Influencer Marketing Hub sets itself apart from conventional review platforms through the involvement of Influencer Marketing experts such as Werner Geyser, Djanan Kasumovic, Camille Kennedy, Dave Eagle, and other notable industry figures. This expert team brings a profound understanding of the Influencer Marketing landscape, assessing tools and platforms with an insider’s perspective on capabilities, experience, and industry acumen. Unlike user-generated review platforms, Influencer Marketing Hub’s evaluations are rooted in extensive firsthand experience and direct interactions with the tools and platforms in question. This ensures that the reviews are not only trustworthy but also deeply informed. High-caliber brands like inBeat Agency, Influence Hunter, and Peersway undergo rigorous monthly evaluations, highlighting the platform’s commitment to identifying and showcasing top-tier solutions in Influencer Marketing and beyond.
Influencer Marketing Hub has consistently been recognized by leading media outlets for our authoritative data, findings, and insights within the Influencer Marketing landscape. Our platform is frequently cited as a trusted source of information, demonstrating the value and impact of our work in shaping industry standards and practices.
Influencer Marketing Hub employs an expert-driven methodology to evaluate Influencer Marketing agencies, ensuring that our recommendations are both reliable and comprehensive. This approach is designed to help businesses and individuals find the best agencies to meet their specific Influencer Marketing needs. Here’s how we assess the various agencies like inBeat Agency, Influence Hunter, and Peersway:
With 64% of marketers increasing their spending, influencer marketing continues to be a powerful tool. That being said, optimizing its full potential tends to be challenging, especially with new platform algorithm changes and stricter regulations.
Influencer marketing agencies provide expertise and industry know-how to navigate the constantly evolving influencer space. And while US-based agencies exist, Toronto has a strong selection of agencies equipped to help Canadian brands connect with the right audience.
In this article, we narrow down the agencies for you.
Top Toronto-Based Influencer Marketing Agencies
Working with a local not only ensures customized marketing but also complies with Canadian rules on influencer marketing.
Location: Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Paris, Singapore Year Founded: 2019 Notable Clients: Square, Bumble, YouTube, Nestle, Disney, Nordstrom, 7-Eleven, New Balance Niche Focus: Nano-Influencer Marketing, Macro-Influencer Marketing, Instagram Influencer Marketing, Influencer Focus Group, Product Sampling inBeat Agency is a premier creative growth agency in North America. It’s ideal for brands seeking rapid market presence through dynamic partnerships. The agency provides complete scaling tools, tailored strategies, and measurable results. inBeat is known for connecting businesses with top micro-influencers globally. This strategic use of smaller creators fosters a personal connection with consumers, building trust and authenticity. The agency has over 50,000 micro-influencers who create engaging UGCs for large ad campaigns. Its micro-influencer marketing solutions include: The in-house team assesses these influencers using their social media platforms and proprietary tech to check KPIs like engagement, reach, and credibility. They analyze influencers’ audience interests, demographics, and locations to ensure the right fit. Plus, inBeat’s team handles everything—from finding and negotiating with influencers to managing payments, agreements, and strategy. inBeat also lets you choose the influencers you want to work with. Its research team provides a curated list of creators interested in collaborating with your brand. You also have the final decision in approving the accounts you want to partner with, ensuring they align with your brand’s values and objectives. inBeat’s micro-influencer campaigns feature: inBeat Agency also ranks among the best nano-influencer agencies. This network of over 25,000 nano-influencers excels in generating review content that can be repurposed in different platforms like TrustPilot, Amazon, and Google Shopping. This approach helps build trust in your products and drives sales through authentic endorsements. A collaboration with Bluehouse Salmon is a great example of InBeat’s successful influencer marketing prowess. Bluehouse Salmon is a publicly traded company that specializes in land-grown salmon. The company chose inBeat to help them create educational and recipe-focused content that will differentiate its sushi-grade salmon as sustainable. The goal was to “explode” their social media presence. The initial challenge with this project was the appeal level of the product. Organic salmon doesn’t quite have the same appeal as a beauty brand, so inBeat had to find an angle to make the product more interesting. The choice was user-generated content. inBeat started powering Bluehouse’s social media calendar with UGC to create social proof and desire. UGC is also more cost-effective than paid ads. inBeat powered its network of nano- and micro-influencers to generate a steady stream of influencer-created content. This approach aimed to bolster Bluehouse Salmon’s social media following and fuel its content calendar with engaging material. The campaign yielded impressive results: To this day, Bluehouse’s visually appealing Instagram feed is still mainly powered by UGC visual content. Through strategic influencer collaborations, inBeat Agency successfully positioned Bluehouse Salmon as a leader in sustainable seafood, leveraging influencer-generated content to drive substantial growth and engagement on social media. To help more brands in Canada and beyond, inBeat Agency also partnered with SocialPeta, an ad analysis platform, to enhance its mobile creative strategy. This partnership has enabled inBeat to provide creative briefs, industry audits, competitive analysis, and more. Since the partnership started, inBeat has spent less effort but achieved better results in finding the best creatives. Its advertising campaigns have also become more sustainable. The team was able to decrease cost per action (CPA) by 70% for its clients. Watch this hour-long, in-depth interview with David Morneau of inBeat Agency hosted by Ryan Cramer of PingPong Payments to learn more about the agency’s processes, prospects, and principles. Morneau discusses growing a 7-figure DTC brand through micro-influencers. Location: Los Angeles, Toronto Year Founded: 2018 Notable Clients: Honda, Monster, Blaze Pizza, Quevos, Honest Paws, Lush Decor Niche Focus: Sponsored Influencer Marketing, Paid Influence Marketing, Gifting, Whitelisting Based in Los Angeles, Influence Hunter creates top-quality influencer campaigns that can be customized for each client. The agency has conducted over 8 million brand engagements: Influence Hunter team has a network of influencers that can help your brand increase social media coverage. This can result in 10 to over 500 influencers posting about your product monthly, multiplying brand visibility. You can also choose the right solution for your business, focusing on these primary services. Customization is a prominent service feature for the agency. Influence Hunter finds the best influencers from their database of 100+ million influencers for your brand. The agency will sort the “candidates” by demographics, size, and platform. A dedicated account manager will use email automation to contact influencers on your behalf, negotiate the lowest fees, and secure content rights. Your assigned manager handles all communication, negotiations, reporting, and logistics to keep your campaign on time and within budget. Once your chosen influencers start posting content, the agency will monitor each influencer’s performance and the campaign’s overall progress. Influence Hunter uses these KPIs: They also evaluate the quality of each influencer’s content. All UGC from the campaign, including disappearing Instagram Stories, are collected and provided to your brand for your use. They continuously A/B test and optimize the campaign to achieve your desired results. As the campaign progresses, Influence Hunter measures what is working and what isn’t. They’ll help you turn the best influencers on the campaign into long-term brand ambassadors to solidify your relationship further. Aside from brand ambassadorship, businesses gravitate toward Influence Hunter because the agency provides smart-value, cost-effective services. They work on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Typically, their gifting campaigns combine Instagram and TikTok, while budget campaigns involve all three platforms. These tailored and cost-efficient solutions have helped Influence Hunter provide exceptional services to SMBs and enterprises. Among its success stories is its Quevos, the world’s first egg white chips. Quevos, packed with protein, fiber, and healthy fats, wanted to target micro-influencers in the healthy food space, specifically keto, fitness, and health and wellness influencers in the US. They aimed to spread the word about their healthy snacks and direct people to their website. After taking in Quevos’ goals, Influence Hunter launched three campaigns: The influencers for the Quevos campaign were diverse, creating content across various categories and reaching different audience sizes and demographics. Most influencers were young, wellness-loving women, health-conscious mothers, and family-friendly influencers seeking healthy snacks for their children. This strategy helped Quevos and Influence Hunter achieve their goal of reaching a broad new online audience. When Influence Hunter took over Quevos’ influencer program, they tracked performance on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, finding that for every website sale, two more were made on Amazon. In the first three months, they doubled Quevos’ Instagram followers and increased ROI by 550%. By the end of the campaign, the total reach was over 11 million. The campaign also helped Quevos appear on Shark Tank and secure a deal with Daniel Lubetzky. Location: Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Miami Year Founded: 2016 Notable Clients: Gillette, Dove, Ikea, Yves Rocher, Havas, Harbinger Niche Focus: Fully Managed Campaigns, Self-Serve Platform Peersway simplifies your brand’s reach and engagement with its free, user-friendly, self-serve influencer platform. It provides all the tools for brands to launch and manage campaigns easily, with no monthly fees or contracts. According to company founder Arnab Majumdar, unlike other influencer platforms, Peersway does not charge a subscription fee to brands. Instead, it takes a percentage from the influencers when they get paid by the brands. As such, you’ll be responsible for compensating the influencers you collaborate with. However, Peersway simplifies the payment process with a secure, built-in payment system. Although Peersway provides recommendations based on the content to be created, you have the final say on how much to pay influencers. You can also launch campaigns where influencers create content in exchange for products. There are no minimum campaign budget requirements or limits on the number of influencers you can work with. The self-serve platform has a network of heavily curated and vetted nano influencers. To ensure high quality, Peersway manually reviews all influencer profiles before approval. This evaluation checks top metrics like engagement rate and followers-to-following ratio. The agency also evaluates the quality of the content and the comments to eliminate bogus accounts that are not brand-safe. You can provide your campaign requirements and have influencers apply directly, so you save time and resources. For every influencer content published, the platform will show when it went live, the number of posts and stories, total reach, engagement, and impressions. The platform also allows for reviewing, feedback, and approval of the content to ensure brand guidelines and brand voice protection. The platform also has a built-in messaging system. This allows you to communicate directly with influencers, provide campaign guidelines, give feedback, and answer questions. For brands that prefer a hands-off approach, Peersway offers fully managed campaigns led by its expert team. They have executed fully managed influencer marketing campaigns for brands in the last seven years. These campaigns involve a dedicated team overseeing all aspects of the campaign, from identifying suitable content creators to execution and wrap reporting. Peersway thoroughly assesses and selects the creators you’ll work with from its network of active nano-influencers, predominantly in North America. Peersway operates on a fixed-cost, one-time payment plan for fully managed campaigns. That means you don’t have to pay a subscription or an activation fee. However, the agency offers plans that include a campaign manager, compensation, and monthly reports. This way, clients won’t need to negotiate with influencers or deal with surprise expenses. Whether you’re looking to collaborate with a few influencers or expand your campaign to a larger audience, Peersway’s process makes influencer collaboration easy for brands of any size. The agency boasts about 3,000 influencers registered across Canada and 2,500 in the US. Peersway has partnered with leading brands across various verticals, including lifestyle, fashion, nonprofits, health and wellness, parenting, beauty and personal care, technology, food and beverage, and events. An outstanding example of Peersway’s work was with Shoppers Drug Mart, one of Canada’s top drug stores. Shoppers Drug Mart runs The Top Picks program every year to showcase the store’s best sellers, new finds, and hidden gems. They partnered with Peersway to find over a hundred influencers across Canada to promote The Top Picks. Peersway focused on these services for the campaign: Peersway selected 150 influencers who speak both English and French. Each influencer received The Top Picks box to choose products and create content. The influencers must make three Instagram posts and at least three Instagram Stories about the products. The chosen influencers shared images of various products, including snacks, skincare products, and beauty items. Some even made Instagram Reels about their favorites. Working with 150 influencers, the campaign resulted in roughly 1,000 Instagram content pieces and reached over 180,000 Instagram Story views. Overall, the campaign achieved a total reach of 6.1 million. Shoppers Drug Mart was just one of the many Canadian brands and businesses Peersway has helped. Another notable work the agency did was with Environmental Defence, a Canadian environmental organization: Location: Toronto, Montreal Year Founded: 2008 Notable Clients: Javon “Wanna” Walton, Michelle Chubb, Lilli Schaub, Noémie Marleau Niche Focus: Influencers, Models, Gaming, Sports and Entertainment Originally a modeling agency, Dulcedo has grown and rebranded with four core branches: models, influencers, gamers, and sports. The rebranding gives individuality to each branch while sewing a common thread throughout the company. One of its rebranded divisions is Dulcedo Influencers, a top-tier full-service management and activation agency. Dulcedo Influencers provides influencers with local and international representation. Unlike typical influencer marketing agencies, which connect brands with influencers, Dulcedo actively builds and manages its influencers for beyond-brand partnerships. The agency aims to enhance its influencers’ brands and foster enduring success through sustained partnerships with brands, media, philanthropy, and community involvement. Influencers and creators rely on the agency to expand their brands across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and beyond. Companies and organizations partner with Dulcedo to boost awareness and preference for their products and brands through collaborations with global influencers, micro-influencers, and celebrities. The agency nurtures mutually beneficial relationships between top influencers and leading brands. The range of services Dulcedo Influencers offer is encompassing: Additionally, the agency supports business development, campaign execution, securing press coverage, and launching products. As an influencer, you can leverage Dulcedo’s team to create and execute strategies highlighting your brand’s unique traits. Dulcedo will expand your brand’s visibility beyond digital platforms by identifying and leveraging press opportunities to position you as an expert. This enhances your brand’s credibility and content. Dulcedo can take your career to the next level with package deals, speaking engagements, modeling opportunities, personal appearances, paid media placements, product lines, and editorial features. Among Dulcedo’s esteemed influencer talents is American actor and professional boxer Javon “Wanna” Walton. Since joining the agency, Dulcedo has partnered Walton with leading brands and industry giants. He became part of the limited-edition “Icons” collaboration between OVO and HBO and was tapped by Moose Knuckles Canada. Walton also became the youngest addition to the Jordan brand family. Recently, he partnered with Samsung to unveil the cutting-edge Galaxy S24 Ultra at the Galaxy headquarters in New York, sharing an Instagram Reel about the event. In addition, Dulcedo’s campaigns and collaborations consistently achieve impressive results. The agency has also garnered numerous awards, including the recent Netty Award for Best TikTok Campaign in the Digital Marketing category in Canada. Moreover, Dulcedo’s CEO, Karim Leduc, has been recognized as a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2024 Québec. Additionally, Dulcedo Management has been certified as a Great Place to Work in Canada, reinforcing its reputation as a globally respected company and a preferred environment for top-tier talents to excel. Location: Toronto Year Founded: 2017 Notable Clients: Harmony Results, The Office Shop, Spieth America Niche Focus: UGC, Social Media Creatives, Ad Creatives Whether UGC, sponsored posts, giveaways, or hashtags, Consultus Digital facilitates partnerships between brands and influencers to create authentic campaigns that reach a broad audience. Working with Consultus Digital means working with an in-house team that handles everything. They vet influencers and UGC creators, check content quality, and monitor engagement. They serve as your main point of contact, managing influencer relationships from initial search and content creation to measuring campaign success. Consultus Digital’s team starts by reviewing its database of influencers to find the ideal talent for each engagement. They meticulously check each creator to ensure their genuine audience aligns with your target demographic. After preparing the influencer selection, the team presents these options to you for review and approval. Once you’ve chosen the influencers, they classify the messaging tone and theme, outline campaign details, and create a campaign brief. Creators must submit content for approval before the scheduled publication date on their channels or social platforms. Once approved, the content is published with all necessary hashtags and references to ensure brand alignment. Once the campaign concludes, Consultus Digital provides comprehensive program reporting and schedules a debrief to review results against predefined KPIs. Consultus Digital strongly recommended allocating at least 20% of the campaign budget towards paid amplification in every influencer marketing strategy. This typically involves sponsored Instagram or Facebook Ads to maximize reach and test different demographic targets. Location: Toronto, Montreal, New York, Paris Year Founded: 2006 Notable Clients: Vans, Michelin, L’Oreal, The North Face, GAP, Banana Republic, Sun Life Niche Focus: Influencer Marketing, PR, Experiential and Events Bicom is an integrated communications agency that connects brands with consumers through creative strategies and innovative tools. The agency excels in developing and nurturing influencer relationships, fostering genuine connections between your brand, influencers, and their communities. Bicom’s specialists ensure your brand reaches the most strategic influencers, from nano influencers to celebrities. Bicom maintains global lists of targeted content creators tailored to your business goals. It provides essential tools such as comprehensive briefs, key messages, and personalized approaches. Bicom ensures seamless campaign coordination with services including: Bicom has recently expanded across the Atlantic with the opening of its fourth office in Paris. This move highlights the agency’s growth as well as its commitment to its prestigious international clientele. Laetitia Jallais, Vice President of Strategies and Innovation, leads the Paris office. She noted that the expansion into Europe was driven by client demand as Quebec and Canadian brands look to expand into France. On the other hand, French and European brands are eager to access the Canadian market’s unique opportunities. Bicom’s offices provide solutions for these demands. Location: Toronto, Ontario, Scarborough Year Founded: 2019 Notable Clients: Marthub Niche Focus: PPC, Social Media Management Harmedia Agency connects businesses with local influencers who can elevate their brands and deliver tangible results. The agency has completed over 2,000 campaigns and worked with over 30 companies in four countries. Harmedia meticulously matches you with influencers whose audience aligns perfectly with your target market, ensuring your message reaches the right people effectively. Its team collaborates closely with local influencers to craft compelling content that presents your brand in the best possible light. Harmedia maximizes your brand’s visibility by leveraging various platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, local blogs, and more. Customer feedback highlights the agency’s localized approach. From the outset, its team takes the time to understand your specific needs and connect you with influencers who share your mission. Clients appreciate how Harmedia integrates customer feedback into their campaigns. The agency optimizes strategies based on real-time data and feedback to ensure precision and effectiveness.1. inBeat Agency
2. Influence Hunter
3. Peersway
4. Dulcedo
5. Consultus Digital
6. Bicom
7. Harmedia Agency
How to Assess an Agency's Track Record?
To determine whether an influencer marketing agency is right for your brand, check its track record. Pay attention to the following:
Case Studies
Case studies provide detailed narratives about specific influencer marketing campaigns the agency has executed. These real stories from real past or current customers are social proof that shows if others have had positive experiences with the agency.
They usually describe the client's goals, the agency's strategy, the influencer selection process, and the content creation approach. Most importantly, they highlight the results, often with metrics like increased brand awareness, website traffic, or sales figures. Reading a case study from your industry can be especially helpful, showing the agency's experience with similar audiences and outcomes.
For example, Stargazer has a dedicated page that features easy-to-read case studies:
Just below are clickable case studies in engaging colors:
Let's take a look at Stargazer's work with Poshmark. From the get-go, it highlights the platform used and the campaign's target audience:
The case study also contains a brief company overview, the campaign goals, Stargazer's strategy, and the results. This information is presented clearly, making it easy to understand.
Look for case studies beyond the agency's website. Explore independent platforms so you can check the narrative without bias. You may also contact the client featured in the case study and ask them about their experience with the agency.
Client Testimonials
An agency that shares client testimonials amplifies its credibility with potential clients. Client testimonials are short yet impactful quotes from satisfied clients. They talk about their experience working with the agency and often highlight strategic expertise that leads to the campaign's success. Testimonials are great because they present real people vouching for the agency's expertise and experience.
That being said, you must be vigilant when checking client testimonials. It's easy enough to create fake quotes. Look for an agency that has a dedicated testimonial page, like this from House of Marketers.
What sets House of Marketers' testimonial page apart is the transparency it provides. Take a look at a testimony from Hello Fresh. It has the company logo, a quote from a key person, his name and photo, and, more importantly, his LinkedIn profile:
It speaks volumes about the agency's credibility when it can provide a "character reference" from a real person who can be easily contacted.
Another example is Grover's testimonial. This is even better because it also links a case study page for the campaign so you can check the agency's work in-depth:
Portfolio
To check if an agency is reputable and gets results, review its portfolio of past work. Completed work shows their expertise and experience better than any marketing promises. A portfolio showcases the agency's best work and helps you see the type of work they do and the clients they work with.
A portfolio is different from case studies because it is broader and categorized. It is grouped by industry, influencer type (nano, macro, micro), and content creativity (videos, photos, reels). When checking the agency's portfolio, look for patterns to see if they match your industry and goals. If the portfolio mainly features companies in an industry that is different than yours, it might show a lack of experience with your target audience.
A good example is Going Bold's social media and influencer marketing portfolio. The page highlights the industries the agency has worked with and includes vital stats.
It then displays links on some of its campaigns categorized efficiently:
Awards
Pay attention to any industry awards or recognition the agency has received. While not the only measure of success, awards are helpful when evaluating an agency's reputation. These awards can show their expertise and credibility in influencer marketing. Recognition means peers respect their work. It also indicates how they follow best practices.
Agencies typically display their awards and accolades prominently on their website, like this one from Moburst.
Or this from The Influencer Marketing Factory:
You can also explore further by checking award-giving bodies like The Webby Awards, The Shorty Awards, and the Influencer Marketing Awards.
Conclusion
Canada's diverse population and businesses amplify the many reputable influencer marketing agencies nationwide. Local brands can leverage working with Toronto or Montreal-based agencies as they're more fluent with the nuances and localized specifications of the cities. But even those far from Canada can work with the top-notch agencies cited above, thanks to remote offices and smart technologies that run seamless and successful influencer marketing campaigns. Check them out and use the tips above to look into their track records to see which agency in Toronto will work best with your brand.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary function of an influencer marketing agency?
An influencer marketing agency primarily connects brands and businesses with influencers to promote their products or services. Once a brand is matched with influencers, the agency plans, executes, and optimizes the campaign.
Can I work with an influencer agency that is not in my country?
Thanks to remote work, you can partner with an agency anywhere in the world. You can be from the UK and work with a Canada-based agency. Most influence marketing agencies today have satellite offices or provide remote services that can all be done online.
What are the top Toronto-based influencer marketing agencies?
There are a lot of agencies with headquarters or offices in Toronto, some of the the best are:
- Viral Nation
- InBeat Agency
- Influence Hunter
- Peersway
- Dulcedo
- Consultus Digital
- Bicom
- HarMedia
What factors can you check to see the track record of an agency?
You can look into many factors to verify the work and credibility of the agency, including case studies, client testimonials, portfolios, and industry recognition.