You’ve got a refined social media profile, plenty of engaged followers, and you know that you have something real to offer brands. All you need now is those much-coveted collabs.
The problem? With so many influencers out there — 127 million at last count — getting the attention of any brand, let alone the top brands, can seem like a pretty big ask.
But with influencer marketing bigger than ever (it’s expected to reach $32 billion in 2025), there really are plenty of collab opportunities out there, especially for micro-influencers. That category of influencer recently came in second on the list of influencers that brands prefer to work with, just behind macro-influencers.
While emerging influencers are typically happy to work with most collab opportunities that come their way, we think those should be viewed as a stepping stone towards bigger and better things (AKA, working with well-known household brands).
And contrary to popular belief, those big-ticket collabs are usually easier to snag than you might think. With major corporations such as Gap, Starbucks, Adidas, and Gillette proactively working with influencers, collabs are within the realm of possibility even if you’re a relatively early-stage influencer — you just might have to work slightly harder to make them yours than a mega-influencer would.
In this post, we’ll run you through everything you need to know about working with top brands, including the benefits, how to find brands to collaborate with, and a round-up of fifteen major brands that are working with influencers in 2025. Let’s dive in.
Why Influencers Should Focus On Collaborating With Top Brands
Getting any collaboration is worthy of celebration, especially if you’re just starting out.
But if you’re planning to be in the influencer game for the long haul, then eventually you’ll need to transition to collabs with more recognisable brands — and that moment should maybe come earlier than you might think.
Low-level collaborations are vital for gaining experience and putting together your portfolio, but the sooner you start working with leading brands, the better. The reason? Big-brand collabs offer much more than the immediate rewards. They offer compounding benefits that can help take your influencer career to the next level.
A Big Name On Your Profile Signals Credibility
Having even a single big-name collaboration on your profile can set you apart from the sizable influencer crowd, providing instant credibility to both your profile visitors and other brands.
It’s all about perception. An influencer with low-quality collaborations can quickly become lost in the influencer sea. Ones with big-name collabs are essentially telling the world, this major brand trusts me, and you should too.
They’re Higher Value
Top brands have big marketing budgets, increasing the chances that your collaboration will be more lucrative, be it through direct payments or higher-value branded goods.
And you don’t need us to tell you why that’s good for you. You’ll be an influencer because it’s your calling and you love it, but the bottom line (or just the quality of free stuff you get) counts for a lot too.
Even if a top brand doesn’t pay top dollar for the collab, having them on your profile can pay off in indirect ways. After all, it’s more likely that you’ll be approached for collaborations by other brands once you have a household name in your portfolio.
Your Audience Is More Likely To Be Receptive
Audiences can be — and are! — receptive to collaboration posts from obscure brands, but they’re more likely to engage with posts featuring brands that they know.
Aside from the benefits of familiarity, collabs with well-known brands also tend to be viewed with less scepticism, especially if they’re perfectly aligned with your niche. This is good for both engagement metrics and for building a closer relationship with your audience as a whole.
It Can Elevate Your Brand
Finally, partnering with a better-known brand early on can help take you from run-of-the-mill influencer to premium influencer in a single post. If you’re serious about establishing yourself as a full-time, successful influencer, then there’s arguably no faster way to get there than by getting a well-known brand on your profile.
How to Find Brands
We’ve covered why you should be working with top brands, but there’s an important caveat that we haven’t yet mentioned.
You should only work with brands that make sense for your profile.
In truth, this is something that you don’t have to be overly concerned with, since in practice, no top brand would work with an influencer that didn’t align with their brand identity anyway.
But this information can be useful to remember when trying to find brands to collaborate with. More than anything, it’ll save you time and energy.
Understand Your Niche
Why is having a solid understanding of your niche important before you begin daydreaming about which brands you’ll work with?
Because ultimately, brands expect an ROI when working with influencers — and that’s unlikely to happen if the audience is the wrong fit for the products/services they offer.
Happily, your niche — and the types of brands you should contact — is fairly easy to figure out. Here are some examples of popular niches and the types of brands that would make sense for them.
- Travel: Hotels, airlines, experiences.
- Beauty: Skincare, makeup, grooming.
- Entrepreneur: Productivity apps, business services.
- Technology: Smartphones, software, laptops.
- Food: Restaurants, beverages, food products.
- Sustainability: Eco-friendly products, renewable energy, sustainable travel.
- Lifestyle: Clothing, footwear, restaurants, beauty products.
Find Out Who’s Open to Influencer Collabs
Influencer marketing is huge, but not everyone’s in on the game. Some brands don’t work with influencers at all. To begin, figure out which brands are open to working with influencers.
The article you’re reading right now is a good starting point (check out below!), but you can also peep the brand partnerships of other influencers within your niche. Most brands work with multiple influencers, so don’t discount a brand just because they’re already working with someone else.
Develop the Relationship
Influencers who are already on a brand’s radar are more likely to get collaboration requests. So, how do you get your dream brand to notice you?
Answer: You charm them.
Commenting on their posts, sharing their stories, and making high-quality content about their products/services/events can put you on their radar. The latter point is especially recommended, since it demonstrates authenticity and gives you a chance to show that you can deliver content that makes an impact.
Contact Them Directly
Eager to work with a particular brand? Well, they might just be eager to work with you, too! Some brands solicit applications from influencers, removing the need to send a cold email or wait for them to notice your brilliant profile.
Look for one of the following pages on the brand’s website:
- Work With Us
- Collaborations
- Brand Ambassadors
- Sponsorships
- Influencer Program
With that said, most brands don’t actively solicit influencer applications. For those brands, a well-put-together cold email can get you noticed (with an emphasis on well-put-together).
Keep the following in mind if you take that route:
- Tailor your pitch to the brand.
- Demonstrate why you’d be a good fit.
- Suggest a few post types/campaigns.
- Keep it concise.
- Follow up if no reply is received after a week or two.
You won’t always land a collab, or even necessarily receive a reply, but if you can master the cold email, then you should find you can open up a few doors.
Work With Agencies
Working with an influencer marketing agency can be an excellent way to get the attention of brands you may be unable to reach on your own.
Agencies function as intermediaries, connecting influencers with relevant brands. You’ll need to go through a vetting process, but once you have, you should find that top brands are within reach.
How Influencers Make Themselves Attractive to Top Brands
Getting your name in front of big brands is one thing. Getting them to collaborate with you is another. With literally millions of influencers out there, standards are high for even the smallest of niches. As a growing influencer, it’s your job to make your profile as appealing as possible to the brands you wish to work with.
Here are some golden tips for putting yourself in contention for the best collabs.
Consistent Branding
Consistent branding demonstrates your professionalism and that you understand what resonates with social media users.
Brands — and users — don’t want to see mismatched colour palettes or captions that jump all over the place; they want to see visual cohesiveness and a clearly defined voice.
Create Authentic, Quality Content
Leading brands have high standards for their own work. Publishing authentic, quality content shows that you do too. In the end, brands want to work with influencers whom they can trust to publish content that engages their audience.
By continually posting creative, visually-appealing photos and videos, you’ll demonstrate that you have the technical ability and social media-savvy that all good campaigns need.
Showcase Metrics
It’s not your follower count that’ll help you land collaborations.
It’s how engaged your followers are that’ll do that.
It’s better to have 5,000 followers who like, comment, and share your content than to have 50,000 followers who skim past your posts.
Influencers who can demonstrate that they have a highly-engaged audience make themselves significantly more attractive to potential brands, and even more so if they can present those metrics in a visually-appealing media kit.
Media Kit
You can think of your media kit as your influence resume, one that quickly and conveniently showcases your value to potential brands. There are benefits to you, too — a media kit saves you time (no need to spend hours putting together every pitch), gives brands the hard-and-fast details about who you are, and shows that you’re serious, which can help attract higher value collabs.
Here’s what you should include in your media kit:
- About You section
- Your key metrics (followers, engagement rates, audience demographics)
- Examples of your best-performing posts (preferably related to previous collabs)
- Your services and pricing.
- Your contact information.
Once you have it, you’ll have a ready-made document that perfectly summarises who you are, what you’re all about, and how you can help brands. Include a link in your bio so brands can easily view it if they swing by your profile.
Be Professional
Brands are people too — well, the people who work for them are — and, as such, they’re not looking to make their jobs any more difficult than they need to be. Having a professional attitude, responding quickly to emails, and all-around being an awesome person to work with can go a long way towards building long-term partnerships.
15 Top Brands Eager for Influencer Collabs
You’ve built an engaged audience, have your media pack locked and loaded, and are ready to step up your influencer career by working with some of the biggest brands on the planet.
The question is, who do you contact? To get you started, we’ve put together a list of fifteen major brands working with influencers in 2025.
FabFitFun
FabFitFun, a subscription box service, didn’t just dip a toe into influencer marketing. They dove headfirst.
The brand works with 500 – 750 wellness and lifestyle influencers at any one time, who produce content relating to the brand’s beauty, home, fitness, and fashion products. Influencers can email FabFitFun directly at this address.
Adidas
Adidas, one of the world’s largest sportswear brands, works with influencers as part of its affiliate program. Athletic Influencers earn a commission through every purchase made through their unique link. You can apply through this link.
HelloFresh
If you’ve made a name for yourself in the healthy-eating niche, then HelloFresh, a meal-delivery subscription service, might just want to speak to you. They offer a range of influence programs that are suitable for many different types of content creators. Apply here.
Luluemon
Athleisurewear brand Lululemon’s affiliate creator program offers healthy living influencers the chance to create engagement content, showcase the brand’s products, and get paid. Influencers also get access to special events and promotions. Apply here.
Sephora
Makeup brand Sephora’s use of micro-influencer marketing played a big role in turning it into a multinational business with 2,700 stores across 35 countries. Applications to become a Sephora Squad member are currently closed, but they open up new positions each year.
ASOS
It’s no surprise that UK fashion powerhouse ASOS is in the influencer marketing game — their target demographic, 20 – 30 year olds, basically invented the influencer lifestyle. You’ll need to be invited to become an ASOS Insider — fashion influencers can use the #ASSEENONME hashtag to get their attention.
Gap
Gap’s recently launched affiliate program is currently only available in the United States, but there are plans to expand internationally, so keep your eye out.
Influencers will need to have at least 1,000 followers to apply. Once accepted, creators can earn commission through affiliate sales and receive product gifts across Gap’s suite of brands, including Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Athleta.
Starbucks
Love coffee? Starbucks’ global coffee creator role could be your dream job. This full-time, paid 12-month role will see two content creators travel to Costa Rica, Milan, and Tokyo, producing content that showcases the care that goes into each cup Starbucks sells.
Nike
Nike is eager to work with influencers, but you’ll need to wait for them to contact you — they don’t accept applications, instead opting to find influencers themselves. Nevertheless, influencers in the health and fitness niche can apply to become part of Nike’s affiliate program.
Canon
It should come as no surprise that Canon utilises influencer marketing. Social media, after all, is the perfect place to showcase what their cameras can do! Talented photographers can apply to join their influencer marketing community at this link.
Gillette
Gillette is a good example of how legacy brands use influencer marketing to reach new audiences. The 100-year-old company used influencers to reach Gen Z audiences through a series of campaigns. There’s no application process, but their influencer strategy is ongoing, so it can be worthwhile getting in touch.
Airbnb
Built your social media followers on the back of your awesome travel experiences? Airbnb has recently reintroduced its influencer affiliates program, allowing you to get paid while staying at great accommodations. While currently limited to France, it’s worth keeping an eye on the program in case it expands internationally.
Headspace
Headspace relies heavily on influencer marketing for market growth. They partner with mental health and wellness influencers to promote brand awareness and encourage downloads. You can apply on this page.
Levi’s
Denim brand Levi’s recruits influencers both for social media and blog content posting. There’s no way to apply for their official influencer roles — you’ll need to contact them directly or wait for them to contact you — but you can apply for their affiliate marketing program by clicking here.
GymShark
GymShark relies heavily on influencer marketing — and you can see why. Their innovative approach to marketing helped them become a billion-dollar company in a matter of years. They tend to scout their influencers themselves, but you can also contact them if you think you’ll be a good fit.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve seen, there’s no shortage of big, household brands eager for influencer collabs. With influencer marketing ever on the rise, now’s the perfect time to improve your profiles, work on those media kits, and put yourself in a strong position to get your slice of the ever-expanding mega-brand influencer pie.
