Brands often need to carefully calculate their influencer marketing budgets to maximize their ROI. Here is a general approach a brand could take to create a budget based on goals, channels, expected returns, and overall marketing investment levels:

1. Define Your Goals: This is the first step to determining your budget. The objectives could range from improving brand awareness and increasing sales to boosting website traffic or gaining social media followers. Your goals help dictate your budget range.

2. Choose Your Channels: The platform you chose plays a considerable role in your budget. Rates for influencers on platforms like Instagram or YouTube can vary based on engagement rates, followers count, and other factors.

3. Calculate Expected ROI: Estimating your expected ROI helps with justifying and planning your influencer budget. For example, if you expect a 5x return on investment, spending $10,000 on influencer marketing would mean anticipating at least $50,000 in revenue.

4. Consider Overall Marketing Investment Levels: Your influencer marketing budget should align with your organization’s total marketing spend. A common rule of thumb is allocating 10-20% of your marketing budget to influencer marketing, but the ideal percentage may differ based on your specific marketing strategy.

5. Study Market Rates: Understanding the industry standard rates for influencer partnerships (e.g., cost per post) can help refine your budget. Also consider factors such as the influencer’s industry, audience size, and audience engagement rate.

6. Utilize Influencer Marketing Platforms: Tools like Flinque help you streamline this process by providing data-driven insights into influencer performance, analytics, and audience reach, helping you make more informed decisions.

Remember, influencer marketing budgeting is not a one-size-fits-all approach – it heavily depends on your unique objectives, targeted audience, and marketing strategy.