B2B Influencer rates

What should you pay an influencer? For short-form video? For long-form video? How should you structure the deals?

Here are some things I have learned from testing myself and chatting with several other brands investing in this motion.

For short form video, typically target a $30-60 CPM and 3%+ engagement ratio (views to likes + comments. 1%+ for comments).

With shorts, start with a one-off test or a series of 2-3 to validate the fit. KPIs around shorts are nearly always views/engagement based.

For long form video, the CPM can grow considerably, $100-$250 (after 30 days). 5-10% engagement ratio.

More expensive products can afford a slightly higher CPM.

Teams investing a lot in long form told me they do one-offs only for product reviews or tutorials and otherwise they focuses on once a month long-form that is topical/how-to’s.

Long-form on YouTube can use the aff link more easily in the video description, so a performance component is easier with long-form.

The focus here is to get videos that rank for search and are SEO optimized, so consider topics that would match search intent.

Good: "How to rank page 1 on Google in 2024"

Bad: "The secrets to SEO that nobody is telling you"

Generally speaking, we would look at the following influencer tiers:

Tier 3: 0-49k views on shorts 0-9k views on long form

Tier 2:  50k - 100k views on shorts 10 - 25k views on long form

Tier 1:  100k+ views on shorts 25k+ views on long form

Note that follower counts can be accumulated at any time historically and are not necessarily indicative of reach, so view counts is the better metric to look at.

Look at the last 10 videos (that have been up at least 30 days) and average their views for a more accurate expectation.

To ink a deal with a tier 1 influencer, you typically need to get a warm intro or go through a known agency/manager.

When possible, push back on deliverables vs. price to get the best deals. I.e. You get connected to an influencer and they want $20k for a long-form dedicated video on their Youtube.

Their videos sometimes spike and get 100k+ but their post-30 day recent average is just 18k. Instead of going back with a way lower price (like $4,500) that fits your CPMs but will definitely get rejected, try and bundle.

So you agree to the $20k, but would like 3 shorts pulled from the long form video to be used over the quarter, and would like the new video to be sent to their newsletter of 28,000 subs and an ad read on one podcast episode done over that quarter.

When you meet an influencer on price, you would be amazed how much flexibility you can get on deliverables.