I have been building an audience for 5 months and have no idea how brand deals actually work. Someone please explain this to me like I'm an idiot.

Okay so I'm going to lay out my situation and hopefully someone who actually knows this space can tell me what I'm doing wrong or what I should be doing.

I run a faceless content page. Short videos, facts-based, dark history and corporate stuff. Been posting since December across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Current numbers:

Facebook - 9,400 followers, 2-3 million views per month, monetized,
Instagram - 16,000 followers, 5.1 million views in the last 30 days, 5 reels crossed 2 million views individually

Combined monthly reach is somewhere around 10 to 12 million. Audience is 70% American, rest is UK, Canada, Australia. Mostly 35-44 age group, predominantly male.

I have been making basically nothing from this despite these numbers and it's genuinely frustrating because I keep seeing people with way smaller pages talk about brand deals and sponsored posts like it's normal. I don't understand the system at all. Like actually don't understand it.

Some specific things I'm confused about:

What do I even charge for a sponsored reel? I have seen numbers ranging from $50 to $50,000 and I have no reference point for where someone with my stats should be.

Do brands come to you or do you go to them? And if you go to them, where? Cold email? DM? Some platform I don't know about?

What are brands actually looking at before they say yes? Is it follower count, views, engagement rate, audience location, niche? Because my niche is pretty broad general facts and history and I don't know if that's a problem.

Is there a media kit thing I need? What goes in it?

Are there industries or types of companies that specifically pay well for this kind of reach? I've heard SaaS and apps pay more than physical products but I don't know if that's true.

I feel like I'm sitting on something that should be making real money and I'm too clueless to convert it. If anyone has been through this or works on the brand side and can tell me what you actually look for when you're finding creators to work with, I would genuinely appreciate it.

Not looking for a course or a consultation offer, just real answers from people who know how this works.

Comments

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bengunners•about 2 months ago•1

You’re not clueless, you’re just missing the packaging + outbound system.

With your reach, start with this baseline:

  • IG Reel only: $400-800
  • FB Reel only: $250-500
  • Cross-platform package (IG+FB+YT short): $900-1,800
  • 3-video monthly retainer: $2.5k-5k

Then adjust up/down based on 3 things: average 30-day views, audience-country mix (you’re strong here), and niche fit to the brand.

What brands usually care about (in order):

  1. Can this creator make us money?
  2. Is the audience the right buyer?
  3. Are they reliable to work with?

Quick media kit structure (1 page is enough):

  • Niche + audience snapshot
  • Last 30/60 day views by platform
  • Top 3 performing posts (with screenshots)
  • Offer menu (1 post, bundles, usage rights add-on)
  • Contact + turnaround time

How to get deals faster:

  • Don’t wait for inbound. Do 15-20 targeted outreach emails/week.
  • Target apps/SaaS, education, productivity, finance tools, and newsletters, they usually understand creator ROI better than random ecom brands.
  • Pitch with 2 custom content angles for their product, not “hey sponsor me.”

Big money leak most creators miss: usage rights + whitelisting. Charge extra if they want to run your content as ads.

If you want, I can share a simple outreach script + rate card template you can copy/paste.

Independent-Ant-7230•about 2 months ago•1

Honestly your numbers are already strong enough that brands would probably take you seriously. The problem is mostly that nobody explains the business side clearly to creators.

Brands usually care about audience quality, demographics, consistency, average views, engagement and whether your audience actually trusts your content style. And honestly, a mostly US-based 35–44 audience is valuable. Advertisers care way more about that than raw follower count alone.

For pricing, there’s no universal number because deals vary massively depending on usage rights, exclusivity, platforms, deliverables and whether the brand can reuse your content in ads afterward. A media kit definitely helps though. Most creators include audience demographics, monthly reach, platform stats, content examples and contact info.

And yeah, a lot of creators wait too long expecting brands to magically discover them. Outreach is way more normal than people realize. Cold emailing brands, agencies and SaaS/app companies in related niches is extremely common.

Far_Move2785•about 2 months ago•1

Hm yeah brand deals with faceless pages are tricky because most brands want a face to trust

the fact you're getting 5M+ monthly views across platforms though? that's actually solid territory for mid-tier niche sponsorships, especially in dark history/corporate which has high advertiser appeal for educational or financial brands

start by making a simple one-page media kit: screenshot your best month's analytics, list your audience demographics (even estimates help), and note your content pillars, brands need to see exactly who they're reaching and what your content looks like

don't wait for brands to find you, pitch to 5-10 relevant companies per week. look at who's already sponsoring similar pages in your niche, then slide into their marketing inbox with a custom note referencing one of their recent campaigns. faceless actually works in your favor here, less risk of creator scandals

randomly i joined the waitlist for something called Hoox recently, it's supposed to be an autonomous AI CMO that posts daily on TikTok and Instagram to go viral, publishes daily SEO articles, generates YouTube videos for AI search rankings, monitors Reddit and X 24/7 for relevant conversations to drive traffic, and has a Telegram AI agent that does real-world tasks. all of it compounds together to build a customer acquisition system. https://joinhoox.com

what's your current posting frequency and average engagement rate on those reels that crossed 500k views? that'll tell us more about your actual reach versus just follower count

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