Influencer Academy

Your first campaign guide and the terms you'll meet along the way, from creator checks to usage rights and reporting.

CPM (Cost per mille)

What you pay per 1,000 views. Fee ÷ views × 1,000. The fastest sanity check on whether a creator's rate is fair. Compare a creator's CPM to your paid-social CPM: influencer content usually costs more per view but converts better because it carries trust.

CPE (Cost per engagement)

What you pay per like, comment or share. Fee ÷ total engagements. Useful for awareness campaigns where comments and saves matter more than raw reach. Watch out: engagement pods and giveaway posts inflate this metric badly.

Flat fee vs performance deal

Fixed payment vs pay-per-result. A flat fee pays for the content and the post, regardless of results. A performance deal (CPA, affiliate, revenue share) pays on sales or sign-ups. Most healthy deals are hybrid: a base fee that covers production plus a bonus on tracked conversions.

Usage rights

Permission to reuse a creator's content. Separate from the post itself. Always define: where (paid social, website, OOH), how long (30/60/90 days, perpetuity) and which markets. Whitelisting or Spark Ads run from the creator's own handle and need explicit permission plus ad-account access.

Exclusivity

A ban on working with competitors. Defined by category and window (e.g. 'no other skincare brand for 30 days from go-live'). Exclusivity has real cost for a creator, so expect a 15–40% fee uplift. Keep the category narrow and the window short.

Disclosure (#ad)

Legally required labelling of paid content. Paid partnerships must be obvious at a glance, the platform's paid-partnership label plus #ad in the first line. Rules vary (FTC in the US, ASA/CAP in the UK, AEPD/Ley de Publicidad in Spain) but the principle is identical: no hidden ads. Put disclosure requirements in the brief and the contract.

Engagement rate (ER)

Interactions relative to audience or reach. ER by followers = engagements ÷ followers. ER by reach = engagements ÷ reach, which is the honest one for TikTok and Reels where reach far exceeds follower count. Always ask which denominator a media kit used.

Reach vs impressions

Unique people vs total views. Reach counts distinct accounts; impressions counts every view, repeats included. Impressions divided by reach gives frequency, how often the average person saw the post.

Watch time / retention

How long people actually watch. The metric platforms optimise for. Look at the 3-second hook rate and average watch percentage. A video with lower views but 60% retention will usually outperform a wider-reaching one over the following weeks.

Saves & shares

The strongest intent signals. Saves mean 'I'll come back to this' and shares mean 'someone else needs this'. Both push distribution harder than likes and correlate best with conversions for product content.

EMV (Earned media value)

An estimated ad-spend equivalent. A modelled number, not real money: reach multiplied by an assumed media cost. Useful for internal comparison across campaigns if your formula is consistent, dangerous if reported to a client as revenue.

Brief

The single document a creator works from. A good brief has: the one message, mandatory talking points, the hook direction, do-nots, disclosure requirements, deliverables and dates, the tracked link or code, and who approves. Anything not written down will be interpreted, and usually wrong.

Deliverable

One agreed piece of content. Written as format × quantity × placement, e.g. '1 × 60s TikTok + 3 × IG Stories with link sticker + 1 × static grid post'. Raw files and usage rights are separate deliverables and should be priced as such.

Whitelisting / Spark Ads

Running paid ads from the creator's handle. You boost the creator's own post with your budget and targeting. Keeps the native feel and typically beats brand-handle ads. Requires an authorisation code (TikTok) or partnership permissions (Meta) and its own line in the contract.

UGC (User-generated content)

Content made for the brand, not posted by the creator. A UGC creator delivers footage you run on your own channels. You are buying production and rights, not audience, so price against production cost, not follower count.

Hook

The first 1–3 seconds. Where most of the performance is decided. Ask for two or three hook variants on the same body of content; it costs the creator little and gives you real testing surface.

Pinned comment

The creator's own comment, pinned to the top. The best free real estate in a collab: the link, the code, and the answer to the question everyone will ask. Include the exact copy in your brief.

Go-live date

When the content is published. Work backwards from it: brief, script approval, draft, revisions, final approval, live. Each review round needs a named owner and a deadline, or the date will slip.

Approval round

One cycle of feedback on a draft. Contracts should cap them, two rounds is standard. Consolidate feedback into a single list per round; drip-fed notes are the number one cause of missed go-live dates.

Tracked link / UTM

How you attribute results to a creator. A unique link (or QR, or discount code) per creator. Tag source, medium and the creator handle consistently. Without a per-creator link you can only guess who drove the outcome.

Discount / affiliate code

A per-creator code for attribution and incentive. Captures conversions that links miss (people who hear it and search later) but under-reports where the code is shared publicly. Best used alongside a tracked link, not instead of it.

Media kit

A creator's stats and rate summary. Treat it as a pitch, not data. Always ask for recent screenshots of native analytics, last 28 days reach, audience country and age split, and three recent organic posts alongside the branded ones.

Rate card

A creator's published pricing. Starting point, not final price. Real cost moves with usage rights, exclusivity, revision rounds, turnaround speed and how scripted the content is.

Paid vs organic vs earned

Three sources of distribution. Paid is boosted, organic is the creator's natural reach, earned is what others post about you unprompted. A campaign that only performs when boosted has not really landed.

CPA (Cost per acquisition)

What you pay per sale or sign-up. Total creator spend ÷ tracked conversions. The number your client actually cares about. Compare it against customer lifetime value, not against your paid-social CPA alone.

ROAS

Revenue divided by spend. 3x ROAS means every euro spent returned three. In influencer marketing ROAS is always under-reported because a chunk of the impact is unattributed search and direct traffic, look at blended ROAS across the whole account too.

Blended vs incremental

Total account results vs the lift the campaign caused. Blended looks at whole-business revenue over spend. Incremental asks what would have happened anyway. Geo holdouts and on/off tests are the cheap way to estimate the real lift.

Attribution window

How long after a click a sale still counts. 7-day click / 1-day view is a common default. Influencer purchases are slower than performance ads, so a too-short window makes creators look worse than they are. Agree the window before the campaign, never after.

View-through conversion

Someone saw the content, didn't click, bought later. Invisible in link tracking, visible in post-purchase surveys and branded search lift. If organic search for your brand spikes on go-live day, that's view-through working.

Branded search lift

Rise in people googling your brand. One of the most honest signals a campaign worked. Pull the 7 days before and after go-live in Search Console or Google Trends and compare.

Follower tiers

Nano, micro, mid, macro, mega. Roughly: nano <10k, micro 10–100k, mid 100–500k, macro 500k–1M, mega 1M+. Engagement and cost per result usually fall as size rises, so most performance budgets sit in nano and micro.

Audience overlap

The same people following several of your creators. Book five creators in one niche and a third of the reach may be the same accounts. Check follower overlap before signing a cluster, or you're paying twice for the same eyeballs.

Follower fraud / bought followers

Inflated audiences that never engage. Red flags: sudden follower spikes, comments that are all emoji, an audience country split that doesn't match the language of the content, and reach far below follower count.

Audience quality score

A vetting score for how real and relevant an audience is. Combines authenticity, country and age fit, and engagement consistency. Use it to filter a shortlist, then always eyeball the last ten posts yourself.

Sentiment analysis

Whether the comments are positive. Reach with hostile comments is worse than no reach. Read the top 20 comments on every branded post, that's the qualitative report clients remember.

Share of voice

Your slice of the category conversation. Your brand mentions divided by total category mentions in a period. Useful for always-on programmes where single-campaign ROAS undersells the effect.

Gifting / seeding

Sending product with no guaranteed post. Cheap volume play: send to many, some post. Never promise a client a fixed output from seeding, and always include a clear no-obligation note so it stays legal and low-friction.

Ambassador programme

A long-term retained relationship. Multi-month deals with monthly deliverables. Cheaper per post, far better performance, audiences believe the third post more than the first.

Kill fee

What you owe if you cancel. Typically 25–50% if you cancel after the brief is accepted and 100% once the content is delivered. Protects creators from wasted production and keeps your contract credible.

Net 30 / payment terms

When the invoice is actually paid. Net 30 means 30 days from invoice date. Creators are small businesses, long terms kill goodwill and your reply rate. Some markets now legally cap terms for creator contracts.

Morality clause

The exit if a creator blows up publicly. Lets the brand terminate and pull content if the creator's conduct causes reputational harm. Keep it mutual, creators increasingly ask for the same protection against the brand.

Content licensing term

How long you can keep using the asset. Distinct from usage rights channels. 6 or 12 months is standard; perpetuity should cost meaningfully more, because you're removing the creator's ability to resell that footage.

Model / talent release

Permission to use someone's likeness. Needed for anyone appearing on camera, including partners, kids and staff. Missing releases are the most common reason a great asset can't run in paid.

GDPR & creator data

Rules for storing creator personal data. Emails, addresses, bank details and analytics screenshots are personal data. Collect the minimum, state why you hold it, and delete when the campaign closes.

Storyboard

Scene-by-scene plan before filming. Sits between the brief and the script. Worth requesting for anything with a product demo, much cheaper to fix a storyboard than a shot video.

Script lock

The point at which the words stop changing. Once locked, further changes trigger a new revision round or a change fee. Without a lock, filming starts on a moving target.

B-roll

Supporting footage cut over the main take. Product close-ups, hands, texture, lifestyle shots. Ask for raw b-roll as a deliverable, it's the highest-leverage extra you can buy for paid ads.

Raw files

Unedited footage from the shoot. Lets you recut for other formats and channels. Price separately: it's the creator's whole shoot, not just the finished post.

Hero / hub / hygiene

A content mix framework. Hero is the big tentpole moment, hub is the regular series that builds an audience, hygiene is the always-on searchable answer content. Most creator programmes over-index on hero.

Repurposing

One shoot, many cuts. A 60s TikTok becomes a Reel, a YouTube Short, three static frames and a paid variant. Write repurposing into rights up front or you'll pay twice.

Creator brief deck vs one-pager

Long form for the client, short form for the creator. Creators read on their phone between shoots. Give them a one-pager: message, hook, do-nots, deliverables, dates, link. Keep the 30-slide deck for internal alignment.

Shortlist

The vetted set of creators you actually pitch. Typically 3–5x your target roster size, since reply and acceptance rates hover around 20–40%. Vet audience, brand safety and past collabs before it leaves your desk.

Outreach reply rate

Share of contacted creators who answer. Healthy cold outreach lands around 20–35%. Personalisation on the first line, a clear budget range and a specific ask are what move the number.

Talent manager / agent

The gatekeeper for larger creators. Usually takes 10–20%. Negotiations are faster and more contractual, but you lose the direct line to the creator, always ask who you'll be briefing.

Roster

Your working list of creators. More than a spreadsheet of handles: past rates, response times, which client they worked on, what they're good at. This is the asset that compounds across campaigns.

Campaign wrap report

The post-campaign deliverable for the client. Results against goal, per-creator performance, top content, learnings and the recommendation for next time. Send within a week or the momentum is gone.

Content calendar

What goes live, where and when. Sequencing matters: stagger go-lives to avoid audience overlap fatigue and to give each piece its own paid-boost window.

Boosting budget

Media money behind creator content. Rule of thumb: put at least as much into boosting the winners as you spent making the content. Test organically first, then scale the top 20%.

Brand safety

Checking a creator's history before you sign. Scroll back at least a year, check who else they've promoted, and search their handle plus 'controversy'. Ten minutes now saves a client crisis later.

Affiliate network

Platform that handles tracking and payouts. Useful at scale for commission-only relationships. Takes a cut and adds friction, so for a handful of creators direct codes and links are usually simpler.