As more influencers gravitate toward New York City, the Big Apple is fast becoming the new capital of these digital content creators. The city gives these online stars—many of whom have sucked the marrow out of Los Angeles and Atlanta—plenty of fresh material for their audiences. Among New York’s main draws are its hustle-and-bustle vibe and more distinct seasons than the West Coast, which makes for great street fashion exploration. Thus, influencers energized by the City that Never Sleeps have moved their cross-promotions and content houses there.
Top NYC Influencer Marketing Firms That Can Elevate Your Brand:
Top NYC Influencer Marketing Agencies
Working with an influencer marketing agency gives you an edge in finding the best talents in NYC. Their familiarity with the local influencer scene can help you find the best person to collaborate with, depending on your preferred audience size, content, and platform. More than influencer discovery, these companies have the expertise to create a strategy and oversee its execution. Besides managing your marketing campaign, they can track its performance and ensure you nurture a lasting relationship with current influencers and prospective ones for future projects.
We have listed 14 agencies to help you partner with the best influencers and optimize your relationship.
Founding year: 2013
What it does: Moburst acts as the bridge between brands and influencers, crafting an authentic voice and delivering a personalized brand marketing experience. The agency stands out as one of The Manifest’s most-reviewed advertising agencies based in the city of New York. Employing a unique selection method for influencers, based on audience data and past performance, the agency garners valuable insights into each influencer and their audience demographics. Thus, ensures not just influence, but influence over the right audience.
This process leads to several core benefits for their clients. The agency focuses on maintaining an authentic voice, believing that traditional ads cannot match the confidence, authenticity, and trust inspired by influencers. This approach consistently delivers high-performing creatives, offering a cost-effective solution with a lower cost per activation compared to other media sources. This leads to exceptional conversion rates, thanks to the authenticity of the influencer-created content.
Clients are granted access to Moburst’s influencer network, a robust collection of influencers from various categories. This network is continuously optimized to drive conversions effectively.
Some of its clients: Shopkick, Say, Calm, Discovery, Samsung
For Influencers: If you are looking for agencies to represent you click here.
Founding year: 2014
What it does: Obviously is a full-service influencer marketing agency that uses proprietary technology for talent identification and recruitment, content creation, campaign management, reporting and analysis, and custom campaigns. The company works with over 96,000 influencers who have worked with brands in over 80 countries. Obviously finds the brand partner that will match your target audience—from nano to mega influencers.
Its team develops a marketing plan based on your goals and navigates the entire process for you. Through this, the agency claims to save you 87% in time savings, including email exchanges with influencers. Its campaign management covers strategic ideation, influencer selection, shipping and fulfillment of your products, influencer communication, content creation, analysis, amplification, and optimization.
Upon signing up, you can access Obviously’s dashboard, which tracks influencer activity across platforms in real time. The system provides instant engagement analytics—including age, location, and gender—metrics (likes and comments), and audience sentiment to help you determine which strategies work with what demographic and their impact.
In March 2023, UK-based advertising group WPP acquired Obviously, which will keep its branding as it joins other marketing firms under its new owner’s wing.
Some of its clients: Amazon, Google, Ulta Beauty, Coca-Cola, Lyft, and Hasbro
For Influencers: If you are looking for agencies to represent you click here.
Founding year: 2015
What it does: Social Studies was set up when influencers had just begun making a mark in digital space. Founder Brandon Perlman started benchmarking the performance of niche social media accounts and later launched The Gramlist. This curated collection of micro-influencers gave brands a warmer alternative to heavier-hitting influencers and eventually evolved into a platform that allowed marketers to measure “influence” on their own.
The agency believes in helping businesses succeed by first conducting a holistic audit of their brand and their goals. Social Studies handles the end-to-end logistics of talent management, from discovery and curation to contracting, rights management, agreement signing, and onboarding. Moreover, its campaign managers provide always-on support at every stage of your project. Meanwhile, its analytics team uses a best-in-class tech stack to measure your campaign’s performance. The company manages and checks your influencers’ content against your KPIs to ensure assets align with your brand’s intellectual property standards.
Some of its clients: Uber, Bloomingdale’s, Hilton, Klarna, and Nutrafol
Founding year: 1991
What it does: Kaplow Communications enables you to form emotional connections with consumers through customized influencer criteria and engagement strategies. This process includes the stringent vetting of influencers—recommending personalities who matter to your target audience and can enhance your brand narrative. Its industry relationships cover individual creators, influencer networks, and talent managers.
To ensure that influencer marketing won’t be a siloed distribution channel, Kaplow works to operate as an extension of your marketing team. The agency develops campaigns and establishes connections that motivate influencers to stay committed to achieving their clients’ marketing goals. Kaplow does the back-end work for you from initial consultation to final delivery.
Founder Liz Kaplow is a former president of New York Women in Communication and a recipient of the organization’s coveted Matrix Award.
Some of its clients include: Skype, Target, eBay, Cosmetic Executive Women, Warners, and CVS Beauty Mark
Founding year: 2012
What it does: Goat serves as a vanguard in the NYC influencer marketing landscape, driving potent business results for brands via innovative influencer campaigns and data-driven social media strategies. The agency specializes in harnessing the power of influencers to fuel revenue growth. Its portfolio includes campaigns conducted across multiple markets, demonstrating its capacity to engage and influence diverse audiences.
Their unique selling proposition lies in their comprehensive approach to influencer marketing. Goat excels in vetting influencers, identifying individuals who can deliver meaningful engagement with the right audience. In addition to this, they seamlessly integrate influencer marketing with other digital channels to deliver a holistic digital marketing experience.
Beyond influencer marketing, Goat is adept at crafting creative social media strategies and launching paid social advertising campaigns through both brand and influencer-owned channels. The agency’s full-service offering extends to in-house video production, editing, and design, as well as community management and account growth.
Clients can tap into Goat’s multilingual, international reach and benefit from their capacity to run campaigns in various languages and countries. With Goat, brands can unlock the latest insights via their #antitrends newsletter, a fountainhead of fresh industry trends.
Some of its clients: Trip, wayfair, WorldRemit Audi, Olay, Thinkx
For Influencers: If you are looking for agencies to represent you click here.
Founding year: 2004
What it does: AMP3 is a boutique PR company specializing in fashion, beauty, culture, food, beverage, entertainment, and travel brands. Its influencer marketing services include influencer list creation, pitch development to attract the talents that match your brand, influencer outreach (including engagement with celebrity influencers’ managers and agents), ambassador campaign development, gifting through sampling and demos at key events, repurposing content, and campaign performance analytics.
The agency has received awards from O’Dwyer’s (Top 10 Fashion PR Agencies) and PR Couture (Communicator of the Year award for co-founder Alyson Roy, Agency of the Year award, and Influencer Campaign of the Year).
Some of its clients include: Fossil Group, Wrangler, TENCEL, KEF, QC Terme Spas & Resorts, Nolcha Shows, and Warner Bros
Founding year: 2011
In 2022, Socialfly acquired editorial and digital marketing firm Townhouse Digital, which focuses on financial services, travel, and hospitality brands.
Some of its clients include: HGTV, TRVL Channel, Univision, Hudson Yards, BASF, and Girl Scouts
Founding year: 2008
What it does: New Moon makes brands relevant by creating strategies that are in tune with the ever-changing culture of their markets. The agency aims to make your consumers’ digital and in-person experiences seamless through artful collaboration with influencers. Founder Jack Bedwani says that for campaigns to spur conversation, businesses must achieve “deeper levels” of engagement that touch the nuances and localization of entities that consumers relate with—from upstarts to resellers. He believes that brands become leaders—instead of followers—in their industry when they provide their markets with immersive experiences, which aren’t copies or recreations of past successful campaigns. Thus, interactions can take an experimental approach, which Gen Zers prefer compared to the millennials’ more curated peg.
Bedwani is an Experiential Guild of America founding board member and a YPO Liberty New York member.
Some of its clients include: PUMA, Porsche, Target, i.am+ BUTTONS, Life Coach, and TAG Heuer
Founding year: 2012
What it does: Amra & Elma is the namesake digital agency of sisters Amra and Elma Beganovich. The siblings left their former jobs—as economist and lawyer—to establish their brand, which now works with over 800,000 influencers from different tiers and niches, from fashion and beauty to gaming and real estate.
The agency boasts the capability to grow social media accounts organically—as many as an additional 10,000 followers per month—through content creation (photo and video production) and community management expertise. Amra & Elma also specializes in hosting cost-effective but productive influencer events. The company can take care of managing activity, from locating venues and developing guest lists to ensuring attendance and tracking media coverage success after the event. Amra & Elma can connect your brand to celebrity influencers, major media sources, event performers, and industry experts to optimize exposure.
Some of its clients include: Nestle, Wells Fargo, NET-A-PORTER, Netflix, Huawei, Johnson & Johnson, BULGARI, HTC
Founding year: 2007
What it does: Talent Resources is a 360-degree marketing agency that gives brands access to the top celebrities and influencers in New York and beyond. Michael Heller, a former lawyer to the stars, founded the company a year after successfully securing a deal with LG to sponsor Mariah Carey’s 2006 Grammy Awards party. It was a win-win event—the pop songbird used the smartphone giant’s first-ever camera phone at that time to send a personalized message to her guests. In return, media coverage for the party boosted LG’s sales. Since then, however, Heller’s strategy has evolved into unobtrusive campaigns involving celebrities with high engagement levels in your target audience or field. In 2022, Financial Times listed Talent Resources in its “America’s Fastest Growing Company List for 2023.”
To succeed in its partnership with you, the agency learns as much as it can about your brand’s DNA before setting goals and deliverables for a campaign. After establishing expectations and requirements, Talent Resources presents its strategy (including findings and opportunities), implements campaign elements, and reviews ROI and key learnings.
Some of its clients include: Dahi Organic, Amazon, Teami, Fabletics, and Dunkin’ Donuts
Founding year: 2016
What it does: Shade’s mission is to help brands stay relevant among diverse audiences through its network of over 1,000 black and brown creators, who include authors, chefs, speakers, athletes, musicians, and actors. These talents belong to diverse niches as well, including beauty, fashion, lifestyle, fitness, tech, travel, food, and entertainment. Shade has connected brands with social media celebrities, artists, and entrepreneurs of color such as Everette Taylor, Michell C. Clark, Necole Kane, Elise Neal, and John Henry.
The agency’s partners receive a media kit about the recommended influencer, a social media plan for the influencer to follow (content types required, best times to post, subjects or themes that get positive or high engagement from the target audience), and quality content creation (with photography and videography services).
Some of its clients include: McCafe, TIDAL, Bevel, Marriott, CVS Pharmacy, SoulCycle, Square, Sally Beauty
Founding year: 2017
What it does: Mayple has a network of over 600 marketing experts, including influencers, who are vetted based on “proven results, not sales pitches.” The company’s influencer marketing plans include campaign planning (including audience audit and strategy survey), influencer outreach, influencer onboarding (including influencer agreement and fee negotiation), and influencer management (approval and editing, gifting management, and monthly or post-campaign report). Once you sign up with Mayple, you get access to its dashboard to monitor your campaign and influencer’s performance.
To help you find the right influencer, the agency asks you to fill out a marketing brief about your business, in which you describe your ideal customer personas, business goals, past campaigns, and expectations about working with them. The agency then uses an AI-driven algorithm with up to 50 matching factors to search for the right influencer, a process that can take around four business days. Once Mayple finds a match, its marketing expert presents its campaign plan for your business.
Some of its clients include: Google, Audible, Twitter, Apple, American Express, Tiffany & Co., Macy’s, 3M, NHL
Founding year: 2005
What it does: Amsive Digital’s influencer and creator database consists of over 4,500 members with expertise in fitness, nutrition, wellness, and healthcare.
The company—formerly Path Interactive—uses a data-driven process to select an influencer who doesn’t only have an army of followers but also has in-depth knowledge of your niche and can align with your brand values. Amsive aims to facilitate campaigns that lead to creative storytelling, which it amplifies from your influencer’s accounts. It also takes care of real-time analysis and optimization after launching your campaign.
Some of its clients include: Hello, CityMD Urgent Care, Clover Health, Birchbox
Factors to Consider in Choosing an Influencer Marketing Agency
After sharing 14 options with you, go through the following points to ease your selection of the best influencer marketing agency:
- Type of influencer marketing services on offer
A full-service firm typically manages your campaign from ideation to content production. Meanwhile, some companies may only provide a creative strategy and help connect you with the right influencer.
Depending on the platforms you use, campaigns may be more labor-intensive on the planning and execution side, especially for video productions. Ask what services they will cover when you sign up with them.
Some positive indicators are their long and proven track record in serving companies in your niche (including your audience’s location and other demographics) and their ability to help you figure out your marketing goals.
- Influencer network size and member types
An agency with connections to diverse and authentic personalities is a big plus. Determine if their network involves influencers from all engagement tiers from nano to celebrity influencers.
Pick a company that values transparency to ensure you stay informed during every step of your campaign.
Before signing an agreement, you should get a good idea of the strategy the agency plans to pursue, including its choice of influencer relations, content, and social channels to be used.
Companies with automated or AI-driven analytics tools can help you accurately assess your campaign’s performance and make adjustments to maximize your ROI.
You can find more tips in our article “How to Choose the Right Influencer Marketing Agency.”
Agencies Build Bridges That Can Grow Your Brand Faster
Although influencers have flocked to New York City in droves, you’ll also find them—mostly Instagrammers—in California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and Georgia. To support your influencer search across America, read our article “55 Influencer Marketing Agencies to Work With in 2023.”
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for more NYC-based agencies that can combine influencer marketing with email, SEO, and other strategies, check the companies in our other guide titled “Top 24 NYC Digital Marketing Agencies to Help You Make It Anywhere.”