Creator discovery
YouTube influencer finder: from campaign brief to a shortlist you can verify
Describe the creator you need and ZeroTwo searches the web for candidates, with links. Then you check them. This page shows the brief to write, a fit rubric, and which vetting steps need the creator's own numbers.
Free plan, no card required.
The brief, in one glance
- Niche
- Narrower than a category: home coffee brewing, not food. Name what the channel is known for.
- Audience
- Who you want reached: country, role or hobby, what they buy. This is what the model can only infer.
- Size band
- The subscriber range you will consider, and whether a smaller channel with a tight audience is fine.
- Budget and terms
- Per-video range, whether you need exclusivity or reuse rights, and your timeline.
Two more: tone and dealbreakers, below.
Public
You can link it.
Channel URL, upload dates, video titles, how often they post, what past sponsored videos say. A model with web search can find these, and you open each link to confirm.
Inferred
A read, not a fact.
Tone match, likely audience, brand fit. A model reasons from public pages. Treat it as a hypothesis, label it inferred and never as a measurement.
Unknown until supplied
Only the creator has it.
Audience geography and age, past sponsor click-through, affiliate sales, rates, usage rights. These live in a media kit or a YouTube Studio export. No search finds them.
One shortlist row, built to be checked
We are not showing a made-up shortlist with subscriber counts and audience percentages, because nobody could check them. This is the template a row should follow. Every bracket is filled by you or by a search you verify, and nothing in it is a result.
Channel
Public[Channel URL, opened and checked by you]
Public observations
Public[3 recent video URLs with upload dates. Cadence over the last 90 days. How past sponsored videos disclose, with the URL.]
Inferred fit
Inferred[One sentence against the rubric below, marked inferred. Which criteria it meets, which it does not.]
Unknown until supplied
Unknown until supplied[Audience geography, past sponsor results, rates, rights. Request from the creator; leave blank until you have it.]
Template, not results. ZeroTwo has not published a verified shortlist for this page.
A fit rubric: what you can score now, and what you must ask for
Score each criterion 0 (not met), 1 (partly) or 2 (clearly met). It is our suggested working method, not a benchmark or a ranking model. The last column is the point: three criteria cannot be scored from public pages at all.
| Criterion | What to check | Needs the creator's evidence? |
|---|---|---|
| Niche match | Do the last ten video titles sit inside the niche in your brief? | No |
| Tone match | Watch two videos. Does the delivery match the reference channels in the brief? | No |
| Cadence | Upload dates across the last 90 days: steady, bursty or fading? | No |
| Sponsor record | Open past sponsored videos. Is the sponsorship disclosed in the video itself, not only the description? | No |
| Brand safety | Skim the last 20 video titles and open any that look risky for your category. | No |
| Audience match | A model can infer who watches from the content and comments. Geography and age need proof. | Yes: media kit or Studio export |
| Past sponsor results | Click-through, affiliate sales and retention on earlier integrations. | Yes: creator-supplied results |
| Rates and rights | Per-video price, exclusivity and reuse rights. | Yes: from the creator or their manager |
On disclosure, the FTC's Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers says a disclosure in a video should be in the video, not only in the description (read 5 October 2026). That is why the sponsor-record check says to open the video.
Write the brief before you search
A vague brief returns a generic list. These six ingredients are what to pin down. If you have not sized the audience or the category yet, research the campaign audience and category first.
Niche
Narrower than a category: home coffee brewing, not food. Name what the channel is known for.
Audience
Who you want reached: country, role or hobby, what they buy. This is what the model can only infer.
Size band
The subscriber range you will consider, and whether a smaller channel with a tight audience is fine.
Budget and terms
Per-video range, whether you need exclusivity or reuse rights, and your timeline.
Tone
One or two channels you like and what you like about them. Say what to avoid.
Dealbreakers
Topics, claims or categories you will not appear next to, and a disclosure record you require.
A brief to paste, then fill the brackets
Find 8 YouTube channels in home coffee brewing. Size band: [range]. Audience: [country and who]. Posts at least [cadence]. Calm, explainer tone, beginner-friendly. No channels that mainly review grinders. Budget per integration: [range]. For each channel give: the channel URL; three recent video URLs with upload dates; how the channel discloses sponsorships in the video itself; one sentence on why it fits, labelled "inferred". List anything you could not find under "Unknown". Do not guess subscriber counts or audience data. If you cannot find a source, say so.
The loop: brief, search, open, score
The search is the quick part. The value is in the two steps after it. ZeroTwo's web search is Serper on the Free plan and Exa on paid plans.
Write the brief
Six ingredients: niche, audience, size band, budget and terms, tone, dealbreakers. The tighter it is, the less generic the list.
Search with the brief
Ask for channel URLs and upload dates, not summaries. Ask it to put anything it could not find under Unknown.
Open every link
A model can name a channel that does not match. Open each URL, check the channel exists and the videos are what it says.
Score against the rubric
Mark each criterion met, partly or not. Public criteria first; the unknown ones become your request list to the creator.
ZeroTwo, a paid database, or the creator: who answers what
ZeroTwo publishes this page, so read it with that in mind. The honest split is by question, not by product.
- Start in ZeroTwo if
You are still finding names
You have a brief but no list. A plain-English search is a fast way to a first pass, with links you then verify yourself.
- Reach for a paid creator database if
You need audience data across many creators
Databases such as Modash, HypeAuditor, Heepsy and Upfluence are built to filter and compare creators at scale. Check each vendor's own site for what data it holds and what it costs; this page does not quote them.
- Ask the creator if
You are choosing between two good fits
Geography, past sponsor results and rates come from the creator. Send the request list from the rubric and decide on what comes back.
Questions about finding YouTube creators
What is a YouTube influencer finder?
A way to go from a campaign brief to a list of YouTube channels that could fit it. Some are databases you filter by metrics; with ZeroTwo you describe the creator in plain English and a model with web search returns candidate channels with links. Either way, the list is a starting point you verify.
Where do the subscriber counts and audience details come from?
Public figures such as subscriber count appear on the channel page, so ask for the channel URL and read it yourself instead of trusting a number in a summary. Audience geography, age and past sponsor results are not public. They come from the creator's media kit or a YouTube Studio export. ZeroTwo cannot see them.
Which model should I use?
ZeroTwo has not benchmarked models on creator discovery, so we do not rank them. Use web search, run the same brief on two models and compare the channels and links they return. Keep the list where every URL opens and matches. ZeroTwo offers 60+ models, so switching is one click.
Can it check disclosure and brand safety?
It can read public pages and summarise what it finds, which helps you decide where to look. You still open the videos. The FTC's guidance for influencers says a disclosure in a video should be in the video, not only in the description, so check that in the video itself.
Can it draft the outreach email?
Yes. Once you have a shortlist, ask it to draft a first message for one channel from the notes you give it. Review it before sending, and do not let it invent details about the creator.
Is it free?
There is a Free plan with no card required: 100 free credits to start, limited model selection and Serper web search. Pro is $29.99/mo, or $26.99/mo billed annually. Every model, image, video and deep-research run draws from a monthly credit pool, and heavier tasks use more credits.
Keep exploring
- Research the campaign audience and categoryBefore the shortlist, size up who you are trying to reach and what the category looks like.
- YouTube video finderThe companion tool: find videos and channels by topic.
- AI marketing toolsThe wider picture of AI for content, ads and social.
- AI for marketersWorkflows for brand teams.
- Web searchHow ZeroTwo searches the live web from chat.
- AI script generatorDraft the sponsored-segment brief you will hand to a creator.