Talent Agencies vs. Performance Agencies: Which One Is Best For Your Brand?

To make it easier to find the best influencer for their next campaign, many companies are partnering with agencies. Two of the most popular ones are talent and performance agencies.

In this article, we'll look into both agency types and explain why talent agencies are not the best choice for brands that want a successful influencer marketing campaign.

What are talent agencies?

Back in the day, talent agencies ruled the showbiz world and were popular among celebrities. These agencies had connections and knew the most important players in the industry. Rising stars were dreaming about signing a contract with one of the leading talent agencies to become part of their exclusive network.

That's why it's no surprise that modern influencers are also looking for talent agencies to help them kickstart their social media career.

But while talent agencies are good for supporting an influencer's career, their exclusivity status makes them a not-so-perfect choice for brands.

Why are talent agencies not perfect for brands?

By signing contracts with only a handful of influencers, talent agencies are limiting the number of influencers they work with. And this means that brands that partner with talent agencies are also limited in their choice.

When trying to match influencers with brands, talent agencies don't break down influencers' content into performance metrics or evaluate the potential effect on brand awareness, engagement rates, etc.

Instead, talent agencies mostly rely on the demand for a particular influencer among their existing clients. This means that the same influencer is more likely to be recommended to different brands regardless of the brand's main goal, industry, and specific needs.

What are performance agencies?

Contrary to talent agencies, performance agencies take a data-driven approach to choosing the right influencer.

They evaluate influencers' popularity based on their engagement metrics, content quality, and audience profile. When choosing an influencer for a campaign, performance agencies make sure that the audience profile of this influencer matches the brand's target audience.

And this is one of the main reasons why they are called performance agencies.

They don't ask general questions such as "What makes this influencer unique?" Performance agencies prefer to ask specific questions such as "What makes this influencer valuable for this campaign?"

Why do many brands partner with performance agencies?

Performance agencies do not sign exclusive contracts with influencers. They use analytics tools to scrap the web and find influencers who match the brand's requirements.

And one company that would know all about performance-based influencer marketing is leading European-based influencer marketing agency HypeFactory. HypeFactory combines technology and creativity by integrating artificial intelligence to create impactful influencer marketing campaigns. They connect brands using a measurable approach, unlocking them to potentially millions of influencers for performance-driven results.

"In other words, performance agencies are not limited in their choice and can launch campaigns with mega-, macro-, micro, or even nano-influencers," Regina Balsyte, COO at HypeFactory, told me.

"Since they are not limited in their choice of influencers, performance agencies can find content creators who meet very precise requirements. For example, small business owners, soon-to-be mothers, regular visitors of a particular bakery, gym fans, wine tasters, and so on."

Sathish Shanmugam, Founder of Graphically.io- a platform that helps agency creators with designs and ideas said- "A talent agency can help bring recognition to your brand, but a performance agency can help make your brand a household name."

Performance agencies can also launch campaigns in different languages which means that they can reach audiences on a global scale.

What are the main differences between performance and talent agencies?

There are several major differences between talent and performance agencies.

By comparing these differences, you can see why brands that work with performance agencies get better results compared to those that partner with talent agencies.

Influencer database

Performance agencies have complete freedom when it comes to choosing an influencer. They can get access even to influencers who are not represented by a talent agency.

Talent agencies have a limited choice of influencers. They've built and are nurturing relationships with a particular group of people.

Approach

Performance agencies have a data-driven approach. They rely on data to find the influencers who will achieve the best results for their clients.

Talent agencies analyze influencers mostly by looking at the audience size and profile without drilling down into specific performance metrics.

Support

Performance agencies provide brands with a dedicated project team. There is a project manager, a strategist, an account manager, an influencer manager (and even a creative team who'll be working on designing the tone and voice of your campaign).

Talent agencies do not create full-cycle campaigns. A major part of creating, launching and supervising the campaign will become your responsibility. This is why many brands that work with talent agencies have to hire multiple contractors for different stages of their campaigns.

Reach

Performance agencies can help brands scale campaigns and amplify results by partnering with more and more influencers.

Talent agencies cannot scale a campaign because they are limited by their pool of influencers.

Why are in-house teams not as effective as performance agencies?

If you have a fairly large organization, it might be tempting to create an in-house performance marketing department.

"But it is not as straightforward as it seems," said Balsyte. "It takes time for your team to become experts in different stages of influencer marketing. And you also have limited resources: even if you have thousands of employees, you probably don't want to have hundreds of them working exclusively on influencer marketing. After all, there are other marketing projects that need their attention."

Contrary to an in-house team, employees at an agency are working only on influencer marketing campaigns. They have experience with launching these campaigns for different markets and audiences. Besides, they also know what it takes to approach even the most unapproachable influencer. Contrary to a newly created in-house team, performance agencies have established relationships with many content creators around the world.

By working with a performance marketing agency, a company can free up its team's time and help its marketing department focus on other projects besides influencer campaigns.

How to choose the best performance agency for your brand?

Here are five things that you need to keep in mind when looking for an agency:

The agency size. If an agency has only 10-15 people, it won't be able to cope with a large amount of work needed to launch a successful campaign. Small agencies usually have a hard time adjusting processes to meet your specific needs.
The agency's portfolio. You can have a closer look at the clients and verticals the agency has had experience with. If it has launched many campaigns in your industry, there is a high chance that the agency already knows the ins and outs of marketing and advertising specific to your niche.
Transparent commissions. Launching a marketing campaign is not an easy task. It requires thorough research, finding the right influencers, producing a strategy for the campaign, supervising creatives...and so on. Since the process is so complex, it is important to look for agencies that are transparent about their commissions for the work done.
Analytics tools. The agency market is huge but so is the software market. There are many tools available for marketers nowadays. Make sure that your agency is using industry-leading software for finding and analyzing influencers. The software choice can make or break your entire strategy. If the decisions are made on poor-quality data, you will end up with poor results.
Case studies. Before signing a contract with an agency, ask about their case studies. Don't forget to ask questions about how they managed to get the results that you see on the slides. Engage in the conversation with the agency to get to know it before you commit to any business relationship.

Marketing is a data-driven department even though in many companies its data-driven nature is still lagging behind other departments.

By partnering with a performance agency, you can instill a data-oriented culture in your team and get measurable results from influencer marketing campaigns.

And if you're interested in launching a successful campaign, try reaching out to one of the leading performance marketing agencies on the market, such as HypeFactory.