How to run a gaming influencer marketing RFP: brief agencies, score proposals, and choose without regret

A gaming influencer RFP is worth running when your budget clears roughly $50,000, the campaign will repeat, or you have never worked with this agency before. Its job is to give you three to five comparable proposals on an identical brief, so the decision rests on what each agency actually brings — not how well they present. That only works if you fix the scoring weights before you read a single response.

Most studios who have run a bad agency selection describe the same failure: they sent an open-ended brief, received polished decks, and chose the most confident presenter. The RFP process exists to prevent exactly that — but it has to be structured before you send anything, not scored after everything arrives.

This guide covers the mechanics: what to decide internally first, what sections belong in the document, how many agencies to involve, and how to score proposals without letting bias in. For gaming-specific factors that most generalist RFP templates miss, there is a dedicated section at the end.

When an RFP is worth running — and when it is overkill

For a one-off campaign under $20,000, a direct conversation and a trial brief are faster and usually sufficient. An RFP starts earning its overhead when:

• The budget is large enough that a 20% difference in agency efficiency is meaningful (typically $50K+)
• You expect the relationship to run across multiple campaigns or geos
• Internal stakeholders need a defensible decision record
• You have never worked with any of the agencies you are considering

If you have a strong existing agency relationship and are simply scoping a new campaign, skip the RFP and use a direct brief instead.

What to decide internally before writing a word

The most time-consuming part of a gaming influencer RFP happens before the document is sent. Studios that skip this stage produce vague briefs and then wonder why proposals are impossible to compare.

Before writing:

Settle the business goal. Not the campaign goal — the business outcome you are accountable for. Is this a launch, a reactivation, a geo expansion? The agencies will design to whatever goal you give them, so if you are not specific, neither will they be.

Fix the budget range. Withholding the budget so agencies compete on price produces proposals that are either over-scoped (and therefore unreachable) or under-scoped (and therefore useless as a plan). Give a realistic range. Agencies calibrate creator tier, platform mix, and campaign length to it.

Agree on success metrics internally. CPI, CPM, total installs, D7 retention, brand search lift — different stakeholders will optimize for different things. If your UA team, CMO, and product lead are not aligned on the primary KPI before the RFP goes out, the proposals will expose the disagreement at the worst moment.

List the non-negotiables. Usage rights requirements, approval window, exclusivity windows, age-rating compliance — these are the terms that most often get negotiated badly after signing because they were not in the RFP.

The five sections every gaming influencer RFP must include

A gaming influencer RFP that produces usable proposals covers these five sections in this order:

1. Background and past campaigns. One to two paragraphs on the studio, the game genre, the audience, and what has been tried before — including what worked and what did not. Agencies that see only a game name and a budget cannot differentiate their approach.

2. Campaign scope and requirements. The specific ask: platforms (YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram), creator tiers, volume range, geos, and content format (integration, dedicated, livestream, short-form). Include your age-rating and brand-safety rules here, since gaming has platform-specific compliance requirements that generic agency contracts often miss.

3. Budget range and fee structure. State whether you expect a flat project fee, a retainer, or a performance-linked structure. For a first engagement with an unknown agency, a flat-fee pilot scoped to one geo or one creator tier is a lower-risk starting point than a full-year retainer.

4. Timeline and milestones. Proposal deadline, expected campaign start date, and any hard constraints (store feature windows, game-update timing, blackout periods around competitor launches). Agencies schedule creator outreach weeks ahead — a brief that leaves the launch date open produces planning assumptions you will have to renegotiate.

5. Evaluation criteria and their weights. This is the section most studios omit, and it is the one that matters most. Publish the criteria and weights in the RFP so agencies can tailor responses accordingly, and so you are committed to the same framework for every proposal you read.

How to score proposals before they arrive

Set the scoring framework before the first response lands. The five criteria that work for gaming influencer RFPs, with reasonable default weights:

Score each criterion from 1 to 5, multiply by weight, sum. The weights above are a starting point — a studio running its first influencer campaign might raise the gaming experience weight; a studio with an established UA function might weigh measurement higher.

The commercial value weight is deliberately low. An agency that produces $20 CPMs with no creator vetting and no post-campaign analysis is not cheaper than one at $28 CPM with solid reporting, because the first purchase does not compound into the next. Zorka's work for Monopoly GO — a Tier-1 launch that held a sub-$25 blended CPM across YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram — is the case study that shows what good measurement looks like in practice.

Gaming-specific factors a generalist RFP misses

Standard RFP templates, written for brand marketing, omit the factors that separate a capable gaming influencer agency from a capable generalist one. Add these explicitly to your evaluation criteria:

Creator vetting for the genre. A network of 50,000 creators is irrelevant if none of them cover your game's genre. Ask agencies to show you five to ten specific creators they would shortlist for your campaign, with channel composition and estimated CPM. That answer reveals more about their actual network than a roster slide.

Platform literacy. Gaming campaigns run across YouTube (long-form integrations and dedicated reviews), Twitch (livestream activations), and TikTok (short-form UGC) — each with different briefing requirements, measurement methods, and content rights. A specialist gaming influencer marketing agency prices and plans for all three; a generalist often quotes YouTube and treats the others as add-ons. Ask each agency how they distribute budget across channels for a game like yours, and why.

Launch-window timing. Creator outreach in a competitive launch window takes three to five weeks of lead time for mid-tier creators, longer for top-tier. Ask every agency how they handle situations where a creator commits and then posts late, or a competitor launches in the same window. The answer to that question predicts what happens when things go wrong.

Usage rights and content approvals. Franchise brand-safety requirements, content approval windows of five to seven days, and paid usage rights baked into the creator fee are all standard in gaming but rarely in a generalist agency's default contract. Ask for a sample contract or term sheet, specifically the section on usage rights duration and territory. See also our guide on evaluating what a full agency proposal should contain.

For campaigns that cross YouTube and Twitch specifically, the esports and game launch campaign playbooks on our platform pages cover how those environments are priced differently.

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Frequently asked questions

What does an influencer marketing rfp include?

A gaming influencer RFP covers company background and past campaigns, campaign goal and KPIs, target audience and geos, platform mix (YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram), budget range, timeline, and weighted evaluation criteria. Including usage rights requirements is the section most studios forget — add it explicitly, because the negotiation is much harder after you have selected an agency.

How many agencies should you send an rfp to?

Three to five agencies is the standard. Fewer than three limits comparison; more than five overwhelms your review and signals to agencies that the process is not serious, which tends to lower the quality of responses. Run an RFI (request for information) first if you have more than five candidates — that screen costs little on either side and focuses the full RFP on agencies that are genuinely shortlisted.

How do you evaluate and score influencer agency proposals?

Set scoring weights before proposals arrive — strategic understanding, creator selection methodology, measurement approach, gaming-specific experience, and commercial value are the five main criteria. Score each on a 1–5 scale, multiply by weight, and sum for a total. Deciding weights after reading favours the most polished presenter, not the best agency.

What is the difference between an rfp and an influencer marketing brief?

An RFP goes to agencies to solicit competing proposals: how they would run your campaign, at what cost, and with what results. A creator brief comes later, after you have signed with one agency — it translates the agreed strategy into direction for the individual creators. Conflating the two produces briefs that are either too thin to compare or too operational for agencies to respond to.

How long does an influencer marketing rfp process take?

A well-run gaming influencer RFP takes four to six weeks from first draft to signed contract: one week of internal prep, one week for agencies to respond, one week to score and shortlist, then a final round with two agencies before the decision. Rushing the scoring stage — reading proposals the day they arrive and scheduling calls the next morning — is where most bad choices happen.

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If you are at the stage of shortlisting and need a gaming influencer marketing agency that works across YouTube, Twitch and TikTok for game launches and live-service titles, get in touch and we will walk you through what a proposal from us looks like before you decide whether to include us in your process.