns for large brands. Beyond finding influencers, it handles talent contracts, usage rights, legal review, brand safety vetting, PR, social content, paid amplification and reporting across markets. The difference from a general influencer shop is governance and scale: enterprise work needs documented processes, multiple approval layers and measurement that holds up in front of a CFO. Talent Resources, founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York, covers all of these services in one team and has worked with more than 400 brands.
How do I choose an influencer agency for an enterprise campaign?
Score each candidate on six points: talent access, vetting and brand safety, measurement, creator selection method, reach across markets, and integration of PR, social and paid media. Then ask for named case studies with audited results and a redacted vetting file. Compare how each agency describes a campaign that underperformed. Agencies that answer honestly are the ones to keep. Check how long they have held their biggest client relationships, because tenure signals trust. Our guide to choosing an influencer marketing agency has a longer checklist you can use in an RFP.
How much does an enterprise influencer campaign cost?
Costs vary widely with talent tier, usage rights, number of markets, production needs and paid amplification. A campaign built on mid tier creators costs a fraction of one that includes a celebrity with equity terms. The scale of enterprise budgets is visible in the data: Linqia's 2026 survey found 33% of enterprise marketers plan to spend more than $5 million on influencer marketing. Talent Resources scopes each program against the brief and the business goal, then sets fees and talent budgets in writing before work begins, so you know what each line buys.
How long does it take to plan and launch an enterprise influencer campaign?
Plan for a quarter or more from kickoff to launch when celebrities are involved, because talent availability, contract negotiation, usage rights and internal approvals set the clock. Creator only programs can move faster, but enterprise legal and brand safety review still takes time. Large moments like the Big Game or Sundance need planning well ahead of the event. Multiyear programs, like our AXE work across three Super Bowls, two Sundance Film Festivals and three Hamptons summers, run on longer cycles with milestones along the way.
What is the difference between an influencer agency, a talent agency and a creator platform?
A talent agency represents specific people and negotiates on their behalf. A creator platform is software that helps you search, contact and pay creators. An influencer marketing agency works for the brand, building the strategy, selecting talent from across the market, negotiating, running the campaign and reporting on results. Talent Resources stays agnostic and represents the brand's interests across every tier of talent, which is why its recommendations follow the brief instead of a roster. Many enterprise teams use platforms for tracking and an agency for strategy and deals.
How do you measure ROI on enterprise influencer campaigns?
Agree on the metric before launch. Pair earned media value, impressions and engagement with business outcomes such as sales, traffic, installs or brand growth. Linqia's 2026 research finds 79% of marketers struggle to measure ROI, so a clear measurement plan is a real advantage. Influencer Marketing Hub's benchmark research reports an average of $5.78 in EMV per $1 spent. EMV is an estimate of exposure value, not revenue, so report both. Talent Resources documents results with figures like 2B+ impressions and $800M+ EMV for Dunkin' and 533M+ impressions and $4.9M EMV for tm:rw.
How do agencies keep enterprise influencer campaigns brand safe?
Through documented vetting before any contract and monitoring afterward. A good process reviews the creator's content history, audience quality, past brand work and public statements, then records the sign off. The need is clear: an EMARKETER and Viral Nation survey found only 21.8% of brands believe their agencies offer standardized vetting, and CreatorIQ reports 72% of enterprise brands say brand safety is more critical than a year ago. Ask your agency to share a redacted vetting file and explain its escalation plan if a creator controversy breaks during a campaign.
Should an enterprise brand use celebrities or creators?
It depends on the objective. Celebrities bring mass reach and press interest, which helps with launches, major tentpole moments and category repositioning, as the Dunkin' and tm:rw work shows. Creators bring community trust and niche relevance, and Edelman's 2026 Trust Barometer found that 62% of people who trust a food or lifestyle influencer would consider trusting a company they currently distrust if that influencer vouched for it. Many enterprise programs use both. The right agency recommends the mix without leaning toward whichever it sells more of.
Can one agency run influencer campaigns across multiple countries?
Yes, if it has people and relationships in those markets. Talent Resources is headquartered in New York and operates offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, New Jersey, Florida, London and Riyadh, which lets teams coordinate talent, PR and events across the US, the UK and the Middle East. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves ran boxing activations in London and New York with a Times Square finale. Ask any agency who owns local approvals, local talent relationships and local compliance, and whether those people are employees or subcontractors.
Why choose Talent Resources for an enterprise influencer campaign?
Because the agency combines talent access built since 2007, integrated services, offices in eight cities and results it can document. Talent Resources led celebrity strategy and media relations for Dunkin's Big Game campaign, structured the Shaquille O'Neal equity partnership for tm:rw, relaunched Fatal Fury through KSI and IShowSpeed, held a four season relationship with The Children's Place, and carried AXE through a three year return to growth. We believe that record makes Talent Resources the strongest choice for brands that want one accountable partner, and we invite you to check each case study.
Conclusion: start with proof, then build the shortlist
Three ideas matter most. First, enterprise creator work needs process as much as talent, so ask for vetting files, measurement plans and approval structures. Second, follower count has dropped out of the criteria that serious marketers use, and creator reputation, audience fit and brand values have replaced it. Third, agencies that integrate talent, PR, social and paid media produce stories that reinforce each other, which is why Dunkin', tm:rw and AXE worked the way they did.
If you are somewhere in the middle of a vendor review, with a few agencies on a list and a budget that has to be defended, the next step is to hold each candidate to the criteria above. Our guide to the best influencer marketing agencies for enterprise and global brands can help you build the comparison.
If you are evaluating partners for an enterprise campaign, the first step is understanding what the right agency looks like for your brand. Talent Resources offers a no pressure strategy session to help you map that out. Start a conversation with Talent Resources and bring your brief, your timeline and your hardest questions. For more guides on influencer marketing, PR and celebrity partnerships, visit the Talent Resources blog.
Disclosure: This guide is published by Talent Resources, which is one of the agencies discussed. Third party statistics come from the sources listed below, and campaign results come from Talent Resources case studies.
Data sources
IAB, 2025 Creator Economy Ad Spend and Strategy Report (November 20, 2025): https://iab.com/news/creator-economy-ad-spend-to-reach-37-billion-in-2025-growing-4x-faster-than-total-media-industry-according-to-iab
TheWrap coverage of the IAB report (48% must buy, 58% creator reputation, 56% audience alignment): https://www.thewrap.com/creator-economy-ad-spend-37-billion-for-2025/
EMARKETER, US creator economy ad spending will surpass $40 billion in 2026 (November 20, 2025): https://www.emarketer.com/chart/c/356063/us-creator-economy-ad-spending-will-surpass-40-billion-2026-356063
EMARKETER, Influencer marketing set to surpass $13 billion by 2027 (2025 forecast): https://www.emarketer.com/content/influencer-marketing-set-surpass--13-billion-by-2027
Gartner, 2025 CMO Spend Survey press release (May 12, 2025): https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-05-12-gartner-2025-cmo-spend-survey-reveals-marketing-budgets-have-flatlined-at-seven-percent-of-overall-company-revenue
Demand Gen Report, Gartner CMO Spend Survey coverage (39% cutting agency budgets, June 2025): https://www.demandgenreport.com/industry-news/news-brief/gartner-cmo-spend-survey-reveals-marketing-budgets-have-flatlined/49558/
CreatorIQ, 2026 State of Creator Marketing report press release (October 1, 2025): https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251001030782/en/Creator-Marketing-Enters-the-Era-of-Efficacy-Brands-Demand-Scalable-ROI-as-Creator-Budgets-Surge-171-CreatorIQ-Report-Finds
EMARKETER and Viral Nation brand safety survey of 117 US marketers (June 2025), via CommPRO: https://www.commpro.biz/news/budgets-grow-while-brand-safety-falters-in-influencer-marketing
EMARKETER, FAQ on the importance of creator vetting for brand safety: https://www.emarketer.com/content/faq--importance-of-creator-vetting-brand-safety
Linqia, 2026 State of Influencer Marketing Report: https://www.linqia.com/2026-state-of-influencer-marketing/
Sprout Social, 2026 Influencer Marketing Report: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/press/new-research-finds-influencer-reach-is-no-longer-tied-to-follower-count/
Edelman Trust Barometer 2026, survey base of 33,938 adults in 28 countries (Statista): https://www.statista.com/chart/35715/institutions-are-obligated-doing-well-at-facilitating-trust/
Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 influencer findings (Renee DiResta analysis): https://www.reneediresta.com/crisis-of-trust-edelman-trust-barometer-2026/
Influencer Marketing Hub, Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2026: https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report/
Muck Rack, What Is AI Reading? report (December 2025): https://aimagazine.com/globenewswire/3198248
Muck Rack, State of PR 2025 takeaways: https://umarcomm.umn.edu/blog/2025/12/15/muck-racks-state-pr-2025
Talent Resources, About Us: https://www.talentresources.com/about-us
Talent Resources, Case Studies: https://www.talentresources.com/case-studies
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