Brand-influencer relationships used to be as simple as a YouTuber standing next to a man dressed as a giant tongue. At the very first Vidcon, in 2010, the tongue-scraper company Orabrush sent a bumpy pink mascot to the convention center to strike up quasi-impromptu interactions with early influencers like iJustine.

When you fast-forward to the megawatt influencers of today, who regularly ink six-figure deals with giant global brands to promote products to their millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube, a stuffed tongue seems quaint. For both brands and influencers, the stakes and risks of partnering are now incredibly high. These relationships often sour, and when brands yank that firehose of cash away it’s web-wide news: YouTube controversies like Pewdiepie’s Hitler cosplay, Logan Paul’s suicide forest misadventure, and beauty guru Laura Lee’s racist comments (and meme-worthy botched apology) reflect badly on the brands that used to line these creators pockets.

These scandalous fallouts have sped up a pivot that was already underway. Endorsements are no longer the sole domain of the broadly popular megawatt star. Instead, companies want to work with the smaller, more niche internet personalities they’re calling “micro influencers”—generally speaking, people with followings of about 50,000. Limiting the scope of a potential scandal is only one of the benefits of working with a micro influencer. Analysts argue that micro influencers’ intimate, engaged communities are more likely to trust and buy what the influencer recommends. Others point to brands’ bottom lines: Influencers still struggling to make it big will work harder, and for smaller paychecks.

Brands have begun to realize that betting big on a single star doesn’t always pay off, according to Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential, an AI-powered service that connects influencers and brands. If you’re an iconic brand—like Ford— the advertising logic goes, you should work with the biggest star you can find, who will enhance your brand recognition. But millions of followers doesn’t necessarily net you millions of car sales, because no one trusts car assessments from, say, YouTube sketch-comedy duo Smosh.

“We came in with data and metrics saying [companies] should choose multiple, relevant people to create conversation,” Detert says. “ And at the same time...brands started asking themselves ‘Why would I pick one big name that’s going to screw me over a few months down the line? It’s now jumped to the point where literally every kind of brand, from automotive to entertainment, have embraced the idea of working with more influencers of smaller size.”

Influencers have been taxonomized: Brands will request macro-influencers (people with a few hundred thousand followers), micro influencers (somewhere between 2,000 and 50,000 followers) or nano influencers (2,000 followers or fewer). Micro influencers are a kind of engagement sweet-spot, because engagement is really a wonkish sort of word for emotional attachment and trust. Megastars have superfans, but they also have legions of casual viewers who don’t really care what shoes they’re wearing or what soda they’re drinking. Micro influencers have a small enough reach to seem (sorry) “authentic.” “It’s like buying something from your local hardware store,” says James DeJulio, president and cofounder of Tongal, which connects brands and creators. It’s less like a generic celebrity endorsement and more like a recommendation from a trusted friend. When they say they love something, you believe them—and buy it.

Still, these pairings require precision: it won’t work if you ask a new mom with a following of 2,000 other new moms to promote Juul. So an entire industry designed uncomplicate connecting the right brands with not just one, but many relevant influencers has sprung up. Vidcon hosts speed-dating style creator-and-brand meetups. Tongal works like a reverse kickstarter: A brand makes a request and some of their 200,000 creators come back with pitches. Influential uses IBM Watson’s API to comb through creators’ data and play matchmaker. “Influencers think we’re mind readers. We’ll approach them and they’ll say, ‘How did you know I love Adidas?’” Detert says. “And we say, ‘Because you mentioned it!’”