11 Must-Haves Every Brand Needs in an Influencer Marketing Agreement
Are you working with influencers to promote your brand? Every brand needs these most crucial terms in an influencer marketing agreement.
Working with influencers to promote your brand can really boost your sales and brand awareness, but if you're anything like me, you are researching everything you need to ensure your brand is properly represented and your brand's reputation is protected. As a lawyer myself who drafts contracts for brands like yours, I am giving you the crucial terms your influencer marketing agreement must have to protect your business, money and reputation.
You will learn about all the important terms an influencer marketing agreement must have so that you know exactly what to include in your influencer marketing agreement template, regardless of who you conclude an influencer contract agreement with.
After learning about all the essential elements an influencer marketing agreement must have, you can implement them and rest assured that your brand is fully protected and your influencer will give you your money's worth.
This post is all about the crucial terms every influencer marketing agreement needs for brands for a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Ultimate Influencer Marketing Agreement
The must-haves for your influencer contract agreement
1. Scope of work: what must the influencer create?
The first thing you must specify is exactly what the influencer must create. Usually, brands will have the scope of work specified in a brief. This brief should be attached to the influencer marketing agreement.
So, in the brief, you should specify exactly what you have in your mind, including the following:
What exactly is the content you want the influencer to create?
Do you want the influencer to create photos, videos or both?
On what platforms must these photos and/or videos be posted?
What should the photos and/or videos be posted (Reels, Stories, TikTok videos, etc.)?
On which account exactly (influencers may have multiple accounts)?
2. Content guidelines: what should the influencer include in the content?
Your brief (which is attached to your influencer marketing agreement) should not only specify the type of content the influencer must create but also what should be in it.
You may be very specific about what you want the content to look like, or you may want to give the influencer full creative freedom to create what they think will resonate with their audience. Likely, you want to be somewhere in between: you have some specific things that you want to see in the content, but you leave it up to the influencer how they want to showcase your product.
Here are some things you may want to specify in your brief:
What parts of your product or service must the influencer show in the photo or video?
Must the influencer clearly show your brand's logo?
Are there specific functionalities of your product or service that the influencer must demonstrate?
Are there certain keywords or mentions that you want the influencer to say?
Is there a specific place you want the influencer to be in?
Do you want to specify what the influencer must wear?
And do not forget what the influencer must include in the caption or description of the content on the platform. You should specify the exact details the influencer must include in the caption or description, such as:
your brand name,
the name(s) of your product(s) or service(s),
your brand's social media handle,
the link to your brand's website,
a discount code, if applicable, and
any other information.
You need to be very specific so there is no room for error.
3. Influencer advertising laws: the influencer's responsibility to comply
Your influencer marketing agreement should include clear wording stating that the influencer:
is fully and solely responsible for ensuring the sponsored content complies with (influencer) advertising and marketing laws and
must indemnify you if your brand suffers damages because of non-compliance with those laws, meaning that the influencer must compensate you if you are fined by a governmental authority for non-compliance.
The influencer marketing agreement should include guidelines on how disclosures must be made in the sponsored content and the caption or description of that content.
4. Minimum period: How long should the content remain posted?
When paying for stories, you know those will last only 24 hours, so the duration of such content is clear. However, when you are paying for a post, such a post has no time limit. At the same time, the influencer can delete that past at any time. When you have paid for such a post, you don't want the influencer to delete it the next day.
So, you may assume that the Instagram post or TikTok video remains published for eternity. However, if you do not agree with the influencer on how long the post or video must remain published, legally, the influencer could delete that post or video tomorrow.
Thus, you want the influencer to commit to a minimum period to ensure your post or video remains published.
For your protection, you must explicitly state a minimum period in your influencer marketing agreement.
5. Approval rights: make the content subject to your approval
As the brand, you want full control over what your influencers put out there about your brand.
You also don't want to end up in a disagreement with an influencer about whether or not the content has been delivered if the influencer claims payment because the content conforms with all requirements of the brief.
Therefore, you should have the right to withhold payment and prevent the influencer from publishing anything about your brand by making the content subject to your approval.
Such approval rights and the right to withhold payments (suspension) should be included in your influencer marketing agreement.
6. Ownership: do you or the influencer own the content?
The next essential element your influencer marketing agreement must have is an intellectual property rights provision that states who becomes the owner of the content created by the influencer for your brand.
You could have all rights assigned to your brand, so you become the sole owner of the content and can use the content for your brand's social media platforms and website.
However, experienced influencers will not want that or want to ask for royalties for usage of the content they create. In that case, you could pay a higher fee for ownership or, instead, agree on a license. If the influencer requests royalty payments, ensure that you only have to pay royalties for the period you actually use the content.
You could also agree on a royalty-free license to use the content for any purpose, which gives you almost the same freedom you would have if you had full ownership of the content.
It depends on the specific influencer, the fee and the situation which option suits the collaboration best.
Therefore, your influencer marketing agreement template should include all these options.
7. Include creative pricing options (if you're on a tight budget)
If you are a new brand or have a small budget to work with, you might not be able to pay certain influencers you want to work with their standard fees.
I do not recommend extending the payment term if you don't have the money to pay your influencers the fixed fee (even if you think their post will boost your sales), but there are more creative ways to go about pricing.
For example, you could agree with the influencer on a success fee to be paid if a certain number of purchases have been made with the influencer's discount code. Another option is to pay the influencer a commission for every sale made through the influencer's discount code.
These creative payment options should be included in your influencer marketing agreement template.
8. Timing of payments: avoid any misunderstandings on payments
The last thing you want is a discussion on when the influencer should be paid because your influencer marketing agreement is too vague. Be very specific about when you pay the influencer. Is a deposit paid upon signing the influencer marketing agreement, or will the full fee be paid within several days after that? Or is a pro-rata part of the fee paid upon publication of each piece of content?
9. Protection of your brand's reputation
Of course, we want to assume that the collaboration goes smoothly and you have a great relationship with all the influencers you work with.
But, as a lawyer, I must warn you that an influencer could:
make incorrect or misleading statements about your brand or your products either in the sponsored content itself or in any other post or other form of communication to the public,
breach applicable advertising laws, as a result of which you could be fined,
infringe another influencer's intellectual property by creating a script for your brand that they made for another brand, or
make negative statements about your brand or products after the collaboration.
Unfortunately, these things happen, and you need provisions in your influencer marketing agreement to protect your brand in those cases. You should also include consequences in your influencer marketing agreement for if any of those provisions are breached, like the right for you to suspend payments or request reimbursement for damages.
10. Suspension and chargeback of payments
As I just mentioned, you need to ensure your influencer marketing agreement specifies the right to suspend payments.
You want to be able to withhold payments for the aforementioned disparaging reasons or when an influencer simply does not deliver or publish the content (on time). Another reason could be that an influencer breaches the exclusivity obligation (which we'll get to next).
Suppose you have already paid the influencer, like a deposit before publication of the content or the full fee after publication. In that case, you still want to be able to request repayment if the influencer breaches the influencer marketing agreement.
The right to chargebacks and repayment should also be specifically stated in your influencer marketing agreement.
11. Exclusivity
The last thing you want is to pay an influencer to promote your product on its platform only to promote a similar product of a competitor one week later in another post.
Therefore, you must include an exclusivity clause in your influencer marketing agreement. As the brand, you want to make the exclusivity clause broad so that even competitors that may not be considered direct competitors of your brand by the influencer are also excluded. Ensure that your exclusivity clause is unambiguous, as otherwise, it might not be enforceable.
Need an influencer marketing agreement template?
If you want to ensure your influencer marketing agreement template includes all the necessary provisions you need as a brand, I sell a template with brand- and influencer-friendly provisions.
When you buy my template, you actually get two templates: one for the brand and one for the influencer, with alternative clauses for each collaboration.
Both templates include explanations for each alternative clause, so you completely understand the contract and can completely tailor it to your situation.
You can find my influencer marketing agreement template on this page of my contract shop.
What influencers must have in an Instagram influencer agreement template
Are you an influencer working on sponsorship deals with brands for Instagram? Read about everything you need in your Instagram influencer agreement template in this blog post on the 7 Key Things Influencers Must Consider Before Signing Sponsorship Contracts.
This post was all about the important terms every brand needs in an influencer marketing agreement.
Are you working with podcasters to promote your brand? Read this blog post on the 11 Essentials Every Podcast Sponsorship Template Must Have for New Brands.
Are you a YouTuber working with brands on sponsorship deals? Read this blog post on the 9 Key Terms Every YouTuber Must Have in a YouTube Sponsorship Contract Template to Earn More & Keep a High Income.
You can get your influencer marketing agreement template on this page of my contract shop!
