The Scout Prompting Guide

TLDR: Give Scout your website and it returns a ranked list of YouTubers who already take sponsorships

You tell Scout what you sell, it asks two or three questions, and a scored creator list lands in the table next to it. Filter it, pull contact emails, and send outreach without leaving the app.

Enjoy,
Evan (Babbl Labs)

0. How It Works

Most creator tools are databases: static lists with static tags. Scout works differently.

Sponsorships come from transcripts, not tags. We extract who actually paid whom from the video itself, so every match is backed by evidence.

Fit score is trust scoring, extended. It starts from how real and how sponsor-active a channel looks, then weights that against everything you asked for. Change the brand and the ranking changes.

It is a conversation, not a form. Scout reads your site, asks clarifying questions, and builds the filter set for you. Overrule any of it in plain English.

Two surfaces, one search. The chat is where you steer. The table is where creators land.

1. Getting Started

1. Sign in with Google SSO (the only sign-in method right now)
2. Answer the short onboarding: brand or agency, monthly budget, goal
3. Open with your URL: "Find creators for yourbrand.com"
4. Answer Scout's 2 to 3 questions, or tell it to recommend
5. First 25 creators land in about 2 minutes

2. How To Prompt Scout

Prompting well is worth more than any filter.

• Start with a URL, not a paragraph. Scout crawls the site and works out the category, the buyer and the competitors on its own
• Constraints go in your second message. A 400-word brief regularly returns zero channels. A short seed plus a follow-up returns a full page
• Skip exact numeric thresholds on the first pass. Tight engagement and subscriber bands up front are the top cause of empty results
• Spell names correctly. "Marques Brownlee" returns lookalikes, "Marquez Brownlee" returns nothing
• Ask for more. "Show me the top 50" or "find more, but under 200K subs"
• Changed direction? Start a new search. Pivoting mid-chat keeps the old filters attached

"Find creators for Zenni" then, as a second message: 1. Older people who like the outdoors 2. Athletic lifestyle content 3. Below 1M subs, cannot be too expensive 4. Avoid Glasses.com

3. Things You Can Do With It

Find creators for a brand

✅ "Find creators for [brand.com]"

✅ "US outdoor travel creators with high engagement"

What happens: Scout reads the site, asks 2 to 3 questions, then scores creators on relevance, audience and sponsorship activity.

Search by topic or sponsor history

✅ "Creators who talk about video editing and make tutorials"

✅ "Show me creators who have worked with AG1"

✅ "What brands has [creator] been sponsored by?"

What happens: topic and keyword search across the channel universe, or a sponsorship lookup in either direction, with the proof videos attached.

Find lookalikes

✅ "Show me creators similar to Marques Brownlee"

What happens: Scout profiles the channel and finds adjacent creators.

Filter and exclude

✅ "Only channels posting at least 4 videos a month"

✅ "Remove [creator] from the list"

Filters: subscribers, country, topic, video keyword, sponsored brand, videos per month, does-not-contain

Pull contact emails

After selecting your favorite creators, click the get email button at the top of the table. Once you have the emails, click "reach out" to send sequenced outreach.

4. Worked Example

URL to shortlist in about 2 minutes.

1. Open with a URL and a goal. "Find creators for zenni.com. First campaign, we have never sponsored anyone."
2. Answer the questions. Size, geography, must-haves.
3. Results land. 25 creators, each with a fit score and the evidence behind it.
4. Refine in the chat. "Under 1M subs, US and Canada, avoid Glasses.com." The table updates.
5. Widen. "Show me the top 50."
6. Enrich and reach out. Choose favorite ~10 creators by clicking the box or selecting their rows, click "get email" and then "reach out" at the top of the table to begin messaging with creators.

5. Reading Your Results

• Fit score is 0 to 100, bucketed Great, Moderate or Low. Click the caret for the per-criterion breakdown
• Brand match evidence links the actual videos behind a sponsorship claim
• Scout works 25 at a time so the first pass stays fast. Ask for more and it goes deeper
• Thin niches trigger a deeper crawl. Scout emails you when it finishes. That is a coverage answer, not a broken search
• Refresh the channel list when Scout says new channels finished processing

6. Tips and Cautions

• Use the brand's URL to start. Far more reliable than the name alone
• Glance at your active filters. Scout occasionally drops one while reasoning
• Negative constraints are not perfect. Exclude the specific creators you do not want
• Credits are spent per result delivered and per email lookup. Check your balance in Settings before running a lookup across 20 creators
• Desktop first. Mobile works, the first run is easier on a big screen

7. Also Available Inside Claude & ChatGPT

Everything above runs as a Claude connector: https://scout-mcp.babbl-labs.com/mcp

Setup steps and example prompts: Read the MCP guide →

8. Need Help?

Reach out to evan@babbl.dev with any questions or book a meeting

Please join our support Slack for the fastest response: Slack invite link

New to sponsoring YouTubers? Our full guide covers how to pick creators, what to pay, and how to structure a deal: Read the guide →