Cast on selling evidence
The single best predictor is whether a creator has sold something before. Look for affiliate links in bio, product mentions with real questions underneath, live selling and comments asking where to buy. That behaviour transfers. Beautiful content with no buying intent underneath does not.
Read fifty comments on their last three brand posts. If people are asking about the product, the creator has commercial trust. If people are only complimenting the outfit or the kitchen, you are buying decoration.
Where to actually look
Start with your own customers. Search your brand name and product name on TikTok and Instagram to find people already posting about you. Those creators convert best because the endorsement is real. Then search the problem keywords your buyers use rather than your category name.
TikTok Creator Marketplace and Instagram’s collaboration tools are fine for discovery and terrible for judgement. Use them to build a longlist, then verify every profile by hand on the app. Databases lag behind reality by months and stale median view counts will cost you money.
The screening checks worth doing
Median views across twenty posts rather than the top post. Comment to view ratio above roughly 0.5% on a selling post. Audience location matched to where you ship. A posting gap of no more than a few days. Any account with big view spikes and flat comments needs explaining.
Then run a paid test with three to five creators before committing to a roster. One round of small paid posts tells you more than any amount of profile analysis. It also gives you real cost per acquisition numbers to negotiate with.