What should a creator brief include?
A creator brief should tell the creator what the campaign is for, the one message to land, what they can and can't claim, what they must include, and when it's due. Everything else is the creator's call. A typical brief covers:
- The goal. What the campaign should achieve, such as app installs, first orders, or signups for a waitlist.
- The audience. Who the post is for and what that person cares about.
- The one message. The single idea a viewer should remember after watching.
- Claims. The claims the creator can make, with the facts behind them, and the claims they must not make.
- Must-haves. The disclosure of the paid partnership, the link or code, the product shown on screen, and any required tags.
- Creative freedom. What the creator decides for themselves, such as the hook, the setting, and how they talk about the product.
- Logistics. Deliverables, deadlines, whether you'll review a draft, payment, and how you can reuse the content.
Briefs matter because creators speak for your brand to an audience that trusts them. When a brief is vague, two things go wrong. Creators miss the point of the campaign and make a fun video about the wrong thing. Or they reach for the strongest claim they can think of, such as "this cured my insomnia" or "it's better than every other brand," and you end up with a post you can't stand behind. In the US, the FTC can hold a brand responsible for misleading claims a creator makes in a sponsored post, so a missing claims list costs more than a weak video.
Writing a good brief takes work that most small teams skip. Someone has to pull the approved product facts together, think through which claims are risky in your category, and then tailor the brief to each creator's style. An AI agent is well suited to this because the facts stay the same across every brief while the angle changes for every creator.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. For a creator campaign, it writes the claims list once, keeps it current, and writes a brief for each creator that fits how they already talk. Here's how it works.
How Kite writes influencer briefs
Kite starts with what it learned about your company when you signed up. Your team's knowledge base holds your positioning, your products and pricing, your customers, your competitors, and your brand voice. That gives Kite the raw material for the parts of a brief that should never change from one creator to the next.
From there, Kite works in five steps. It agrees with you on the campaign's goal and core message. It builds the list of claims creators can and can't make. It researches each creator and writes their brief. It checks their drafts against the brief before anything goes live. Then it tracks what each creator delivered and uses the results to improve the next round.
You review the claims list and each brief before Kite hands them over. You approve them in the conversation with Kite, in the Kite web app or in Slack.
- Settle the one message each creator must land
- How do you tell influencers what they can and can't say about your product?
- How do you keep creator content on-message without making it sound scripted?
- Check drafts against the brief before they go live
- Track what each creator delivered and improve the next brief
Settle the one message each creator must land
A brief can only keep creators on-message if the campaign has a single message to begin with. Kite starts by proposing one, based on the campaign goal, your positioning, and what your customers say they value.
Say you run a sleep app and want new subscribers from a TikTok campaign. A weak brief asks creators to "talk about how great the app is." Kite's brief might instead set the message as "the wind-down routine takes five minutes, and you'll actually stick to it." A viewer can remember that line, and every creator can show it in their own way.
Kite also names the audience for the post and the one action you want viewers to take, such as starting a free trial from the creator's link. If the campaign has more than one audience, such as new parents and shift workers, Kite suggests a separate message for each so the briefs don't try to say everything at once.
How do you tell influencers what they can and can't say about your product?
The clearest way to tell creators what they can and can't say is a claims list that pairs each forbidden claim with a safe version they can use instead. A creator who is only told "don't say it cures insomnia" has a hole in their script. A creator who is told "say it helped you build a routine that gets you to bed on time" has a better line to use.
Kite builds this list from the facts in your knowledge base and the risks in your category. It separates claims into two groups:
- Claims creators can make. Each one comes with the fact behind it, such as a feature that exists, a price, a free trial length, or a customer result you've published.
- Claims creators must not make. Each one comes with the reason it's off-limits and the version the creator can say instead.
The claims creators must not make usually fall into a few familiar groups. Health and medical claims matter for supplements, wellness, and sleep products. Earnings and results claims matter for financial and business products. Comparisons with named competitors, promises about results you can't guarantee, and features that haven't launched yet round out most lists. Kite flags the ones that apply to your business and asks you about anything it can't confirm, such as whether a customer result is approved for public use.
The claims list lives in your knowledge base, not in a single brief. When you correct a claim or add a new one, Kite records the change as a rule for later work, so every future brief starts from the current list.
How do you keep creator content on-message without making it sound scripted?
Creator content stays on-message without sounding scripted when the brief fixes the message and the claims and leaves the words to the creator. Kite writes briefs that way. They give creators the idea to land and the boundaries to stay inside, then suggest an angle instead of a script.
To suggest that angle, Kite researches each creator before writing their brief. It reads their recent public posts on TikTok, X, or LinkedIn, depending on where they publish, and notes their usual formats, the tone they take, and the topics their audience responds to. It also looks for earlier brand partnerships, so it can see how they've handled sponsored content before.
The research shapes each brief. A creator who films "get ready with me" routines might get the suggestion to show the wind-down routine as part of their evening. A creator who makes blunt, skeptical reviews might get the suggestion to test the app for a week and report back honestly. The message and the claims list are the same in both briefs, but the creative direction is written for the person who will deliver it.
Kite keeps the brief short enough to read in a few minutes. It marks clearly which parts are required, such as the disclosure and the link, and which parts are suggestions the creator can ignore.
Check drafts against the brief before they go live
A brief only protects you if someone checks the content against it before it's posted. When a creator sends a draft, paste their script, caption, or transcript into your conversation with Kite, and it reviews the draft against the brief.
Kite checks whether the core message comes through, whether any claim falls outside the approved list, and whether the must-haves are there, such as the paid-partnership disclosure and the right link. For each problem, it quotes the line, explains what's wrong, and suggests a replacement the creator can say in their own words. That gives you specific, friendly feedback to send back instead of a vague request to "make it more on-brand."
When a creator invents a better way to say something, Kite can add it to the approved claims so other creators can use it too.
Track what each creator delivered and improve the next brief
Kite keeps a record of every creator in the campaign: the brief they received, what you paid them, what they posted, and what it produced. It can keep that record as a tracker in your knowledge base, in a connected Google Sheet, or in a small internal dashboard it builds for your team.
To see what each post produced, Kite can build a separate landing page for each creator on a website it hosts. Its built-in analytics then show the visits and signups that came through each creator's page. If your site runs elsewhere, Kite reads the same results through your connected analytics product. You can also share the post views and engagement numbers the creator reports to you, and Kite adds them to the record.
Kite then compares the results across creators. It looks at which messages, angles, and formats brought in signups at a reasonable cost and which didn't. It records those findings in your knowledge base, so the next round of briefs leads with the angles that worked and the next creator list favors the kinds of creators who delivered.
What you get
A core message for the campaign
The single idea every creator should land, with the audience and the action you want viewers to take.
A claims list
The claims creators can make with the facts behind them, and the claims they must not make with a safe alternative for each.
A brief for every creator
The goal, message, claims, must-haves, deadlines, and a suggested angle based on that creator's recent posts.
Draft reviews
Line-by-line feedback on creator scripts and captions, with suggested replacements for anything off-message or off-limits.
A creator tracker
What each creator was briefed on, what they cost, what they posted, and what it produced, with notes on what to repeat next time.
How to get started
Get started for free and tell Kite about the campaign in plain language. You might say, "We're sending our new protein bar to eight fitness creators next month. Write the briefs," or "Our last creators kept saying our app cures anxiety. Write a brief that stops that."
Kite replies with the core message it recommends and a first draft of the claims list. Change anything that's wrong, confirm any facts Kite asks about, and approve the list. Then give Kite the creators' names and the handles they post from. It researches each one and writes their brief for you to review. You can work with Kite in your browser or in Slack.
You don't need to connect anything to start. Kite writes briefs from its knowledge of your company and researches creators with its built-in sources. If you need a creator to work with you first, Kite can also draft the outreach. Kite asks for your approval before any brief or message goes to a creator.
Integrations used to write influencer briefs
Kite writes briefs and researches creators with its built-in sources and your team's knowledge base, so this work needs no connected accounts. Connections help when you want the briefs and the results to live in the tools your team already uses.
Keep the creator tracker where your team works
Common questions
Is there a template for an influencer campaign brief?
Yes. Most good briefs follow the same outline: goal, audience, core message, claims creators can and can't make, must-haves, creative freedom, and logistics. A template helps, but the parts that make a brief work are the claims list and the angle for each creator, and a blank template can't supply those. For a fill-in version with examples, see influencer brief examples and a template small brands can copy Coming soon .
How long should an influencer brief be?
One to two pages is usually enough. Creators read a lot of briefs, and a long one hides the parts that matter. Kite puts the core message and the claims list near the top, marks what's required, and keeps the suggestions short so the creator can take them or leave them.
Do creators have to disclose that a post is sponsored?
Yes. In the US, the FTC expects creators to disclose a paid relationship clearly in the post itself, and most platforms offer a paid-partnership label for it. Kite writes the disclosure into every brief as a requirement and checks for it when it reviews a draft. Rules differ by country, so tell Kite where your creators and their audiences are.
Can Kite find the creators as well as brief them?
Yes. Kite can search for creators who post about your category and review their recent content to judge whether their style and audience fit your brand. It can't see a creator's private audience statistics, such as follower age or location. Ask creators for a screenshot of their audience insights and share it with Kite, and it adds that to its assessment.
Can Kite write the first message to an influencer too?
Yes. Kite drafts outreach to creators using the same research it uses for their brief, so the first message shows you've watched their work. Nothing goes out until you approve it. See write outreach to creators and influencers Coming soon for how that part works.