UGC and creator ads: the complete guide for Indian brands
How to brief, buy and run creator content as ads: UGC formats, hook structures, usage rights, partnership ads on Meta, testing and the metrics that matter.
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Part of the guideInfluencer marketing in India: the complete guide for brands (2026)
Paying for reach you never get is the most common way creator budgets are wasted. Bought followers, engagement pods and recycled view counts are easy to miss if you only look at the number on the profile. Here are the checks we do on every creator, and that you can do yourself.
1. Compare views with followers
Look at the last 10 to 15 Reels or videos. If a creator has 3 lakh followers but most Reels get 5,000 to 10,000 views, something is off. Healthy accounts vary a lot, but a consistent, large gap is a warning sign.
2. Read the comments
Real comments respond to what was said: questions, jokes, disagreements. Watch for many short, generic comments (“Nice”, “Awesome pic”, strings of emojis) from accounts with no photos or random names.
3. Look at who follows them
Open the follower list and scroll. Lots of accounts with no posts, no profile photo or foreign usernames that do not match the creator’s language is a red flag.
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Get a free shortlist4. Check for sudden jumps
Growth usually follows a viral post. A sudden jump of tens of thousands of followers with no hit post around that time often means followers were bought.
5. Ask for insights screenshots
Any serious creator can share screenshots of their audience location, age, gender and recent reach. If they refuse, move on.
6. Check audience location
If you sell in India, most of the audience should be in India. A big share from countries the creator never talks about is a common sign of bought followers.
7. Watch for engagement pods
Pods are groups of creators who like and comment on each other’s posts. You will see the same handful of creators commenting first on every post, often within minutes.
8. Look at past sponsored posts
Do paid posts get far fewer views and comments than normal posts? A little dip is normal. A big one suggests the audience tunes out ads, or the normal numbers are inflated.
Tools help, people decide
Audit tools give useful scores, but they miss context. A creator who posts in Bhojpuri will have an audience pattern a generic tool may flag wrongly. We use tools as a first filter and then look properly.
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