Costs per post may be declining in influencer marketing, but performance, creativity and professional expectations are increasing, adding complexity and nuance to contract negotiations and fee determinations. In this interview with Kolsquare, Romane Bourdon, Head of Influence at Dire Agency, shares how Dire navigates the cost-complexity of large-scale influence campaigns — from performance-based pricing, to creator contracts and ensuring everyone gets paid on time.
Today, several factors are decisive in determining influencer prices. The first is performance: the statistics generated in relation to the budget invested. At Dire, we mainly work on a CPM basis. We rationalise all expenditure based on whether we have invested the right CPM.
Historically, we estimated that a good CPM should be below €50 — depending on platforms and social, of course. Today, for an awareness campaign, we aim for below €30. That said, there are exceptions. When we work with image talents or celebrities, we also pay for their status and public persona, not just their pure influence.
The other variable, beyond the status and image of a talent, is creativity. Some creators offer very polished productions, especially on YouTube. But what we're seeing is that, increasingly, the film is being shared across all networks. High production quality and creativity in content has a bigger impact.
We are a Creative and Strategy agency, we also develop strategies that are purely performance-based. We cast creators who are capable of responding to the creative brief. Sometimes it's the creators themselves who want to go further and offer us ideas and inspiration to break out of the initial framework. It's often a real creative ping-pong between the creator and their agency, brainstorming around a concept.
The more creative a creator is, the more precise their editorial line is — and the more they expect to be challenged and given the freedom to propose polished, unique content.
We have always worked on a CPM basis, and we believe that it is also our role — as an agency — to educate both brands and creators about this mechanism. Obviously, it needs to be adapted to each case. If we're working with a lifestyle influencer who isn't particularly well known, we'll base our pricing on a CPM target that the target we set when we sold the strategy to the client.
I'm all for reallocating budgets and aligning them with performance. Just because a creator has a million followers doesn't mean they should necessarily be paid exorbitant amounts. Some creators with 70,000 followers perform much better than others with 200,000, so followers today have no value per se.
We have been working with annual contracts for a long time. Working on a global package and a bigger relationship between a brand and an influencer can allow us to negotiate widely — sometimes up to 20% — in exchange for a long-term commitment. After that, it depends on the amount invested, but it does allow you to amortise costs, lower the overall CPM and commit to the long term. It also helps strengthen the relationship with the creator.
And then there are ambassador formats, creators who embody the brand throughout the year. This type of collaboration allows us to integrate other levers: press presence, events, shoots, etc. We are moving away from the traditional paid-post model towards long-term brand building.
What's increasingly interesting is our 360° agency vision. Beyond negotiating a discount, we seek to negotiate rights for press coverage of their name through the prism of the brand. This includes media rights, attendance at events, client lunches, participation in photo shoots, etc. These are things that go beyond the traditional scope of influence, but which serve the concept of ambassador and brand embodiment. Because at the end of the day, influence is something like 10% of a marketing strategy. And if the marketing and communication strategy feeds off each other and the levers are activated together, it will have much more impact.
Since influence has been better regulated in France, it's less like the Wild West. But there is still work to be done. There will always be a need for education in this profession, and we very often come across prices that are completely over the top; often from profiles that suddenly go viral, aren't represented by an agency and have no idea about market prices.
It's our job as an agency to have the right reflexes and to act intelligently. Where there could be standardisation is more in terms of new creators who lack guidance and who would sometimes need a kind of “starter pack for good influencers”, with best practices, legal guidelines, a contractual basis... that would be useful. There is still a lot of uncertainty around declarations, status, taxation, etc. It's great that it's regulated, but it's also very complex for people who, at the outset, may not have been self-employed, may never have started a business and don't have that knowledge.
We are in a market that activates influence on a colossal scale, with an astronomical number of profiles for a single campaign. Look at this year's Cannes Film Festival: never before have so many influencers been mobilised and paid.
Managing so many profiles is a real administrative and financial juggling act. We have to track everything every day to make sure that we pay the bills on time, that we have the right contracts at the right time, and that our clients pay us enough to cover the expense we incur working with influencers.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.
Since October 2024, Kolsquare has become part of the Team.Blue group, one of the largest private tech companies in Europe, and a leading digital enabler for businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. Team.Blue brings together over 60 successful brands in web hosting, domains, e-commerce, online compliance, lead generation, application solutions, and social media.
Your monthly dose of exclusive insights, strategies and trends shaping the creator economy. For insiders, by insiders.
.webp)
.png)
%20(2).webp)
