The importance of paying your influencers for their services can’t be overstated. Paying your influencers promptly and adequately is pivotal if you want to run a successful influencer marketing campaign.
The influencer marketing space has seen brands develop other means of paying influencers. Brands have now innovated non-monetary methods of payment. But, as impressive as these incentives may be, most influencers prefer to be paid through monetary compensation.
Paying influencers isn’t only about sending money. It’s a process that requires tasks like paying individuals, handling multiple currencies, and navigating various international tax regulations.
Handling these tasks requires time, manual data entry, and an understanding of different tax regulations. So, if done manually, it can become one of the most overwhelming stages of influencer marketing.
There are various payment methods and platforms you can use to pay your influencers, but not all are fit for this purpose. In this post, I will discuss some of the popular methods employed by brands to pay influencers for marketing and discuss what could be your ideal solution. Come along.
Different ways to pay Influencers for marketing
There are different platforms or methods that can be used to compensate influencers for marketing. Here are some of the popular methods employed to pay influencers.
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PayPal
PayPal is a popular payment platform, but is it a good fit for paying influencers? Today, most brands that use PayPal to pay influencers do so because it is popular and suitable for paying international creators.
Although using PayPal as a payment method will ease a lot of hassle, it has some drawbacks that make it unsuitable for the long haul.
Benefits
PayPal can be used as a payment method for all kinds of e-commerce. It is a convenient method for online checkout that keeps your credit card and debit card information secure.
It is a platform that makes it easier for marketing teams to dispense funds without having to go through tedious funding or approval processes with their AP team. It also saves creators the tedious onboarding processes that some companies may require.
Drawbacks
One of Pay Pal’s biggest drawbacks is its merchant fees. To avoid merchant fees, brands that use PayPal to pay influencers for marketing mostly use it outside of PayPal’s terms of service.
Under its terms of service, an influencer is seen as a “seller” or “merchant” and so is subject to paying an uncapped 2.9% fee to accept payment. There is also a $0.30 fee on every transaction. All these fees add up to a lot and can be detrimental in the long run.
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Bank transfer
Influencer platforms have relied on bank transfers to pay users on their marketplace before moving on to better options. ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfers are one of the most commonly used forms of domestic bank transfers.
Bank transfers can be a reliable and secure payment method, but they also have some quirks. They often require a great deal of administrative oversight in order to run a working payment process.
Benefits
A bank transfer is a more secure payment option compared to a wire transfer. Scams using bank transfers require a lot of information, so they are easier to spot and harder to fall into. Also, if there is any complication or error in payment, there are ways to reverse the payment.
Most payment methods charge a fee for transactions; the same goes for bank transfers. But the fee is generally lower compared to a wire transfer.
Drawbacks
Paying influencers through bank transfers is an outdated payment method. It’s a slow, exhausting, and expensive process.
It could take days before your influencers get payment, and it could take longer if any complications occur. Influencers may also not get the full value of a payment, as they will incur high fees.
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Crypto
Some brands have looked to crypto in their search for how to pay influencers. With the breakout of cryptocurrency, some creators are now being paid with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as compensation from brands. Some influencers even ask for crypto as payment because of the fluctuations of traditional currencies.
There is even news of a new form of crypto(IndaHash) set to be launched for the specific purpose of paying influencers.
Benefits
The major benefit of paying influencers with crypto is that they get paid instantly compared to the time it takes with bank transfers.
Drawbacks
Although crypto has been acknowledged to be a legal tender in some countries, not all countries have legalized it. So, if you want to pay influencers for marketing you have to determine if their countries have legalized it or not.
Also, payments with cryptocurrency require an influencer to go through multiple steps to translate the bitcoin into cash. This can be a hassle for influencers in countries that have not legalized crypto.
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CreatorPilot
CreatorPilot is an influencer management platform that not only simplifies influencer management but also offers a secure and fast way to pay influencers.
CreatorPilot makes paying influencers fast and easy by using a single invoice format and payment method to pay your influencers.
So, brands that use CreatorPilot are able to pay influencers for marketing right on the platform without having to shuffle from one app to another. They’ll also get automated payment reminders to ensure payments are made when due, this erases money problems with influencers.
Brands can make payments in USD, CAD, GBP, and EUR, allowing them to work with influencers from different parts of the world. All payments are also kept secure with Stripe.
The best part is that you get to pay low commissions on payments and also get invoices on every payment made. This will help keep track of who has been paid and who hasn’t.
How to avoid getting scammed
Always factor in how secure a payment method is when deciding on how to pay influencers for marketing. Not all platforms are secure and you can easily get scammed by fraudulent influencers.
To avoid getting scammed, check the background of influencers, study their demographics, and examine their posts on Instagram and other social media platforms.
What’s your ideal influencer payment solution?
Deciding how to pay influencers for marketing can be exhausting and tricky but there are solutions to it.
What will you give for a platform that eliminates the headaches of catering to every influencer’s preferred payment method when you need to pay influencers?
Well, for $29.99 a month or $299.99 a year, you get full access to all of CreatorPilot’s features. Including our Invoice and payment feature which saves you the headache of catering to every influencer’s preferred payment method. Why don’t you start with a demo and get first-hand experience of how it works?
