For brands · Guide

Spot fake engagement before you pay for it

The checks that take ten minutes, the ones that take an hour, and the clauses that protect you when the numbers were real but the audience was not.

Get it by e-mail 4 pages · 7 min · Updated 2026-10-20

What is inside

  • Ten-minute checks: ratios, comment quality, follower sample, growth shape

  • One-hour checks: audience geography and language, native analytics screenshots, link tests

  • What is not fraud: low engagement on a good creator, bursts after a viral post, bought ads

  • Clauses: audience warranty, analytics access, replacement, payment on delivery not on reach

  • A short worksheet to score a creator in five minutes

Preview

Spot fake engagement before you pay for it

The checks that take ten minutes, the ones that take an hour, and the clauses that protect you when the numbers were real but the audience was not.

When you pay a creator to publish, you are paying for an audience. If the audience is partly bots, pods or bought followers, you are paying for nothing, and the "results" will look fine on a screenshot. This guide is the checklist we run before a publication deal and the clauses we put in the agreement so that a bad surprise costs the creator, not you.

Two things to keep in mind. First, low engagement is not fraud: good creators with honest audiences can have modest ratios, and a creator you hire for production (UGC delivered as files) does not need an audience at all. Second, none of these checks is proof on its own; they are signals, and the pattern is what counts.

The full guide is sent by e-mail

Enter your e-mail, confirm it from the e-mail we send you, and the full document opens online with a PDF you can keep.

Get it by e-mail
Guide

Get “Spot fake engagement before you pay for it”

You are…

Double opt-in: nothing is sent until you confirm your address. No third-party trackers on this page.

Resource library

For brands · Tool

Campaign brief builder

Answer ten questions and get a one-page brief a creator can deliver from without a call, plus the list of gaps it still has.

Open

All resources