Checklist: Before You Set a Campaign Live + Invite your first Creator

Launching a successful influencer campaign requires a clear plan, the right creators, and a smooth workflow.

Before switching your campaign to Live, use this checklist to catch common pitfalls and ensure creators have a seamless experience from start to finish.

1. Review Your Application Settings

Your application settings determine who can apply, what information they provide, and how easily you can evaluate candidates. Before launching, double-check the following:

Check: Are you happy with how the application looks?

Preview your application form to ensure:

• The description is clear
• Brand tone and imagery is consistent
• Instructions are easy to understand

Creators will see this before deciding to apply.

How to preview your application:

1. Go to your campaign
2. Open the Setup tab
3. Select Application
4. From here, you can preview and edit the application
   • You can also copy the application URL and open it in your browser to see it exactly as a creator would

Decide: Would you like to share the campaign publicly on Later Social?

If enabled, your application link will be visible to creators browsing Later Social for brand partnerships in your industry. This allows creators to apply without receiving an invitation — expanding your reach and exposing you to new talent.

If you don’t want your campaign to appear publicly:

1. Go to your campaign
2. Open Setup → Application
3. Make sure Share with Creators on Later Social is not selected

Top Tip: Make sure Accepting Applications is selected so creators can apply.

Decide: Do you want creators to authenticate their social profiles?

Authentication:

• Provides accurate audience insights
• Helps verify creator credibility
• Allows Later to auto-pull social content and performance

Recommended: Require Instagram authentication for campaigns with Instagram deliverables. But avoid requiring any social profile that not all creators will need — for instance, if only a few creators will post on TikTok, making TikTok authentication mandatory may prevent creators from applying.

To configure this:

1. Go to your campaign
2. Open Setup → Application
3. Make sure only the relevant social profiles are selected

Check: Are you collecting the relevant information from your creators?

Ensure you request all information you need to evaluate a creator.

Consider requiring:

• Phone number
• Address
• Ethnicity (if relevant to your campaign)
• Concept Submission — ask creators to propose their content idea
• Desired Rate — helpful for negotiation; if disabled, ensure your campaign incentives are clear in the Incentives tab

Then review your custom questions. You may want to collect:

• Size, fit, or product preferences
• Food allergies, age verification, 
• or any other make-or-break details

Collecting the right info upfront saves the most time later.

2. Review Your Campaign Brief

Your campaign brief is one of the more important creator-facing documents. It ensures every participant understands expectations before producing content.

Review your brief for:

• Campaign goals
• Deliverable expectations
• Brand guidelines
• Required tags, captions & disclosures
• Creative DOs and DON’Ts
• Usage rights & content licensing
• Timeline & posting windows
• Product instructions (if gifting)

Learn more here: Campaign Brief

3. Confirm Your Campaign Workflow

Your workflow determines how creators move from being invited → confirming participation → creating content → completing deliverables. It directly affects communication, deadlines, and team processes.

Task: Review and finalize your workflow stages

Ask yourself:

• Do you require drafts?  If yes, ensure draft stages (e.g., Draft Submitted, Draft Approved) are enabled.
• When will you compensate creators? Upfront? After posting? Both? Ensure the relevant payment stages are enabled
• Does each workflow stage match your actual process? Remove stages your team won’t use — fewer stages = fewer errors.
• Are automatic messages aligned with workflow stages? (More on this in the next section.)

Learn more here: Overview of Later Influence’s Campaign Workflow Stages & Logic

4. Review your message templates

Message Templates are one of the most important parts of campaign setup — they dictate how and when creators receive instructions. Using incorrect templates or forgetting to update placeholders can lead to creator confusion, delays, and missed deliverables.

Task: Have you replaced placeholder language?

Message templates include placeholder text by default. You must update these before launching your campaign.

Super important:

• Text in [brackets] → must be edited manually. Brackets should never remain in any template you intend to send.
• Text in {{merge tags}} → auto-populates when the message sends. Merge tags are extremely helpful for personalizing messages at scale — use them wherever appropriate.

Look for these red flags:

• [text in brackets] still appears in your message
• Instructions don’t make sense 
• The tone doesn’t reflect your brand

Review: Do you know when each template sends?

Message Templates can send:

• Manually (default) 
• Automatically when a creator reaches a specific workflow stage/milestone 

Before launching you should:

1. Confirm which messages Later will send automatically
2. Confirm which messages your team must send manually
3. Make sure your team knows who is responsible for sending them.

We want to avoid situations where:

• A creator is added to a campaign but never receives an invitation email
• Deadlines approach without automated reminders
• Creators receive unclear or outdated instructions

5. You're ready to set your campaign live

Setting your first campaign live can feel a little daunting, but if you double-check all the pieces above, you’ll be ready to start inviting creators with confidence.

Things you don’t need to worry about:

• Creators not getting messages — you now understand when messages send and you’ve reviewed the content of each template.
• Missing information in creator applications — you’ve reviewed your questions, and you can always follow up with creators if you need more context.
• Missing campaign stages — the critical stages are required automatically; anything optional is purely a workflow enhancement.
• Assigning deliverables — you can do this once the campaign is live and creators have applied.

Common questions

How can I preview messages and see what the process looks like for a creator?

The best way to view your campaign is to go through it as if you were a creator:

1. Open the application URL in your browser
2. Sign up to Later Social (if you don’t already have an account)
3. Apply to the campaign
4. Move yourself through the workflow in Later Influence just as you would move a creator

This gives you a full end-to-end preview.

Will a creator be contacted if I invite them to a campaign?

This is an easy thing to check:

1. If your campaign is not Live: No messages will be sent.
2. If your campaign is Live: Messages will send according to your template and workflow settings.

Do Creators need to pay for Later Social?

No — Later Social is free for creators when they sign up via a campaign application link.