I Tried to Find Gaming Influencer Using the 10 Influencer Marketing Platforms and Here is What I Found

Picture this scenario: You wish to find a gaming influencer in the U.S. and to save some time, you decide to use an influencer marketing platform. Good decision, right? Then, you read a few reviews about several different platforms, you choose one, and you think the problem is solved. But is it? When you start using the platform you realize that there are no good results for your search. You’ve wasted both your money and time.

This scenario isn’t unlikely to happen. There are tons of influencer marketing platforms and they all seem great on paper. The interface is attractive, it is simple to use, and you’ve seen positive testimonials on their web page. That doesn’t mean that their features can deliver their promises. Or that they will provide you with relevant search results.

Only after you dive deeper into the platform and get to test the discovery functions you can assess the platform’s functionality. To save you from having to do this test on your own, I will do it for you.

Let’s say that I am a brand owner and I want to find influencers in the United States who have played the game “Clash of Clans.” What I expect to find is at least a title, description, or mention of this game by an influencer. I might want to collaborate with them or get them to promote my product, I’ll leave the purpose to your imagination. In order for an influencer marketing platform to be of use to me, it needs to show relevant results. The question is: How many platforms will actually give me what I need?

I have tested ten of the most popular influencer marketing platforms to find an influencer who has a correlation with the game. These are the results.

1. Upfluence

On Upfluence’s website, you can see that they claim to be “the smartest influencer marketing platform.” I will now test that theory.

My first impression was “okay, this seems fine.” I got myself some options and I was positive that I might find what I need.

But when I took a second look and started opening my search results, I realized that my positive attitude was premature. The reach results weren’t relevant to what I was looking for.

I needed influencers who can be of value for my Clash of Clans influencer project but there were no such influencers in the actual search results. The first platform didn’t do the trick. Will others perform better? Let’s see.

2. Heepsy

This platform seems pretty straightforward and easy to use. But can it deliver the results I want?

I chose YouTube for the channel, my keyword was Clash of Clans of course, and I set the US for the location.

Okay… the profile descriptions for the first two suggestions written in Spanish do throw me off a little bit since the location I chose was the U.S. But, let’s see if the results are at least relevant.

While the second profile does feature a few Clash of Clans videos, the first one doesn’t. When I go to the influencer’s profile and type in “Clash of Clans” what I get is this:

Well, Clash of Clans isn’t the same as Clash of Royal so Heepsy you could have done a better job.

What I wish that Heepsy had is an option to order by relevance. I am only able to order the search results by views and subscribers which won’t really help with finding the most relevant influencer.

Since these initial results weren’t very promising, I tried something else. To limit the search some more, I set 5K to be the minimum number of subscribers. Here’s what came up.

Doesn’t look bad. They offered me 75 results that correspond with that search. I would have expected more considering their large database and the popularity of games in the YouTube community, but let’s leave it at that.

The top three profiles looked fine and once I checked their channel they all feature Clash of Clans. This search has been successful.

Even though raising the bar for the number of subscribers did get me better results, I must say that the first search wasn’t what I expected. It would be much better if I could get relevant results without this change.

To end the review on a positive note, I will say that the filters can help you narrow down the search and get satisfying results.

3. SocialBook

It is time to test SocialBook. Can this platform rise to its good reputation?

After entering the location and the keyword, this is what I got:

Now this is what I’m talking about. Just look at that number: over 487 influencers. That’s what I call a choice.

First of all, it truly helps that I can sort the results by relevance. As you can tell the influencers in the top search results have dedicated channels to Clash of Clans. When you want to find an influencer related to a specific game, this is what you expect to find.

The channels’ metrics are displayed on the right so you can immediately take a glance at the influencer’s success rate. If you want to refine the search you can do that as well. However, I won’t go any further as my goal is achieved.

All in all, SocialBook gets an A for the effort!

4. Hypeauditor

“Industry standard analytical platform for transparent & fraud-free influencer marketing” is the Hypeauditor’s description for their work. It is time to find out how useful this AI-powered platform is.

The result of my search is the following:

You did well Hyperauditor. The top choices were all relevant to my search. This is what I expected to see and I got it. The platform’s AI surely is doing its part.

The only remark I could make is the number of search results. I would have expected more than 55 influencers. But at least the results are usable.

5. Influence.co

If you do some research about influencer marketing platforms, Influence.co will come up. They claim to collaborate with 100K influencers, 40K businesses, and to have 5B reach. Sounds perfect.

Unfortunately, this platform is an example of how you can get disappointed by a platform. Why? Check this out:

So, I need to find an influencer related to Clash of Clans. How can I do that if there is no option for searching by a keyword?

The search feature only allows you to search by category and location. Choosing gaming or game as a category is too wide a notion for what I need. Therefore, I have no other option but to head to the next influencer marketing platform. Influence.co can’t give me what I want.

6. Socialbaker

Our next candidate is Socialbaker. The platform has been on the market for a while now and it has its base of loyal customers. Can I accept good things from them?

The first thing I noticed (and didn’t like) is that I’m not able to search by country. The only possibility you have is to search by a specific place. I randomly picked California, USA and here is the result:

I’m confused. I have to be specific with the location since I can’t choose the USA but then the platform tells me that I’m too specific. Not cool at all.

Just the fact that I have to pick a specific place is disappointing. Does this mean that if you are interested in an influencer from a certain country you have to search state by state? This would take a lot (and I mean A LOT) of time. Influencer marketing platforms should save you time and not waste it.

7. Hypr

“Automate and simplify your campaigns,” says Hypr so let’s see if this platform can help me do that.

I started the search as always — with typing in the keyword (clash of clans) and the country (USA). Do you know what I got? Nothing. There were no search results.

But hey, I don’t want to cross off Hypr that fast. I’ll give it another try. I will remove the location and only leave “Clash of Clans” as a search filter. Even without the country, it returns 0 results.

Hypr hasn’t been kind to me. I have to admit that this was a surprise. Is it possible that their base doesn’t have any influencer (in the world) correlated with Clash of Clans? Apparently, it is.

Their search feature does include many options for refining the search but in this case, there is no search to refine. The platform didn’t meet my expectations.

8. Scrunch

Another well-known platform and another try. Will I have more luck with Scrunch? Let’s take a look.

The search bar allows me to enter the keyword and I did. In the filter section on the right, I selected North America for location and YouTube for the channel. The result was…

….not good at all. Or, to be more precise, there are no results.

Because I’m not a quitter, I decided to play around with filters. Just to see if I can get something out of this platform.

Adding South America (in addition to North America) for the location didn’t help. Scrunch remained to display “0 found.”

I gave it another try and ticked Instagram along with Facebook for the channel and I finally got something. Third time’s a charm.

However, when I looked into the influencers’ profiles, none of them seem to be gaming influencers (to say the least). As you can tell from their bio:

The third time isn’t a charm for me and this platform after all.

9. SocialBakers

I have heard some good things about SocialBakers so I wanted to see if they are true. The design is simple and classy and it seems very straightforward. Isn’t a bad start.

But the obstacle I encountered right away is the “keyword issue.” There is no room for my Clash of Clans keyword.

SocialBakers allows you to choose a location and the category/interest. This is all I get to choose. If my search was more “open to suggestions” this might work. But in this case, it doesn’t.

10. Mavrck

This list just couldn’t pass by without Mavrck.

Unfortunately, I had some trouble with logging in the platform (Mavrck what are you doing to me?) so I’ll show you my past search result. I did the search for a brand who was interested in finding a gaming influencer that has some relation to DreamWorks Universe of Legends. The search was the same as this one, only the game was different.

What Mavrck showed me is this:

I’ve got some search results, which I was happy about. What I wasn’t happy about is that none of them had any mentions of DreamWorks Universe of Legends. To prove this claim, here are a few examples:

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Nothing to do with my intention: finding a gaming influencer whose work features DreamWorks Universe of Legends game. Mavrck, you could’ve done better.

Final Thoughts

This test of the capabilities of influencer marketing platforms isn’t just for the purpose of finding gaming influencers. What we can learn from this is which platforms provide relevant search results and which don’t. Influencer marketing platforms always boast about the number of influencers they collaborate with but you can see that this number won’t mean anything if the search functionality isn’t good.

My test ended with a score 3/10. Keep in mind that these are some of the top platforms and only three of them provided me with relevant search results. What can you expect from the rest then? I hope this experience can help you make smart decisions if you decide to use an influencer marketing platform. Remember that you shouldn’t trust in the brand’s words. Trust only in the results.