An influencer with 9 times fewer followers delivered leads 2.5 times cheaper for a B2B service for SMBs

To open the influencer channel for a B2B service for small and medium-sized businesses, we compared two creators in the finance and entrepreneurship niche. The one with the smaller audience, almost 9 times fewer followers, had a view rate almost 4 times higher and brought in more leads with less spend and a CPL almost 2.5 times lower. But the bigger creator's leads had an average ticket more than 4 times higher. Followers don't predict results, and CPL alone doesn't tell you what a lead is worth.

Profile

B2B service for SMBs · Seed

Problem

The company wanted to open a new channel, influencers, to generate leads and awareness among small and medium-sized businesses, without knowing which creator profile worked or how much a lead would cost.

Solution

Choose creators by criteria, not by follower count, forecast the CPL before closing each deal and compare the forecast with the actual result.

What we did

We mapped creators in the finance and entrepreneurship niche and scored each on ten criteria, from closeness to the topic to real reach and experience with other brands.
We forecast each creator's leads and CPL from the average views of their last six reels and an expected conversion rate.
We hired two creators in the same format (reels and a stories sequence) and compared views, leads, CPL and the leads' average ticket.

Result

The smaller creator beat the forecast, with a CPL about 20% better than expected and almost 2.5 times lower than the bigger creator's, with more leads and about 40% less spend. The bigger creator fell short of the lead forecast, but with an average ticket more than 4 times higher. The client approved continuing the channel.

Key learnings

Followers don't predict results. The view rate, views per video over followers, showed better who would deliver.
CPL alone is misleading. The more expensive lead may be worth more: look at the average ticket next to the cost.
Influencers are also a content channel. It's worth testing different creator segments before scaling.

Do it yourself

For each candidate creator, add up the views of their last six reels and divide by six. Divide that average by followers to get the view rate. Multiply the average by a conservative conversion rate, for example 0.1%, to estimate leads, and divide the proposal price by that estimate to get the forecast CPL.
Hire at least two different profiles in the same format and measure their leads and average ticket, not just CPL. Compare with the forecast.
Ask an LLM:
I'll paste, for each candidate influencer, followers, views of the last 6 reels and the proposal price. Calculate the view rate, expected leads at a 0.1% conversion rate and the forecast CPL, rank them from best to worst and tell me which 2 to test first and why.