45+ Mind blowing email statistics you should know

Email marketing continues to be one of the most powerful tools for growing your business. (Need proof? Check out stat #1 below.)

Although email marketing has been around for decades, it’s everchanging.

New email marketing tools — like AI in email— pop up all of the time. These new tools are helping us do our jobs better and more efficiently, and in turn impacting some of statistics in 

I put together this comprehensive list of email marketing statistics that will help you see the importance of communicating with your audience using email.

Table of Contents for email marketing stats

Subscribers
Email open
Email clicks
Mobile usage
Return on investment
Frequency
Content
AI in email
Subject line
Personalization
Automation
What marketers say
What small business owners say

Subscriber email marketing statistics

• On average, consumers in America spend 5+ hours checking email on a typical weekday. – Adobe

• 99% of email subscribers check their email every day. - Optinmonster

• 58% of people check their email first thing in the morning - Optinmonster

• 51.4% of emails are opened on an Apple iPhone. - Litmus

• 49% of consumers state they would like to receive weekly promotional emails from their favorite brands. – Statista

• 61% of email subscribers would like to receive promotional emails at least once per week. – MarketingSherpa

• 61% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through email. – Statista

• 4.6 billion – estimated number of daily email users by 2025. – Statista

• 51% of online shoppers prefer email communications more than any other channel to receive promotions - eMarketer

Email marketing open statistics

• 31.3% - 35.7%  is the average open rate of an email - WPShout

• 42% of subscribers open based on the email sender name - Mirabel’s Marketing Manager

• Welcome emails have an open rate 2.5x times higher than other emails. – Oberlo

Email click statistics

• 77% of small businesses average email click-through rates between 1% and 10%. – AWeber

• 61% of small businesses with effective or very effective email copy have click-through rates of 6% or higher. – AWeber

• The average open rate for abandoned cart emails is 39.1%. – Hotjar

• You can increase your click-through rates by 300% when you add a video to your emails. – Martech Advisor

Mobile device statistics

• 46% of emails are opened on mobile devices. – Litmus 

• 40% increase in clicks when emails are optimized for mobile - Cognism

Email marketing ROI statistics

• Companies average a return on investment of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing. – Litmus

• Email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Twitter and Facebook combined. – McKinsey

Send frequency statistics

• 54% of small businesses send emails at least once per week. - AWeber

• 347 billion emails were sent and received each day. - Statista

Email content statistics

• 64% of small businesses say their email copy is effective or very effective. - AWeber

• 94% of small businesses write their own marketing emails instead of outsourcing their copywriting. - AWeber

• On average, emails contain 434.48 words. - AWeber

• The average email takes 3.3 minutes to read. - AWeber

• 50% of emails contain less than 300 words. - AWeber

AI in email statistics

• 51% of business believed that using AI in email was more effective than traditional emails - Statista

• 41% of businesses say that AI leads to higher revenue generation from marketing emails – Litmus

• 35% of marketing professionals stated using AI in some capacity in their email campaigns - Ascend2

Email subject line statistics

• Email subject lines contain 43.85 characters on average. - AWeber

• Only 6.9% of email subject lines contain emojis. - AWeber

• 60% of email subject lines use sentence-case capitalization, 34% use title-case capitalization, and only 6% use all lowercase capitalization. - AWeber

• 31% of email senders use personalization in their subject lines - Gartner

• 47% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone. - OptinMonster

Email marketing personalization statistics

• 82% of email opened more often when using personalization compared to non-personalized emails - G2

• 86% of consumers stated they would share their email address in exchange for personalized experiences and exclusive incentives - Airship

Email automation statistics

• 64% of businesses use email automation to improve their marketing processes. – Email Monday

• 31% of email orders is generated through an automated email - Exploding Topics

What marketers say about email

• 31% of marketers say email newsletters are the best way to nurture B2B leads. – Content Marketing Institute

• 64% of B2B marketers use a dedicated email marketing platform. – Content Marketing Institute

• 40% of B2B marketers claim that email newsletters are the most important tactic in their content marketing strategy. – Content Marketing Institute

What small business owners say about email marketing

• 79% of small businesses say email marketing is important to their business strategy. - AWeber

• 60% of small businesses say their email marketing strategy is effective or very effective. - AWeber

• 43% of small businesses have 500 or less email subscribers. - AWeber

• 42% of small businesses with over 500 subscribers have effective or very effective email marketing strategies. - AWeber

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How to create a buyer persona in 5 simple steps

Do you know who your customers are?

More importantly, do you know what they want or need from you?

If you don’t, writing engaging email content for your audience will be a challenge. After all, it’s difficult to write content for someone you don’t know or understand.

That’s where buyer personas come in. 

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a fictional person who represents your ideal customer or a portion of your audience. Their interests, challenges, and problems mirror those of your target audience.

With a persona, you gain a deeper understanding of what motivates your audience. This insight allows you to create more engaging content that addresses their problems and aligns with their interests, ultimately creating stronger connections and driving better results.

Here's an example of what a buyer persona looks like:

Why should you create a buyer persona

I know we all want to think our products or services are great for anyone. But the reality is you have an ideal customer (your target audience) that sees more value in what you have to offer.

Let's take IKEA as an example. Their buyer persona includes individuals or families looking to furnish their homes stylishly yet affordably. They are not targeting families who live in 5,000 square foot homes and make half a million dollars a year.

So if IKEA didn't define a buyer persona, their communications and marketing efforts might be trying to target everyone. Instead they know they're talking to a budget-conscience home owner, so you'll see ads with the headline like "It's that affordable".

Now that you understand what a buyer persona is and why it's important, you're now ready to create your own.

How to create your buyer persona

Follow these 5 simple steps to build your very own buyer persona.

Step 1: Research your target audience

The first step is to do a little research. Researching your audience will help you create a realistic persona, and possibly find interesting details about your customers you didn’t know before.

To get started, look at your current customer base. Who are your best customers and repeat purchasers? Are there any similarities between them?

By finding commonalities among your best customers, you can create a persona that’ll help you attract more great customers.

Gather customer information

To gather information, try setting up a phone call or in-person interview with a customer who you love doing business with. This will allow you to ask follow-up questions to get more detailed information.

You can also research customers you’ve had a bad experience with to learn which kind of people aren’t the right fit for your product or service.

To quickly gather information from multiple people, you could create and send a survey email to your current subscribers.

The survey could ask questions like:

What questions do you have about [Insert your industry]?

What kind of content would you like to receive from me?

What challenges do you have?

Your target audience may evolve over time, so consider conducting new research to refresh your buyer persona with updated information every two to three years.

Step 2: Narrow down the most common details

Once you’ve completed your research, narrow down your results by finding the most common answers you received from customers and subscribers.

Then, weed through your research to determine the most important details that’ll affect how you communicate with your audience.

For example, if a majority of people share the same challenge, this will be an important detail to include in your persona.

Here is some of the information you should determine in this step:

1 - Demographics - age, occupation, etc.

2 - Behaviors - skill level, interest in your product offering, how they use your product or service, what they read and watch, etc.

3 - Geographic - do you find most of your customer reside in a similar geographic area

4 - Challenges - here’s how to find your customer’s pain points

5 - Interests - what are their interests, hobbies

6 - Email preferences - how often they want to receive emails, when they open their emails, etc.

Step 3: Create separate personas

Now that you’ve narrowed down the most common details about your customers, you should organize those details into separate personas.

To do this, identify people in your audience with the same challenges and goals and group them into their own category. These different categories will represent different personas.

For example, if you’re a fitness instructor, you may have clients who want to increase muscle and gain weight and others who want to lose weight. Since they have very different goals, you should create two separate personas for these clients.

If you find that you need to gather more information about a certain persona, go back and do more research to find the missing information.

Step 4: Give your personas names and a story

The best way to write for and think about your buyer persona is to give them a name and a story!

Assigning a name to your persona will remind you that you’re speaking to an actual person. And creating a story will help you understand what their pain points and challenges are. 

How to write a buyer persona?

When writing your buyer persona you want to be able to answer the following questions:

1 - What are their goals?

2 - What are their challenges?

3 - What motivates them?

4 - What are their personality traits?

Keep in mind the more real you make your persona the better you’ll be able to tailor your marketing efforts. This will also help you write more personalized content.

You can even take it one step further and find an image or photo to represent your buyer persona! Check out this example below:

Step 5: Create your marketing strategy

Now that you have a buyer persona (or personas!) with a name, face and details, you can start creating your marketing strategy.

Thinking of your customer persona, where should you spend your advertising dollars? If you’re not sure, do some research. Where did your customers come from that fit your ideal customer persona?

Writing marketing messages

When it comes to writing your emails and content, keep your different persona in mind. Use personalization in your emails to create targeted messages for each persona. Your subscribers will engage with your emails more, because you can create more personal, relevant content for them. (And solve their problems!)

Not sure how to write effective emails for your new buyer persona? Download our free “What to Write in Your Emails” guide and get more than 45 fill-in-the-blank email copy templates and an email writing course.

Buyer persona examples

Need some inspiration, check out these different buyer personas.

Template from Venngage

Template from Xtensio

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2 nonprofit social marketers share how they build & measure their social media strategies

As someone who’s worked in social media for over a decade, I wholeheartedly believe it’s always possible to measure the value of social and the tangible ways it impacts your larger strategy. But that doesn’t mean there’s a perfect way to calculate it—or that it’s easy.

With different business models, goals and highly scrutinized budgets, nonprofit social teams in particular seem to be under more pressure to champion their work. I interviewed Ryane Ridenour, Director of Social Media at Everytown for Gun Safety, and Meghan Nguyen, Digital Associate at the Innocence Project, to find out if that’s true, and understand how their social strategies play a pivotal role in achieving their nonprofit organizations’ missions.

Why a strong social media strategy is critical for nonprofits

Rachael Goulet (Sprout Social): Social media is where audiences spend their time, and is a primary channel for discoverability—that’s true for nonprofit, B2B and B2C brands alike. How does social serve your mission?

Meghan Nguyen (The Innocence Project): We’ve activated more than 4 million people on social. We’ve prompted them to make donations, visit our website, call legislators, sign petitions and demand justice.

For example, back in 2022, we were trying to get a woman named Melissa Lucio off of death row in Texas. She was clearly innocent. We activated our followers to call politicians to urge them to take her off of death row. Two days before her execution date, they offered an indefinite stay of execution. We couldn’t have done it without our followers and influencers. We have seen how impactful social media is for fostering live-saving connections. It’s a tool more nonprofits should use to activate their mission.

Rachael Goulet: That’s an incredible example. Why social? What does social media offer that traditional channels can’t?

Ryane Ridenour (Everytown for Gun Safety): On social, we have a mouthpiece that speaks directly to the public. We rapidly respond to gun violence, and make sure folks know daily gun violence is a problem. Not just the mass shootings that make headlines.

We try to educate folks on what’s happening with gun safety—both locally and nationally—and provide a community for people advocating for the cause. We want to make our work accessible and keep it top of mind even when daily gun violence isn’t making the news. Not everyone has the time or energy to give. Even if we encourage someone to send a message to their lawmaker, maybe next time they’ll do something bigger.

The most important metrics for measuring nonprofit social media ROI

Rachael Goulet: There’s still a widespread belief that brands don’t have a way to prove the success of social. But they can. It just requires figuring out which goals matter most to you and your organization. Which metrics do you use to measure ROI?

Meghan Nguyen: A lot of our goals at the Innocence Project have to do with growth. We want to grow our community of donors and advocates by at least 5% in 2024. But what’s been really apparent is that we should prioritize engagement over follower growth. Looking at engagement rate helps us make sure we have a loyal audience that’s returning to our page. It’s really important to create content that encourages interaction and leads to meaningful connections with our followers, rather than solely focusing on growing the number of followers we have. Quality engagement leads to stronger relationships, loyalty and often delivers better results than simply having a high follower count with low engagement.

We also work really closely with our digital fundraising team. By tracking links, we can see how much we’ve raised directly from social media.

Ryane Ridenour: Clicks and link attribution clearly demonstrate hard impacts, like: Are we bringing new people into the fold? Are they engaged by this work? Is our community energized and excited to take action with us?

Even when people aren’t clicking links on social, we know it’s one of many channels where we’re asking them to take action. It’s contributing to the performance of other digital channels, like email marketing.

Tips for getting leadership buy-in on your nonprofit social media strategy

Rachael Goulet: Does leadership understand how your team goals funnel up to your overall mission?

Meghan Nguyen: We’re lucky. We’re a large, well-known nonprofit. We have a lot of resources, and our leaders understand the power of social. They know how social media can translate to dollars, and how it can have a meaningful impact in the space of social justice, including galvanizing our followers to call legislators or sign petitions.

Ryane Ridenour: In the nonprofit space, social media can be trivialized, even though we’re meeting people where they are. Nonprofits are forced to be scrappy because most of our resources are allocated to the mission.

Rachael Goulet: How do you get buy-in from stakeholders? What kind of performance reports or summaries resonate with them?

Ryane Ridenour: Sprout Social helps us tell a cohesive story of our data across platforms. We can see what’s working and what’s not, which helps us demonstrate impact and secure buy-in. In the past, we would only report on bigger moments (i.e., campaigns), but now we’ve gotten to the point where we send weekly reports of audience trends, video views, engagements and more. The reports link to our top performing posts. It helps us illustrate where we should invest resources.

Meghan Nguyen: We prioritize getting everyone on the same page. We have weekly meetings with leaders on our team, and regular meetings with our executives. We demonstrate our ROI through presentations that clearly illustrate concrete impact.

Rachael Goulet: As someone who’s worked in social for over a decade, I’ve learned that saying “we’re just too busy” doesn’t work when it comes to advocating for more resources. Instead, it’s been much more helpful to say “here’s what we could be doing if we had more resources.” I’m sure that’s even more challenging in the nonprofit space where possibilities are endless with more funding. When you ask for more resources for emerging platforms or formats, what’s your go-to approach?

Ryane Ridenour: We used social listening to make the case for increasing our investments in video. We demonstrated the “share of video content” created by our allies (a small fraction) compared to the huge ecosystem of content created by our opposition. It was such a tangible way to show the gap, and help us secure more resources.

Rachael Gouletr: Wow, that’s such a cool way to use Listening!

Meghan Nguyen: We frame requests around specific opportunities we want to seize, like establishing a presence on emerging platforms like Threads or TikTok. Our resources are limited, so we focus on platforms that offer the most promising ROI due to their highly engaged user bases. We pitched them to leadership by explaining that advocates on these platforms can help us achieve our goals. Ultimately, we have to align the value of any platform with our target audience, campaign objectives and tangible outcomes.

What the future holds for nonprofit social marketers

Rachael Goulet: How do you think your organizations will be measuring social ROI 5+ years from now?  Will it be easier or harder to pinpoint social’s direct impact on fundraising and other goals?

Ryane Ridenour: A lot is up in the air right now in the social landscape. I would hope that our tools are even more robust, integrated and centralized. It’s also still really hard to measure how much social instigates cultural shifts, and the ROI around them. But if we are doing our jobs right, we are changing the culture around what safety means.

Rachael Goulet: That is such an interesting use case for social listening in terms of seeing how specific terms are talked about, and watching how the culture and conversations shift over time. There could be goals you create around share of voice for certain keywords.

Meghan Nguyen: Looking ahead, we will refine our approach to measuring ROI. We haven’t yet fully taken advantage of advanced analytics tools. But we want to use social listening to understand how people are talking about us and tap into sentiment analysis.

We will have to continuously stay up-to-date on platform changes. It will probably only get more complex as algorithms evolve and new laws are passed, but we are prepared to continually adjust. When one door closes, another will open. The only certainty is that things will change, so we will have to change with them.

Building community on social is mission-critical

Thank you so much to Ryane and Meghan for pulling back the curtain on their approaches, and allowing us to see the strategy behind building a nonprofit social presence and communicating the value of social internally.

It’s clear both Everytown and the Innocence Project leverage social media to activate communities, facilitate meaningful connections and drive tangible outcomes such as fundraising and advocacy. Their robust social media strategies play a crucial role in advancing their missions.

Looking for more insight into the unique opportunity social offers nonprofits? Read our guide to finding social media management tools that empower nonprofit marketing teams to maximize their mission.

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How to use Instagram Threads in your brand strategy

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Influencer pricing: how much influencers really cost

According to the Sprout Social Q3 Pulse Survey, 80% of marketers agree influencers are an essential part of their strategy.

That doesn’t mean everyone has mastered influencer marketing. In fact, our 2024 Influencer Marketing Benchmarks Report shows most marketers struggle to measure the ROI of their influencer campaigns because of the complexity of influencer marketing.

For example, while the average engagement rate for the fashion industry is around 1.53%, its engagement rates on TikTok are much higher at 2.26%. Similarly, while the food and drink industry has a low average rate of 1.19%, it thrives on Instagram with a 2% engagement rate.

These conflicting factors are some reasons why marketers often struggle with influencer pricing and budgeting to get an optimum return on their investment.

This article will help you navigate the complicated terrain of influencer pricing to help you optimize your influencer budget. You’ll also find out what types of influencer partnerships are your best bet and how to fine-tune them.

The impact of influencer marketing

Working with influencers can benefit businesses in several key ways. In a survey of 300 influencers and 2,000 consumers across all platforms, Sprout’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report found that influencer marketing can:

• Increase sales. Almost half (49%) of consumers make purchases at least once a month because of influencer posts.
• Provide product insights. A majority (62%) of frequent buyers are more likely to share product feedback with influencers, rather than brands directly.
• Further reach. Influencers allow brands to reach more people and specific groups through their loyal followers.
• Build trust. Trust in influencers is growing, with over 30% of people trusting influencers more than they did six months ago. This trust in influencers can translate to trust in a company’s brand.

Our report also found the impact of influencers is being felt outside of social media, with 80% of people more willing to buy from brands partnered with influencers beyond their social media content.

Types of influencer partnerships

One major factor that impacts influencer rates is the type of partnership you enter into. Here are the most common types of influencer agreements, and how they impact pricing.

Sponsored content

A typical influencer-sponsored post is usually a photo, video or reel promoting your product to their audience. 

These will usually be driven by the style of content the influencer creates, but in-house marketers often work alongside an influencer to ensure brand alignment.

Affiliate

Affiliate marketing works slightly differently. Instead of paying for a sponsored post, an influencer is paid based on a commission of the sales referred by the content they’ve created. This can be a more budget-friendly way of working with several influencers at once.

An affiliate method can be a more accessible form of influencer pricing, but it’s worth noting that you may have to modify your affiliate rates based on the influencer you’re working with.

Influencer takeover

During takeovers, an influencer posts content on your main channel, rather than their own. This can be a way to refresh your strategy, but you’ll often need to work closely with the influencer to determine the goals and type of content expected.

An influencer takeover usually lasts a day, but can be longer depending on the needs of your campaign.

Competitions or giveaways

These are situations where you partner with an influencer to give away a free sample of your products or host a competition.

This approach is often combined with a like/follow system that can boost your account’s engagement. The cost of these collaborations will likely be similar to a sponsored post, depending on the length and complexity of the competition.

Brand ambassador

This is a long-term form of influencer marketing, where an influencer promotes your brand regularly across their platform.

These partnerships are similar to celebrity sponsorship deals. As a result, they’re often much pricier than one-off sponsored content, but can be more beneficial in the long run with the right influencer.

How much does influencer marketing cost by platform?

Successful influencer marketing demands that you work with influencers with a similar audience to yours. Often, this determines which social platform they’re operating on, which impacts the total influencer marketing cost you’ll need to pay.

Here are some considerations for each platform, as well as some average costs for sponsored influencer posts.

Instagram influencer marketing pricing

Instagram remains one of the most popular influencer marketing platforms available. The majority of its user base is between 18-34, and its focus on photos and video make it an ideal platform for creative campaigns.

Instagram influencer marketing will likely cost more if you’re asking for a sponsored Reel, rather than an image post. On average, you should budget around $10 per post per 1,000 followers. 

TikTok influencer marketing pricing

TikTok remains one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. That popularity extends to the influencer scene, as over 100,000 TikTok influencers are active across the app in the US alone.

To work with one of those leading figures, you’ll need to budget appropriately. The cost of TikTok influencer marketing ranges around $10 per post per 1,000 followers.

Facebook influencer marketing pricing

Despite being one of the oldest social media platforms, Facebook remains an important marketing channel for businesses targeting certain demographics.

When working with a Facebook influencer, you should expect their pricing to be around $20 per post per 1,000 followers.

YouTube influencer marketing pricing

As creators of long-form content, YouTube influencers often attract high engagement for their work. 

One popular strategy is to sponsor a YouTube influencer in order to feature a short advert for your product within their videos. Or, you might work with an influencer on an entire video focused on your product.

Costs for YouTube influencer marketing also vary depending on the video length, alongside their audience size. You should expect to pay around $20 per 1,000 subscribers.

X (Twitter) influencer marketing pricing

Though it’s gone through many changes in the past few years, X is still one of the biggest social media platforms. Since it’s a text-based platform, it can also be a cheaper way to invest in effective influencer marketing.

The average cost of hiring an influencer for your X/Twitter marketing strategy is around $2 per post per 1,000 followers. 

Snapchat influencer marketing pricing

Though not as big as the others, Snapchat still boasts millions of daily active users. Its quick-fire video content approach also means it’s an ideal platform for certain businesses.

You should expect to pay around $10 per post per 1,000 followers for a Snapchat sponsored post.

Factors that affect how much influencer marketing costs

Alongside an influencer’s chosen platform, several additional factors impact influencer pricing. You should consider each of these seven factors before you start to work out your ideal influencer budget.

Size of the influencer

An influencer’s size is arguably the most important factor, as it determines how far your influencer marketing will reach. As a general rule, there are four approximate influencer sizes:

1. Nano-influencers: 1,000-10,000 followers
2. Micro-influencers: 10,000-100,000 followers
3. Macro-influencers: 100,000-1M followers
4. Mega-influencers: 1M+ followers

The bigger an influencer is, the more you’ll have to pay them. Using an influencer marketing tool, like Sprout, helps you find authentic influencers who are the right size for your campaign and budget.

Content type

The length and complexity of the content required from an influencer will impact the total price. For example, a single image post by an Instagram influencer will cost you less than three separate Reels. 

This is often determined by the influencer’s platform, but also the types of content they usually produce.

Timeline

If your campaign is time-sensitive or requires multiple posts, you’ll likely need to pay more. 

It’s always worth tracking your campaigns in a content calendar through an influencer management tool like Sprout, so you can keep strict timelines for campaigns and track delivery of every post.

Exclusivity agreements

An exclusivity agreement ensures an influencer isn’t simultaneously promoting your competitor’s products. 

This is usually beneficial, as it means you’re not losing any potential customers thanks to a post about a different product. But it will likely come with an added cost.

Different pricing models

You can agree to pay your influencers in different ways. Some popular examples include pay-per-post, pay-per-view or pay-per-subscribers.

It’s always worth outlining your goals for each influencer marketing campaign first, as this will determine which pricing model is the most beneficial.

Length of your campaign

If you’re planning a long-term campaign with an influencer, this will naturally incur higher costs. 

Plotting out content in a single interface, and easily managing approvals, can streamline more elaborate influencer campaigns and help reduce campaign costs over time.

Posting across multiple channels

Some influencers have large followings across several different platforms. Working with someone like this can ensure your campaign takes advantage of multiple channels.

However, you’ll need to factor the cost of posting across several platforms into your influencer pricing agreement. If you’ve decided to work across several channels with one influencer, make sure they’re tracking metrics across every post.

How to budget your influencer marketing costs

As these many factors and platforms show, influencer pricing can spiral out of control if it isn’t handled appropriately. Here’s how you can invest sensibly in influencer marketing, allowing you to drive successful campaigns that don’t become excessively expensive.

Define your goals

As with any form of digital marketing, successful influencer campaigns begin with clearly defined goals.

First determine the audience you’re looking to target. Then, outline the core aims you’re hoping to achieve with each piece of influencer marketing. Reliable goals can include:

• Building your brand awareness
• Improving your sales with a particular audience
• Increasing your follower count
• Generating new leads
• Furthering your social proof and community engagement
• Encourage more user-generated content

Ensure that you’ve clearly defined these goals before you start to search for an influencer, as they’ll gear you in the right direction.

Find the right type of influencer

You must source and work with the right influencer from the get-go to remain within your budget. Define the type of influencer you’re looking for and their audience as the first step in finding the ideal influencer. 

For this step, it’s worth investing in a dedicated influencer marketing platform. Tagger by Sprout Social offers over 50 search filters designed to help you find authentic influencers that match your brand’s core values. 

This reduces the time and costs associated with sourcing influencers early in your campaign.

Refine your value proposition

The influencer-brand relationship is a unique one. It’s important to remember that all influencer agreements should be mutually beneficial. Just like you, influencers also deserve to work with brands who value their time and creative effort, and offer them benefits in return.

At this stage, you can control your budget by refining your value proposition for influencers. 

Consider what your brand can offer them, and work this into your approach. This might involve event invites, free merch or promotion on your account. 

By treating influencer marketing as a two-way street, you’ll craft stronger relationships that result in successful campaigns.

Calculate ROI

ROI (return on investment) is the most important metric when considering influencer pricing. It clearly tells you whether the money you’re putting in is worth the expected result.

Apply this formula to calculate the ROI of a potential influencer campaign, as you’ll need it before you negotiate with an influencer.

(Total expected gain on investment – Cost of investment) / Cost of investment x 100 = ROI%

Remember to calculate it only after you’ve outlined your goals because your expected gain may not be strictly financial. It might also refer to increased trust in your products or other brand reputation boosts which are difficult to quantify. 

Factor in operational costs

Influencer marketing can incur many creeping costs that eat up your budget.

To avoid this, discuss every aspect of production with your influencer before you agree to a deal, such as who is paying for any studio time, travel costs or other people like editors or crew members.

An influencer may have factored these costs into their price already. But if they haven’t, and you aren’t aware, these operational costs can balloon quickly.

Establish a delivery schedule

Late projects can affect influencer pricing too. That’s why it’s worth defining a content delivery timeline so both parties are clear on expectations.

Make sure you’re creating a brief, sharing this with your influencer and tracking everything through a single interface like Sprout’s Influencer Marketing tool.

Track your metrics

Track your metrics during and after your influencer marketing campaign concludes. 

Tracking performance during a campaign helps you understand how your audience is engaging with the content. It also gives you an opportunity to modify or pivot future posts based on the current performance. 

Meanwhile, tracking metrics afterward shows how successful the campaign was, based on whether it met your goals.

Ensure you’ve determined the right metrics to track based on your campaign’s goals. And then review this data to figure out what’s worked and what requires improvement next time.

Start an affiliate program

By using an affiliate program, you can control costs to make sure you’re only paying influencers on a success-based system.

This also improves the value you get from influencers on your campaign. However, it’s important to agree to an affiliate rate based on each influencer you work with, as their requirements may differ.

Refine your budget over time

Much like with many other marketing strategies, influencer marketing is a strategy that thrives through experimentation. 

Once you’ve worked with a handful of influencers, compare how each campaign went, and how you found the process of working with them. Ask yourself, how much do influencers make our company right now? Use this information to determine the ideal cost and result for your company moving forward, and then apply this in your next negotiation.

By continuing to refine your budget and your expectations, you will gradually improve the results of your influencer marketing across all social platforms.

Implement successful influencer strategies without breaking the bank

Influencer pricing is not always easy, but it can be mastered.

Treat any influencer you work with respectfully, while keeping a close eye on your budget and the returns on your investment. With experience and careful tracking, you’ll find the right formula for your budget and strategy.

As you experiment, use Sprout’s influencer marketing budget template to keep a birds-eye view of your influencer costs and to help better negotiate contracts moving forward.

The post Influencer pricing: how much influencers really cost appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Summer GIF guide — New GIFs for 2024

Want a quick way to increase your email marketing results? Add a GIF to your emails.

GIFs can increase click-through rates by 42 percent and conversion rates by 103 percent. Plus, they're fun to send and receive!

Unfortunately, creating your own high-quality GIFs can be frustrating and time consuming.

That's why we want to make it super simple for you. Our AWeber designers made these brand new, FREE summer GIFs. Download one, two, or all of them, and use them in your summer email campaigns.

You may remember some of these from past GIF guides. We're always adding and updating GIFs to give you tons of options and fun images to include in your emails.

How to Download Your summer GIFs

Step 1: Find the summer GIF below that you want to use in your email.

Step 2: Save it to your computer by either right clicking the GIF and selecting “Save Image,” or by dragging the GIF to your desktop.

Step 3: Upload the GIF into your email template inside your AWeber account. Under image size, choose "original." That's it!

Related: Your guide to using GIFs in marketing emails

NEW summer GIFs for 2024

Independence day GIFs

Summer vacation GIFs

Sunny day GIFs

Summer food GIFs

Barbecue GIF

Ocean GIFs

Road Trip GIF

Summer Sale GIF

Beach GIF

Camping GIF

Fireworks GIF

Fun summer GIFs

Save money with AWeber

AWeber has been helping small businesses and entrepreneurs connect with their audiences and crush their business goals for more than 20 years. If it's time for you to get up and running with email marketing, landing pages and web push notifications for free, create your free account today!

The post Summer GIF guide — New GIFs for 2024 appeared first on AWeber.

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