It is of the utmost importance that both brands and influencers know how much to pay and to pay for collaborations on social media. The problem is that they are often easier said than done.
In fact, pricing and cost are one of the problems that most brands and influencers encounter when they enter the market. Influencers can take anywhere from a thousand dollars per post up to several millions, and the variation doesn’t make things any easier.
During my years in the industry, I’ve learned a few things when it comes to the factors that affect the price of social media marketing, and today I thought I’d share some tips. In addition, we will take a look at what different platforms cost.
So let’s get straight to the point and take a closer look at what influencer marketing should cost.
Contents
How does pricing in influencer marketing work?
As you probably suspect, there are a wide range of factors that affect how much an influencer costs per post.
Firstly, different platforms with different prices mean that I will soon go into more detail. In addition, different categories cost more than others, depending on supply and demand.
In addition, different types of content cost a great deal, and what kind of campaign and the extent of it has also affected the price. For example, a long-term collaboration that extends over a few weeks or months often costs less per post than an individual post costs.
In addition, there are traditionally two different ways for influencers to charge. Initially, brands paid influencers based solely on the number of followers they had and thus on their potential reach.
Lately, it has become increasingly common for brands to pay based on an influencer’s commitment. That’s why things like ROI and KPI have become more important, and micro-influencers are driving this trend forward.
Let me explain better.
A couple of years ago there was an “industry standard” in the US where brands paid about $ 1,000 per 100,000 followers with the opportunity to negotiate.
In connection with the development of the industry, pricing has also started to vary more as both influencers themselves and companies look at far more factors than the number of followers. For example, an influencer with a strong brand, high engagement, high national reach or previously good conversion data can expect to pay well more than the standard set above.
Pay for influencer marketing
As you can see above, it has become more and more complicated to pay for marketing on social media. In fact, today it is more of an art form than science to find the right price.
This means that you who represent a brand must be well prepared and aware of what you expect in terms of ROI, engagement, clicks, etc.
I also advise you to choose one of the following two pricing systems to facilitate yourself.
1. Pay based on the number of followers
If you are going to work with large influencers that have hundreds of thousands of followers, it is most common to still pay per follower. The advantage of this is that experienced influencers already know how much they are worth and what they charge for different kinds of posts. In other words, influencers set the price and your task is to try to negotiate.
If you have a product that is only available in one or a few markets then be very vigilant about what the CPM price will be if you count on the national reach the influencer has. You do not want to pay large sums for irrelevant followers, so please ask for demographic data from the influencer if it is about larger investments.
2. Pay based on commitment
Alternatively, you can pay based on commitment which is a bit trickier and often used for smaller influencers.
If you are going to pay an influencer based on their engagement, you need to consider several factors. For example, you need to look at how high their “engagement rate” is. It is not always the case that high commitment = good results, but those with high commitment clearly have often more active followers and a strong influence on these.
One tip is also to look a lot at the number of comments and not just likes, as comments are often an even better indication that followers are engaged. Just be sure to check that the comments that are available are genuine and not fake. However, take into account that different categories differ in average engagements.
Many interior decorators, for example, may have a fairly lower following but perform well, whereas fashion influencers with young followers often have high involvement but do not drive as much conversion in the end.
As with more traditional online marketing, you will also need to predict what you think CPM (cost per thousand impressions) should be. CPC or cost-per-click is another way of paying for collaborations, although most influencers prefer to put the price first because their work will be the same regardless of the result.
Content affects price
In addition to the fairly obvious factors I mentioned above, the level of content you wish to see has an impact on the price. This obviously depends mainly on how much the influencer in question needs to work for a post. An influencer is a whole production team in one and stands for creative idea, styling, photo or filming, editing, copy and then finally exposure.
In other words, it should cost to hire influencers, they do a job for you – and they are professionals at what they do and know what works with their followers target audience and de facto your target audience.
The biggest difference between traditional marketing and influencer marketing is influencer expertise and specific followers which, in the end, is what you pay for.
In other words, I recommend that you let influencers create their content based on your wishes and guidelines, but without rules and striving. They know what goes into your target group’s home, and that expertise is part of what you pay for.
Price difference for different platforms
As I said, the platform also plays a key part in pricing, so let’s take a look at it.
There is no doubt that Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer marketing. In addition, the platform has one of the more complicated pricing systems.
As I said, you as a brand can either pay based on the number of followers or level of engagement, but the most common is a combination of the two, where demographics are also taken into account.
According to recent figures, the international average for medium-sized influencers is $ 300 ($ 3000) per post, although that is a very general figure.
When looking at the above estimates in pricing, however, keep in mind that influencers who excel in higher national reach or strong branding can often land higher in price. Influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers take significantly more pay and for influencers with millions of followers there is no limit to how much a post can cost.
There are many examples of massive influencers (think the Kardashian clan, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande) who take several millions for a post, but we’ll talk more about that soon.
YouTube
Compared to Instagram, YouTube usually costs more per post. In fact, YouTube is one of the most expensive platforms because influencers are expected to put more effort into planning, recording and editing videos to promote your products.
Like Instagram, influencers can pay in two different ways on YouTube. Either based on the number of subscribers they have or based on the number of views the video receives. In many cases, you are expected to pay a combination of the two.
The average for a YouTube-sponsored video in 2019 is:
$ 200 per 1000 subscribers
Please note: these numbers are average and prices for YouTube posts vary widely.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are still one of the most popular channels for those who want to market with influencers.
If you want to order a blog post, you should expect to pay for a combination of influencers’ monthly visitors and page views as well as the length of the post.
In addition, it costs more if you expect an SEO-optimized keyword post.
Today, most serious bloggers have a media kit on their site where they clearly state how much a post costs.
Conclusion
By now, it should be obvious that the cost of influencer marketing is a complicated topic with no direct answers. Much of the complexity is based on the many factors that affect prices but also the different platforms.
Because of this, it is important that you have a plan for each campaign you want to start and that you have an open dialogue with your influencers so that you can agree on a price you are both happy with.
And don’t forget that the cost of influencers is an investment just like any other marketing, which in the end often produces incredibly good results both directly and in the long term.
