Agency selection
How to Choose an Influencer Agency in Vietnam: 12 Questions to Ask
Knowing how to choose an influencer agency in Vietnam matters more than finding the biggest name on a top-10 list. Most agencies can show a polished deck; far fewer can show how they source creators, sign contracts, handle tax paperwork, run approvals and hand your data back when the campaign ends. This guide gives you 12 questions to ask before you sign, a simple weighted scorecard, and the red flags that should end the conversation.
Short answer
What should you check before hiring an influencer agency in Vietnam?
Ask for proof of comparable campaigns, who owns the creator relationships and data, how contracts, invoices and tax documents are handled, how ad disclosure is enforced, the approval turnaround, a real sample report, and what you keep after the campaign. Score each answer on evidence, not on promises, and run a small paid pilot before a long retainer.
- Proof of comparable campaigns, with contactable references
- Clear ownership of creator lists, content files and data
- Written contracts with creators and proper invoices
- Disclosure enforced under the amended Advertising Law
- Approval turnaround and revision rules in writing
- A sample report from a real campaign
- A paid pilot before any long commitment
1. How to choose an influencer agency in Vietnam: define the job first
Before you compare agencies, write down what you are actually buying. An influencer agency in Vietnam can mean a creator booking desk, a full-service partner that also scripts, edits and runs paid amplification, or an operations team that manages hundreds of KOCs on TikTok Shop affiliate. These are different businesses with different strengths, and the best choice for one job is often a poor fit for another.
Start with three lines: the goal (awareness, content volume, sales through TikTok Shop or Shopee, reviews for a launch), the creator mix you expect (a few KOLs, dozens of KOCs, or both), and what your own team will keep doing. Our pillar guide to what an influencer marketing agency in Vietnam actually does breaks the full scope into strategy, sourcing, contracts, samples, approvals, payments and reporting, so you can mark which parts you want to outsource.
When the job is clear, every question below becomes easier to score, because you are judging fit for your scope rather than general impressiveness.
- Goal: what result would make this campaign a success?
- Creator mix: KOL, KOC, UGC creators, livestream hosts
- Platforms: TikTok, TikTok Shop, Shopee, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
- In-house: what your team keeps (claims, pricing, stock, final sign-off)
2. Questions 1 and 2: can they prove comparable work?
The first two questions are about evidence. Question 1: show me two or three campaigns similar to mine in category, platform and size. Question 2: can I speak to one of those clients? A capable agency will have case notes that show the brief, the creator list, the content and the results, even if brand names are masked.
Look for specifics. How many creators were contacted versus booked? How many posts went live on time? What went wrong and how did they fix it? Generic screenshots of high view counts tell you little; a candid account of a campaign that needed rescuing tells you a lot about how the team works under pressure.
Example: a skincare brand asks two agencies for a TikTok KOC case. Agency A sends a highlight reel. Agency B sends a one-page summary with the brief, the shortlist criteria, the number of creators who accepted, the posting calendar and a note that two creators missed deadlines and were replaced within the week. Agency B has answered the real question.
3. Question 3: who owns the creator relationships and the data?
Ask directly: at the end of our contract, what do we keep? Some agencies treat their creator network as the product and will not share contact details or performance history. Others hand over a full roster with rates, contact owners, content links and results. Neither model is wrong, but you must know which one you are buying before you sign.
At minimum, you should receive every published content link, the raw files you paid usage rights for, the performance data per creator and per post, and the final payment records. If you plan to bring creator management in-house later, negotiate access to the creator list and notes as part of the scope.
This is also where tooling matters. An agency that runs its pipeline in a creator CRM can export clean data; one that runs on scattered chat threads usually cannot.
- Published links and post dates for every deliverable
- Raw files covered by your usage rights
- Per-creator and per-post performance data
- Payment and invoice records
- Creator contact and rate history, if agreed in the contract
4. Questions 4 and 5: how are contracts, invoices and tax handled?
Question 4: do you sign a written agreement with every creator, and can I see your template? Question 5: who issues invoices to us, and how do you handle creator payments and the related tax paperwork? These questions separate operators from informal brokers.
A professional agency will have a creator agreement that covers deliverables, deadlines, revisions, usage rights, exclusivity, disclosure and payment terms, and it will issue proper invoices to your company. Ask how they deal with individual creators versus creators who invoice through a company, and who prepares the documents your finance team needs. If the answer is vague, or payments run through personal accounts with no paperwork, your finance and legal teams will carry the risk later.
Use our KOL and KOC contract checklist as the yardstick: if the agency template misses usage rights, exclusivity or a disclosure clause, ask them to fix it before the first booking.
5. Question 6: how do you make sure creators disclose ads?
Ask how the agency enforces advertising disclosure, and listen for a process rather than a promise. Under Article 15a of the Advertising Law as amended by Law 75/2025/QH15, in force from 1 January 2026, influencers who advertise must announce the advertisement immediately before and during it, and must check the advertiser and product documents. Our guide to influencer advertising law in Vietnam summarises the full stack of rules and the fines set by Decree 87/2026/ND-CP.
A good agency writes the disclosure requirement into the creator brief and contract, checks it at the approval stage, and keeps evidence of the product documents it shared with creators. It also stops creators from making claims your product documents cannot support. If an agency says disclosure hurts performance and suggests skipping it, end the conversation.
- Disclosure wording and placement written into the brief
- Disclosure checked at script and final-cut approval
- Product documents shared with creators and logged
- Claim limits agreed with the brand before scripting
6. Questions 7 and 8: how fast are approvals and what happens with revisions?
Question 7: what is your approval workflow, and what turnaround do you commit to? Question 8: how many revision rounds are included, and what counts as a revision? Approvals are where most creator campaigns lose time, especially when a regional or overseas head office must sign off.
Ask to see the actual flow: brief, script or outline, rough cut, final cut, caption and disclosure check, posting. Ask who reviews at each stage, how feedback is consolidated so creators do not receive contradictory notes, and how versions are tracked. A team that can show you a version history for a past campaign is a team that will not lose your feedback in a chat thread.
7. Question 9: can I see a real report from a past campaign?
Ask for a sample report, anonymised if needed, from a campaign that has finished. A report shows how the agency thinks: whether it tracks only views and likes, or also cost per deliverable, on-time posting, content reuse, affiliate orders and lessons for next time.
Check that the report separates what the agency controls (booking, delivery, quality) from what it does not fully control (algorithm reach, conversion on your store). Be wary of reports built only from screenshots with no source links, and of any report that lacks a section on what did not work.
8. Question 10: how do you price, and what is included?
Ask the agency to explain its pricing model in writing: a management fee plus creator costs passed through, a fixed project fee, a monthly retainer, or a commission on sales. Then ask which costs sit outside the quote, such as samples, shipping, paid amplification, extra revisions, or rights extensions.
The point is not to find the lowest number, but to be able to compare quotes on the same scope. Creator fees vary with platform, format, rights, exclusivity and timeline, as our KOC booking cost guide explains. Ask each agency to show creator costs and its own fee as separate lines, so you can see what you pay for the work and what you pay for the talent.
9. Questions 11 and 12: who will actually work on my account, and can we start small?
Question 11: who will run my campaign day to day, and how many other accounts do they manage? The senior people in the pitch are not always the people who answer your messages. Ask to meet the account lead and the person who will handle creators, and ask how they cover holidays and peak periods such as the big double-date sales.
Question 12: can we run a small paid pilot first? A pilot of a few weeks with a defined scope shows you the agency's real speed, communication and quality. Agree the success criteria in advance, such as on-time posting, approval turnaround and content quality, so the decision afterwards is based on facts.
10. What are the red flags when choosing an influencer agency?
Some answers should end the process quickly, however attractive the price. Most red flags come down to one pattern: the agency promises outcomes it cannot control while avoiding the paperwork it can.
If you see two or more of the signs below, move on or ask for a much smaller pilot with strict terms.
- Guaranteed views, followers or sales figures
- No written contracts with creators, or a refusal to show the template
- Payments through personal accounts with no invoices
- Advice to skip ad disclosure
- No sample report, or reports made only of screenshots
- Refusal to tell you which creators were booked
- A vague scope with everything priced as one lump sum
11. A simple scorecard to compare influencer agencies
Turn the 12 questions into a scorecard so that the decision is not made on the best presentation. Score each area from 1 to 5 based on evidence, multiply by a weight that reflects your priorities, and add notes on what proof you saw.
Example weights for a sales-focused TikTok Shop campaign: comparable experience 20 percent, operations and approvals 20 percent, contracts and compliance 20 percent, reporting and data ownership 15 percent, pricing transparency 15 percent, team fit 10 percent. A brand launching a premium product might move more weight to creator quality and compliance. These weights are an example, not a benchmark; adjust them to your goal.
- Comparable experience and references (Q1-Q2)
- Creator and data ownership (Q3)
- Contracts, invoices and tax handling (Q4-Q5)
- Disclosure and claims compliance (Q6)
- Approvals and revisions (Q7-Q8)
- Reporting quality (Q9)
- Pricing transparency (Q10)
- Team and pilot willingness (Q11-Q12)
12. How to run the selection process in four steps
A structured process saves weeks and makes the proposals comparable. Keep it short: most brands can shortlist, brief, compare and start a pilot within a month if the brief is clear.
The most important step is the second one. If every agency receives the same written request for proposal, with the same objective, deliverables, rights and timeline, their answers can be compared line by line. Our influencer marketing RFP template gives you the fields to copy.
- Step 1: shortlist three to five agencies that match your scope
- Step 2: send the same written RFP to all of them
- Step 3: score proposals and pitch meetings on the scorecard
- Step 4: run a paid pilot with the top choice, then decide
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the best influencer marketing agency in Vietnam?
There is no single best agency; there is the best fit for your goal, category and budget. An agency that excels at large KOC affiliate programs may be the wrong partner for a premium KOL launch. Use a scorecard and a pilot to find the right fit.
How many agencies should I compare?
Three to five is usually enough. Fewer gives you no comparison, and more makes it hard to give each proposal a fair review. Send all of them the same written brief.
Should I choose a big agency or a specialist?
Big agencies bring breadth and integrated services; specialists often bring deeper creator relationships and faster execution in one niche. Decide based on who will actually run your account and whether they have done your type of campaign before.
Is a pilot campaign really necessary?
It is the cheapest way to test how an agency works in practice. A short, clearly scoped pilot shows speed, communication, quality and reporting before you commit to a retainer.
What should I keep in-house when I hire an agency?
Keep product claims, pricing, stock and final brand sign-off with your own team. The agency can run sourcing, contracts, approvals logistics and reporting, but those decisions carry your brand's legal and commercial risk.
