There are two kinds of brands in France today. Those that already understand padel is the fastest-growing sport in the country, and those that will find out in six months, wondering why their competitors got ahead.
With more than 2,200 courts, 1,300 clubs and a player community that has grown 200% in six years, padel is no longer a niche sport. It is a cultural, social and digital phenomenon. And where there is an engaged community, there is a huge marketing opportunity for brands that know how to activate it.
The problem? Most articles about padel influence just list Instagram accounts. Nobody explains concretely how to build a campaign, choose the right creator, negotiate a partnership or measure your return on investment.
That is exactly what this guide does. No marketing theory. Field-tested methods, concrete data and insider tips from real campaigns that generated hundreds of thousands of views.
Why padel is the ideal playing field for influencer marketing
A sport in explosive growth
The numbers speak for themselves. In 2020, France had around 800 padel courts. Today there are more than 2,200. Regular players number over 800,000, with a demographic profile any marketing director would dream of: higher-income, 25-45, urban, active on social media.
It isn’t just a sport. It is a lifestyle that gets filmed, shared and goes viral naturally. Every match is a potential piece of content: a spectacular point, a challenge between friends, a training session with a coach.
A highly engaged digital community
Unlike football or tennis, where audiences are saturated and activation costs prohibitive, padel is almost virgin territory for brands. Padel creators show engagement rates 3 to 5 times higher than creators in major sports. Why? Because the community is still human-sized. Followers comment, share, interact. It isn’t passive scrolling, it is real engagement.
Instagram and TikTok are the leading platforms, but YouTube is growing fast with vlog and tournament formats that regularly pass 100,000 views. A P500 tournament video recently reached more than 180,000 views on YouTube, with no ad budget.
Activation costs that are still affordable
This is padel’s real competitive advantage for brands: activation costs are still far lower than football, tennis or even running. Where a collaboration with a football creator with 500K followers costs €10,000 to €30,000 per piece of content, a full activation with a leading padel creator starts at €1,500 for an Instagram Reel + Stories, and a full package including YouTube can be around €5,000.
In other words, a brand can test padel as an influence channel without committing an outsized budget, and measure the results before scaling.
The different kinds of padel creators (and how to choose)
Not all padel creators are alike. Understanding the different profiles is essential to choose the one that matches your goals.
Professional players
The most credible creators in the ecosystem. Former ATP players who moved to padel, or players ranked in the French top 50: they combine sporting legitimacy and an engaged audience. Their content mixes performance, training and everyday moments. For a brand, working with a pro player means associating with a credibility money alone can’t buy.
A padel creator from the pro circuit with 200,000+ followers across networks can generate tens of thousands of views per piece of content, with engagement that puts standard influencer marketing benchmarks to shame.
Entertainment creators
They aren’t necessarily the best players, but they are the best storytellers. Humour, challenges, recurring formats, tournament behind-the-scenes: their strength is virality. An entertainment padel creator can average 200,000+ views per Instagram Reel and several million cumulative views within a few months.
For brands looking for reach and awareness, it is the ideal profile. The content is native, fun and shareable: exactly what algorithms reward.
Lifestyle ambassadors
This profile is still emerging in padel, but it is the one that will take off over the next two years. Creators who use padel as a lifestyle backdrop: fashion, nutrition, wellness, tech. For non-sports brands (automotive, hospitality, nutrition, apparel), it is the perfect bridge into the padel world without having to talk technique.
Micro vs macro: which profile for which goal?
The choice doesn’t depend on budget, it depends on your goal. A local racket brand will have more impact with three micro-creators than one macro. Conversely, a national brand launching a product needs reach, and a macro-creator with a 100K+ view YouTube video will do the job.
How to build an effective padel influence campaign
Let’s get concrete. Here is the step-by-step process to launch a campaign that delivers measurable results.
Set your goals
Before contacting a single creator, be clear about what you expect. The three main goals in padel influence are awareness (making your brand known to the padel community), conversion (driving traffic to your site, products or events) and content (getting authentic video assets you can reuse in paid media).
Each goal implies a different creator profile, a different format and different KPIs. Mixing all three in one campaign is the best way to hit none of them.
Find the right creators for your brand
Follower count is the worst selection criterion. What really matters: real engagement rate (likes, comments, shares relative to views, not followers), aligned values between the creator and your brand, the type of audience (age, location, interests) and existing exclusivities (a creator under contract with a competing equipment brand can’t promote yours).
That last point, exclusivities, is a trap many brands discover too late. In padel, equipment exclusivity contracts are common and binding. Checking exclusivities upfront is non-negotiable.
The formats that perform
Not all formats are equal. Here are the ones that deliver the best results in padel:
The integrated match is the top format. The product or brand appears naturally in playing content (clothing worn during a match, a drink between sets, equipment tested in real conditions). Authentic, non-intrusive, and video completion rates are excellent.
The tournament vlog offers several days of immersion in a creator’s world during a tournament. It is the ideal format for brands that want narrative depth and storytelling, with YouTube videos regularly passing 50,000 views.
The challenge is perfect for TikTok and Reels. Short, dynamic, shareable. Ideal for pure awareness and algorithmic reach.
The head-office visit is a premium format where the creator visits the brand’s offices, sees behind the scenes and meets the teams. Powerful for B2B storytelling and high-end brand content.
Negotiate and structure a partnership
A good padel influence partnership rests on transparency. Here is what to frame from the start: the number and type of pieces delivered (Reels, Stories, YouTube, TikTok), the publishing calendar, reuse rights (paid media, website, print), the exclusivity clause (duration, scope, sector) and payment terms.
Field tip: don’t chase a one-off. The best-performing padel influence campaigns are the ones that last: a 3 to 12-month partnership with a creator who genuinely becomes an ambassador for your brand.
Measuring the ROI of your padel influence campaigns
Influencer marketing isn’t vague branding. Done well, everything is measurable.
The KPIs to track
The essential KPIs of a padel influence campaign are reach (unique people reached), engagement (likes, comments, shares, saves, in absolute terms AND as a rate), traffic (clicks to your site via link in bio, swipe-up, YouTube description), conversions (purchases, sign-ups, downloads traceable via UTM or promo code) and dark assets (the number of pieces reusable in paid media and how they perform).
Benchmark: what results to expect?
In padel, benchmarks are above standard influencer marketing averages. An Instagram Reel with a mid-tier padel creator generates on average 30,000 to 80,000 views with a 4 to 7% engagement rate. A YouTube integration in a tournament vlog easily reaches 30,000 to 50,000 views with an average watch time of 8 minutes. And on viral formats (challenges, spectacular points), views can pass 100,000 in a few days.
A concrete example: a single piece of padel content reached more than 180,000 views on YouTube, with no media budget. The ROI of that kind of activation is far above a standard display campaign.
Mistakes to avoid in padel influencer marketing
After dozens of campaigns, here are the most frequent mistakes, and the most expensive.
Choosing on follower count alone
Mistake number one. A creator with 50,000 followers and 7% engagement will have more impact than one with 200,000 followers and 0.8%. In padel, the quality of the community matters far more than its size. Look at comments, shares and saves, not vanity metrics.
Ignoring equipment exclusivities
In padel, almost every serious creator has an exclusivity contract with an equipment brand (racket, apparel or both). If you are a competing brand, the creator simply can’t work with you, even if they want to. Checking exclusivities upfront saves you weeks of pointless negotiation. It is something no online guide mentions, but every specialist agency knows.
Not adapting the brief to the creator
An over-rigid brief kills authenticity. A padel creator’s strength is their signature: their humour, editing style, the way they talk to their community. Impose a word-for-word script and you get content that looks like an ad, and the padel community, loyal and authentic, will feel it immediately. The right process: a clear strategic brief (key messages, dos and don’ts) but full creative freedom on execution.
Underestimating long-form content
Many brands focus only on Instagram and TikTok. That is a mistake. YouTube is becoming the most powerful channel for padel influence. Tournament vlogs, “a day with” formats, equipment tests: this content generates high watch time, deep engagement and a lifespan far longer than a Reel that vanishes from the feed in 48 hours. If your budget allows, add YouTube to your mix.
Why use a specialist padel agency
You can run your padel influence campaigns in-house. Many brands try. And many lose time, money and opportunities along the way.
Direct access to creators
An agency specialising in padel and tennis has a network of qualified, vetted creators. No need for hit-and-miss Instagram DMs or three intermediaries. The agency knows each creator’s availability, rates, exclusivities and creative preferences. A creator with 200,000+ followers across networks, another with 20 million cumulative views on TikTok and Instagram: these profiles are directly accessible, with no middlemen.
Knowing the exclusivities and constraints
The padel ecosystem is small. Conflicts between brands are frequent. An agency immersed in this world every day knows exactly which creators are available for your sector, and which aren’t. It also knows how to negotiate exclusivity clauses to protect your investment without constraining the creator.
From strategy to execution
A well-executed padel influence campaign involves creator-brand matching, the creative brief, professional video production (shooting, editing), publishing management (timing, hashtags, descriptions, links), reporting with KPIs and recommendations, and optimisation for the next campaigns. A specialist agency handles all of it, from the first idea to the last KPI.
A padel video produced this way recently reached 180,000+ views on YouTube: one piece of content, zero media budget, a return that speaks for itself.
Want to launch your first padel influence campaign? Book a free call with Arthur to identify the best levers for your brand.
FAQ: padel influencer marketing
How much does a padel influence campaign cost?
Budgets vary with the creator’s profile and the formats chosen. Allow €500 to €1,500 for an activation with a micro-creator, €1,500 to €5,000 for a mid-tier creator (Reel + YouTube), and €5,000 to €15,000+ for a full package with a leading creator including exclusivity.
Who are the best padel creators in France?
France has several leading padel creators, with audiences from 20,000 to 200,000+ followers. The most sought-after profiles combine sporting credibility (ranked players) and the ability to create viral content. For a detailed list, see our guide to padel creators in France.
How do you contact a padel creator for a partnership?
Two options: contact them directly through their social channels (Instagram DM or the email in their bio), or go through their management agency. The second is recommended for serious collaborations: it guarantees a professional framework, transparent rates and end-to-end follow-up.
Does padel influencer marketing work for small brands?
Absolutely. It is actually one of padel’s big advantages over major sports. Activation costs are accessible, and padel micro-creators offer exceptional engagement for moderate budgets. A local brand can run an effective first campaign for under €2,000.
Padel influencer marketing is only just getting started in France. Brands that invest now will build a lasting competitive advantage: lower costs, more engaged communities and a pioneer’s credibility in a sport that keeps growing.
And if you want to know where to start, book a free call with Arthur. It’s concrete, it’s free, and we don’t bite.
