How to Run an Influencer Campaign, Step by Step: A Small-Brand Playbook With a 30-Day Timeline

Running an influencer campaign as a small brand comes down to ten decisions made in order: one goal and a target, the offer (paid posts, gifted product, UGC videos, or paid plus product), a budget that covers every line, a one-page brief, the creators you hire with a backup for each spot, offers and a signed agreement, shipping with tracking, content review before anything posts, payment on approval, and a closeout that records usage rights and ends with a short wrap report.

The ideas are rarely the hard part; the operations are. Finding creators takes weeks, applications arrive as hundreds of DMs, briefs get ignored, creators go quiet after gifting, contracts and usage rights live in email threads, shipping runs on a spreadsheet, drafts need chasing, and every creator is paid separately. In Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2025 survey, the biggest in-house challenges were finding influencers (30%), measuring ROI (26.2%), managing contracts (14.2%) and processing payments (13.5%).

Budget beyond creator fees. As of October 2026, Influencer Marketing Hub puts a micro creator’s TikTok video at $200 to $800 as a planning range, while Later’s 2026 guide puts micro posts at $500 to $2,500. Later also notes that paid-ads usage commonly adds 30 to 50 percent and that rush timelines under two weeks cost extra. An illustrative campaign with eight creators at $300 each comes to about $3,344 before platform or agency fees once product, shipping, paid usage on three videos and a 10 percent contingency are counted.

A one-page brief does most of the work. Say what to make (format, length and platform), the one thing viewers should remember, two or three hooks, the must-say points, a short don’t list, specs, usage rights, dates and pay. List the product facts a creator can use and leave the wording to them, because a word-for-word script makes a video sound like an ad. Ask creators to switch on the platform’s paid-partnership label and say the post is sponsored or the product was gifted. If you may boost a video as a Meta partnership ad, ask for royalty-free audio, because content with licensed music cannot run as one.

How to collaborate with influencers, step by step: a single collaboration runs through seven stages. Open with a short, specific message, or post a campaign and let creators apply. Send one written offer covering deliverables, pay, dates, rounds of changes and usage rights. Share a one-page brief and ship product with tracking. Review the draft against the brief with one round of timestamped notes. Check the live post and save the link. Pay on the trigger you promised and collect ad permissions if you bought paid usage. Then rebook the creators who delivered. Beginners should start with one goal, one platform and eight to ten nano or micro creators.

A 30-day timeline suits a campaign that ships product to eight to ten creators: plan and brief in the first four days, recruit through day 8, send offers and sign agreements by day 10, ship by day 12, give creators two weeks to film so drafts land on day 24, review and approve by day 27, then go live, pay and collect final files by day 30. Check results 7 and 30 days after posting against the target you set on day one.

On Aurelia, the creator campaign marketplace, a brand posts one campaign and the whole job runs in one place. Start from a researched template or import the brief you already have. Creators apply, and Aurelia’s picks rank them by fit with the brief, with plain reasons. Offers go out automatically, contracts are written from the campaign and signed in one step, shipping and tracking sit in one tab, drafts get comments at the exact second, and the brand pays one campaign order that is held until it approves the work, when each creator is paid to their bank automatically. Usage rights are recorded automatically. The workspace is free; one platform fee is added on top of the creator budget, and creators see their take-home pay, with Aurelia’s fee already taken out, before they apply.