After three long weeks of sending numerous messages via Instagram to your top choice brands and receiving no responses or even just getting offered completely unpaid affiliate links that only happen to provide you less than a dollar in revenues, we have created this guide.
In this guide, we provide the framework for creating profitable ambassador agreements, which means learning how to source potential partners and negotiating with them for hard contracts, as well as mapping out a successful business model for creating your own brand ambassador business.
The Truth About How to Become a Brand Ambassador
To start with, we want to talk about the “raw truth” behind the process of learning how to become a brand ambassador. Let’s put an end to the myth that you have to have millions of followers before you can make money.
The current environment of market opportunity is one that is demanding more from “micro-creators” and actual niche authorities versus the traditional “white knights with inflated/stolen vanity metrics".
For example, brands like Glossier and Huda Beauty are looking for brand ambassadors that only have a few thousand followers. The real truth is that the focus of today's marketplace isn't how many people see your content; rather how many people convert because they saw it.
Before you can ask for a substantial contract, you must first prove that you provide value to your customers.
Many creators do not provide any form of proof that they can even sell anything, yet they still ask for a retainer agreement for a period of a year.
Smart entrepreneurs will create a "paid pilot test" based on the metrics they receive from their first few posts, and then use that information to secure ongoing partnerships based on proven, successful, metrics and not just vanity metrics.
Finally, how you position yourself in relation to your product plays a crucial role in the profitability of your product.
As an ambassador, you need to think differently than a fan—that means stop being a fan and start acting like a media channel. When looking for ways to increase your business income through social media, it's easy to find many generic sources of information telling you to simply "post great images" and hope that someone at a company sees your account.
This method is known as a passive strategy, and it will almost always result in having an empty inbox and no money coming in from endorsements. To successfully generate revenue by partnering with a company, you need to be proactive and treat this like a direct sales operation.
Before you begin pitching to your potential sponsors, you will first need to select which type of ambassador you would like to be.
Choose Your Path: Creator or Retail
Many people believe that to become an ambassador, you have to create content for TikTok or Instagram with the intention of sharing it on their personal profiles, but that is not always the case. The industry divides into two distinct paths - one being the digital creator track and the other being the retail event track.
The digital path consists of creating content (usually video) for various social platforms; the creator (you) may create content for your own profile or a UGC creator who is making videos purely for the purpose of the brand's paid advertising. The digital side of things can be managed through sites like Aspire, Upfluence, and JoinBrands.
The retail path is unique and requires you to have an actual physical presence and a totally different set of skills.
As a retail brand ambassador, you would be responsible for conducting in-person demonstrations of products, attending trade shows and participating in campus events, which means you do not need a huge social media following to pursue this path.
You will find these types of brand ambassador roles on traditional job boards such as Seek, SimplyHired and Jooble, with pay typically being a flat hourly rate and not commission-based.
The final step is to build what top agencies refer to as a proof stack.
The Three-Part Proof Stack
Brands do not care about the media kit that lists the number of followers you have and the kinds of pictures you have taken.
You need to have a three-part proof stack that proves to the brand that you understand their audience better than they do by providing a clear statement of your point of view, excellent quality of execution and the way your audience interacts with you.
Creation must prove to the brand that they can create high-quality video content on their own, without needing assistance when it comes time to shoot and edit the video.
Audience interaction and feedback will help drive brand purchases.
You will want to capture audience comments indicating interest in purchasing the product(s) that you are featuring as a key step in how to become a brand ambassador. After receiving an engagement rate of at least 2.5% for 60 days or more, brands will no longer ignore your emails and will begin to have budget discussions.
Closing the Deal: The Paid Pilot Process
Do not propose a marriage proposal on your first date.
Many new content creators make the mistake of asking for an ongoing partnership right away. Brands typically do not want to commit to a long contract with an untested creator due to the potential financial risk. Lower this risk to zero.
Instead of proposing a long-term partnership, propose a small, scoped test drive.
How to Pitch a Small Test Drive
Contact the brand and propose that you run a single, paid pilot campaign. Let the brand know that you would like to conduct a trial of just one specific item during a designated weekend of time with your audience.
Provide them with an entry-level price for making one video and two story posts that is low enough for the marketing manager to approve without first asking their boss. This takes away the fear of failure.
Once your pilot goes well, the conversation changes. At this point, you take the sales data from your small test and use that data to negotiate a three-month retainer. You will no longer be considered a risky unknown; you will now be a proven sales asset.
You also need to match your outreach approach to the platform you are using.
Match Your Pitch to the Platform
Targeting specific channels means that if you deploy your advertising in the same way on all platforms, you will see lower response rates.
When advertising via large affiliate platforms such as Impact, Refersion, or Partnerize, you are typically using an automated approval process where your account will be approved within a 3-5 day period as long as your account meets the required data minimums.
When you are pitching via LinkedIn, however, you are pitching directly to a marketing director who wants to see business metrics and a case study of your services as a brand ambassador.
When pitching on Instagram, your approach will need to be different than pitching via LinkedIn to master how to become a brand ambassador.
An Instagram pitch is typically expected to be short, casual, and focused around the product(s) you launched recently. It is important to keep in mind that although you may pitch directly to brands, the response time from those brands may take anywhere from 1-6 weeks.
All direct messages to brands should be tracked in a spreadsheet and followed up on exactly 7 days after the initial pitch.
Understanding How You Will Be Paid
There is no specific salary level in this industry because the salary numbers for different types of brand ambassadors are extremely different from one another and can fluctuate widely based on the structure of the agreement you entered into with the brand.
According to Salary.com, the average salary for a brand ambassador is $58,808 annually with the top earners on Talent.com making greater than $110,000. These large numbers, however, typically belong to creators who have developed long-term contracts with a brand for multiple months.
Entry-level creators typically fall into the band of $28,000 to $36,500 annually. You must be familiar with the three main methods available for payment.
Hourly, Flat Fee, and Retainer Payments
Retail and event brand ambassadors often get paid based on the number of hours worked. According to Indeed, the average brand ambassador hourly pay is $24.84 with higher hourly pay rates being observed in major urban areas such as New York City and Los Angeles.
You should expect to earn around £14.28 to £19.38 per hour if you're working in England; this means that you will have a guaranteed minimum level of income, but there will be limits imposed by the number of hours you can work.
Digital content can pay on a flat fee basis only, or through a monthly retainer agreement. Micro-influencers may earn anywhere from $200 to $800 for one sponsored video, while a mid-tier YouTube content creator, who generates good viewership, might earn between $5,000 and $15,000 for an integration of their video within a sponsorship.
The biggest goal of all of these creators is to transition from earning a flat fee to a monthly retainer, with average amounts reaching up to $4,000 monthly for predictable, consistent output.
The size of the brand will determine which creator is allowed access.
Follower Benchmarks and Commission Math
Stop believing that you need a minimum of fifty thousand followers to be eligible for a custom discount code offered by a specific brand when researching how to become a brand ambassador.
Brands have vastly different entry requirements depending on the brand itself. For example, Fashion Nova states that its minimum requirement for entry is 10,000 followers and an engagement rate of at least 5 percent.
On the contrary, Daniel Wellington does not have a set minimum follower requirement; however, a creator with 3,000 followers will be able to access more benefits than one with less than 3,000.
When researching mid-tier brands, take note of the following: Glossier prefers to work with creators who fall within the 1,000 to 10,000 follower range, and offers 10 percent of total sales as commission for the creator, in addition to an audience discount of 15 percent.
Huda Beauty accepts accounts with a minimum follower count of just 1,000 and pays 20 percent commission for tier 3 creators. Brands such as AG1 offer $130 in sample packs for free upon initial sign-up, in addition to a 20 percent affiliate commission.
Protecting Your Value With Contracts
A poorly written contract will trap you and reduce your income. Most content creators are so excited to receive a formal offer that they sign the contract without reading the fine print.
A brand knows this, and they will fill it with clauses giving them complete control of your works for years to come. You must be able to defend yourself with legal means.
Do not provide your assets for no charge.
Rights of Use and Exclusivity Periods
The rights of use establish how and where the brand can use your face or the content you've created. If a brand pays you $300 for a video, you should only receive that amount for posting it on your own page.
If they wish to run the video as a paid advertisement on their official account, they must pay an additional usage fee. Do not sign a contract to give a brand "in perpetuity" rights; limit their rights of use to thirty or sixty days, and if they want to continue using your works, you need to charge them again.
Exclusivity clauses will never allow you to earn income from another company that is not your original brand. An exclusive six-month contract with a skin care brand restricts you from making money from any other beauty company for six months.
If they wish to prohibit you from accepting income from their competitors, they must pay you a substantial amount to buy out the exclusivity.
Legal Obligations to Declare
The Federal Trade Commission does not allow for exceptions. Under the updated FTC Endorsement Guides, you are required to disclose any financial or gift relationship with a brand.
This is not a negotiation or an optional item. If you provide a vague mention of your relationship in the bottom part of a massive Instagram caption, you risk losing your followers. Be upfront and honest.
You must state "Ad" or "Sponsored" at the beginning of any part of the text regarding your post or in the body audio of the video. Failure to comply puts both you and the brand at a risk of incurring fines, and the first thing a brand will do is drop a creator from its roster if they violate these laws.
Final Thoughts on How to Become a Brand Ambassador
Getting paid to just look good with a product has ended for anyone seriously looking into how to become a brand ambassador. Modern-day brand partnerships require a plain and simple method of approaching partnership deals and utilizing content as a measurable tool to increase sales.
You need to protect your position by leveraging smaller, paid pilot programs, fighting for your rights of use, and treating every outreach message like a true B2B business opportunity. Determine engagement rates, partner with brands that respect the micro-creator tier, and never relinquish your commercial usage rights without compensation.