Who at a brand actually decides on hiring UGC creators?

It depends on the brand's size. At a small DTC brand, the founder usually picks creators. At a mid-size brand, it's the growth or performance marketer who runs paid social. At a big brand, it's a creative strategist, an influencer or partnerships manager, or an outside agency.

That's why good pitches still get ignored. The pitch is often fine — it just landed with someone who can't say yes.

A rough guide:

  • Tiny brand (under ~10 people): the founder or co-founder. They read their own inbox and often run the Instagram too.
  • Mid-size brand (~10–100 people): look for Head of Growth, Performance Marketing Manager, Paid Social Manager or Creative Strategist. These people need fresh ad creatives every week, and the person who needs new ads is the person who wants to hear from you.
  • Large brand: Influencer Marketing Manager, Creator Partnerships, Brand Partnerships or Social Lead. Some will hand you off to an agency, and that's fine.

Titles vary between companies, so treat this as a shortlist, not a rule.

How do you find the right person's name at a small vs large brand?

At a small brand, check the About page, the newsletter and the Instagram bio — the founder's name is almost always in one of them. At a bigger brand, LinkedIn is where you'll find it.

For small brands, try this order:

  1. The About or Our Story page. Founders love telling their origin story, and their name comes with it.
  2. The brand's email newsletter. Sign up and see who signs it. Plenty of founder newsletters say "just hit reply," and a reply lands straight in their inbox.
  3. Podcast interviews and press. Search "[brand] founder interview." The show notes often link the founder's LinkedIn or IG.

For mid-size and large brands, go to LinkedIn. Open the company page, click People, and search inside it for "growth," "creative," "paid social," "influencer" or "partnerships." Two or three names usually stand out. Pick whoever looks closest to the ads.

Before you choose, a good move is to check the brand's page in the Meta Ad Library (free, no login needed). Lots of creator-led ads, with new ones every few weeks, means someone there is actively buying UGC. If every ad is a polished studio shot, you've learned something too.

How do you find and verify a brand contact's email for free?

Work out the company's email pattern, use it to build the person's address, then check it with a search and a single test send. You don't need a paid scraping tool.

Here's how I'd do it:

  1. Find the pattern. Google "@brandname.com" in quotes. You'll turn up press releases, job posts and podcast notes with real staff addresses. If you see sarah@brandname.com or sarah.lee@brandname.com, you now know the format.
  2. Check the footer and legal pages. The privacy policy, press page and wholesale page often show the domain the team actually uses, which is sometimes different from the store's domain.
  3. Build the address from the pattern and the name you found on LinkedIn.
  4. Verify it. Search the exact address in quotes. If it shows up anywhere, you're good. If not, send your pitch to it. A bounce usually comes back within minutes, and that's your cue to try the next most likely pattern.

Send to one address at a time. Firing the same pitch at five guessed variants at once looks like spam — because it is. And stick to work addresses. A founder's personal Gmail you dug up in an old forum post is off-limits.

Is it ever worth pitching info@, support@ or the brand's DMs?

Sometimes. A generic inbox works fine at small brands, where one person reads everything, and when the brand lists a dedicated creator or partnerships address. At bigger brands it's usually a dead end, and support@ is almost always the wrong door.

When a generic inbox is fine:

  • The brand is clearly tiny. One founder, a few thousand followers, and the info@ inbox is the founder.
  • The site lists partnerships@, creators@ or collabs@. Use it. That inbox exists for you, and someone checks it.
  • The contact page says "for collaborations, email…" Do what it says.

When to skip it:

  • support@ or help@. These usually feed a ticket system run by customer service. Your pitch becomes ticket #48213 and gets politely closed.
  • info@ at a brand with 50+ people. It might get forwarded. It probably won't.

DMs follow the same logic. At a small brand where the founder runs the account, a short, specific DM can actually beat email. At a big brand, the social team gets hundreds of messages a day and can't hire you anyway. If you do DM, keep it to two lines plus a link to your work, then ask who handles creator content. For the message itself, see how to pitch brands as a UGC creator.

What if the brand's ads are run by an agency instead?

Then pitch the agency. Agencies that run paid social for several brands are often the steadiest buyers of UGC, because they need creators for every client at once.

How to tell an agency is involved:

  • LinkedIn shows people at an agency who list the brand as a client, or the brand's own team has no paid social roles at all.
  • The agency's website names the brand in a case study.

Once you know the agency, find their creative strategist or creator sourcing lead — the LinkedIn search above works here too. Also check their site for a creator application form. A lot of UGC and performance agencies keep a roster and hire straight from it, so filling in that form counts as a pitch.

Mention the brand when you reach out. "I saw you run [brand]'s Meta ads and I film exactly that kind of demo" shows you did your homework.

FAQ

Should I pitch more than one person at the same brand? Not at the same time. Start with your best guess. If you hear nothing after one follow-up, try the next person and mention that you'd reached out to their colleague. Here's how to follow up without being annoying.

Is LinkedIn InMail worth it instead of email? It's a fallback if you can't find an email. A connection request with a short note costs nothing and often works better.

What if I guess the email wrong and it doesn't bounce? Some company mail servers accept everything and never bounce. If you get silence and the address never appeared in any search, treat it as unconfirmed and try the LinkedIn route.

Is it okay to email someone who never publicly listed their address? A short, relevant pitch to a work address is normal business outreach. Keep it to one person, make it about their brand, and stop if they ask you to.

Before your next pitch, give yourself 15 minutes to figure out who actually buys the brand's ads. That one step will get more of your pitches answered than any rewrite will.