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Hey — Ryan To here.

In today's edition:

+ life update: where I’ve been for the past 6 months

The influencer bubble is bursting…

The winning models in 2024–2026 are creator‑commerce, affiliate, and UGC

→ Not one-off influencer posts, instead in-house content engines

→ Own 100’s of creatives that can be tested across organic & paid

→ 2–3x the value at a fraction of the cost

I've been on both sides. And over hundreds of conversations, compiled the checklist of what makes a winning campaign (for influencers and brands).

Here it is.

Brands aren't looking at your pinned or most viral reels.

They want to see how you’re doing right NOW.

Total Views of your last 8 Post / 8 = Your Expected Mean Views

That's what they're actually buying.

Every filler post you put out to ‘hit a quota’ lowers your rate. Quality trumps quantity.

🔥🔥🔥 in the comments = passive audience.

They watch you like TV. They're not invested.

Full sentences in the comments = real community. These people actually care.

Comments are the source of truth. And the good news is you can engineer this.

Focus on creating conversations, not engagement.

Brands are not buying your followers. They're buying the specific type of person who follows you.

You’re part of a specific campaign with other influencers that fit the same niche and narrative.

A creator with 80K followers who speaks directly to CMOs and marketing decision-makers will out-earn a creator with 800K followers talking to ‘everyone’.

The wider your content, the wider your audience, the less confident a brand is that the spend will pay off.

The question brands are asking: does this creator's audience match our buyer?

You have to look at yourself as a freelancer or contractor.

They want to see your ‘brand portfolio’ and quickly imagine their brand running a campaign with you in < 2 minutes.

→ Tagged Posts

→ Past Integrations

→ Content covering similar topics

If your sponsored content has worse engagement, that's a red flag.

No sponsored posts yet? Do one for free. Reach out to a brand you genuinely use, make the video, let them whitelist it. That one piece of proof opens more doors than 10 organic hits.

Followers matter. Just not the way you think.

There's a minimum credibility threshold, around 10-30K.

Below that line, means the creator has not fully unlocked consistent engagement before.

Optimize your views-to-follower ratio

A creator averaging 100K views with 50K followers is more valuable than one averaging 50K views with 1M followers. The ratio tells a brand how alive your audience actually is.

This is the one that separates good deals from great deals.

The creators who command the highest rates don't just have an audience: they own a word.

A lane so specific that when a brand in that space is building a campaign, your name is the obvious answer.

That's content product fit. And it starts with picking a lane and going deep.

The question to ask yourself: when someone pulls up your profile, is there one thing they instantly associate you with?

Most creators are optimizing for the algorithm.

This is everything I wish creators and brands knew about what it takes to make a winning campaign in less than 2 minutes.

Hope you liked it!

So…I’ve been posting less…a lot less. And haven’t updated you guys on what I’ve been working on.

I just finished Founders Inc., an incubator run by partners who’ve worked with Steven Bartlett & other 7-9 figure companies.

I got interviewed by Net Influencer to talk about what I’m focused on these days:

Have a great day ❤️