How to read a clipping campaign brief before you waste a week on it

Most beginners lose time on campaigns, not on editing. The edit is four hours. The wrong campaign is four days.

Here's the pass I run on a brief before I commit anything.

Find the cap, not the rate.

A rate per thousand views tells you nothing on its own. The cap tells you when the pool stops paying. A generous rate against a small cap that's already half claimed is a dead pool. If the campaign doesn't publish a cap or a remaining balance, treat that as a no until it does.

Read the rejection rules before the creative rules.

Every brief has a section on what gets rejected. Wrong aspect ratio, missing disclosure, reused footage, watermark, wrong account age. Read that first. If you can't meet one of those lines, nothing else in the brief matters.

Check the eligibility line for your country.

A lot of briefs quietly restrict payouts by region, or expect an audience that's mostly US or UK. This is where most people outside those markets get stopped, and it is almost always written in the brief rather than shown on the campaign card.

Work out what actually reaches you.

Take the stated rate, subtract the platform's cut, subtract the payout fee for your method and country, and check the minimum threshold. A campaign that pays out at a threshold you'd take two months to reach is not the one to start with.

Look at what's already winning in that campaign.

If submissions are public, look at the approved ones. If every approved clip runs the same style of hook, the brief has an unwritten preference. Match it or pick another campaign.

Score two or three campaigns this way, pick one, then open your editor. Not before.

This is module 00 of what I'm building at First Payout. Nothing in it promises you money. It's the part beginners skip, and then wonder why nothing paid.