Every year we survey influencer marketers about Black Friday. 

Marketers painted a very clear picture of BFCM. They said they ended up missing out on working with creators – mainly because they were under exclusivity, completely booked up before marketers could reach out – or that their prices were so high that they were simply out-of-budget. 

So when we surveyed creators about Black Friday, I went in with a few expectations. 

All of which were shattered. 

As it turns out – none of those things are true. 

Creators don’t usually completely book up, nor do they accept exclusivity, nor do they actually raise their prices.

So why did marketers feel those obstacles?

The answer is three-fold: 

• Marketers aren’t actually reaching out as early as they think they are
• Which then means their deadlines are a lot shorter
• And on top of that they come with a laundry list of asks

Creators say marketers reach out too late for BFCM

Six of 10 of creators said they felt marketers reach out too late for Black Friday. In fact, 71.7% said that brands started outreach for the holidays after October 1st. 

This is a total disconnect from what marketers told us. According to the marketers we polled, outreach started in mid-August, with the majority starting in September.  

So what’s the reality?

The reality is that perception is reality. More likely than not, the answer is somewhere in the middle. 

Regardless – marketers still feel they’re reaching out early, and creators still feel that it’s not nearly early enough. 

It’s not even about being booked up – it’s more about short deadlines and creators not feeling confident recommending the product.

And it’s not like creators ask for a ton of lead time. About half said that 1-2 weeks was ideal, and another third said even less than that was okay. 

Many of the creators we spoke to said that they’d get requests for content last-minute (without even having the product in-hand). 

One anonymous creator told us about when they got a super late request for a Christmas video on December 22nd, and the brand wanted the content live for Christmas Eve – 48 hours later. This creator filmed the content, sent it to the brand, and heard nothing until December 27th – so they went live with the post. 

Another creator we spoke to, Zoe, said short deadlines are usually the reason she says no to a collab.

And with good reason. She also mentioned another brand that wanted her to create Black Friday content for a product she hadn’t even received. It arrived a few days after Black Friday. 

“I’m still not sure how they thought I was going to make that happen.”

We don’t say start early for no reason. Absolutely none of us want to think about Black Friday whilst deep in the throws of summer vacation, pool-side cocktails, and the sweltering heat.

And I’m nervous about talking about it too loudly, lest we summon Mariah Carey prematurely from her icy crypt.

But BFCM comes with a ton of logistics – and you need to plan for and bake in the eventual shipping mishaps that’ll happen. It makes no sense to book and pay a creator who doesn’t even have the product to promote.

Especially since creators aren't actually even getting booked up.

Creators don’t actually get booked up

Creators said that over the holiday season, they usually work with 3-4 brands on average.

They don’t usually cap their sponsored collaborations, either. For them, it's less about hitting a maximum number of sponsored posts and more about hitting values, working style, a product creators can get behind, and appropriate compensation.

Half of the creators we spoke to said they don’t get completely booked for the holidays. Another third said they only get booked up in November or December. 

So if creators don’t overbook, completely book out, or cap their collaborations – is exclusivity the reason marketers miss out on working with them?

Actually, no.

For BFCM, brands actually ask for exclusivity a lot more often than creators agree to it. Creators only agree when the money is right – and more often than not – it isn’t. 

One anonymous creator said: “I don’t think I’ve worked with a brand yet who has been prepared to compensate for the monetary impact exclusivity has on a creator.”

(In fact, when we asked creators what makes them say no to a holiday collab with a brand, exclusivity came up in about a third of their responses.)

If you’re asking for exclusivity for holiday collabs, you’re going to have to expect it to impact the overall price.  

Creators don't raise their prices – marketers raise their asks

Marketers we spoke to said that holiday collabs ate more into their budget than other off-season campaigns. On average, they said that it seemed creators increased their prices by about 30% for the holidays. 

And let’s be honest – they’d be justified in doing so. Get that bread, fam. 

So we asked creators how much they increased their prices for the holidays, hoping to confirm that average. 

And over half of creators said they didn’t raise their prices at all. 

So why do BFCM collabs feel more expensive?

Because on top of reaching out later than they probably should, which shortens timelines and deadlines, marketers also ask for the moon and then some. 

The top of the list being usage rights, which creators tend to charge the most for. 

We all understand that Black Friday is high-stakes. It’s normal that marketers are going to try to get as much as they can. 

But it’s also normal for creators to charge accordingly. Especially for usage rights – something that both marketers and creators have a hard time pricing in the first place. 

And we know marketers are asking for usage rights – because they told us that influencer-created content consistently outperforms other kinds of branded holiday content. 

More often than not, those extras get baked into the prices that creators give marketers. 

So yeah – it might feel like a 30% hike. 

Until you consider that a marketer has asked for 5 Reels, 2 Stories, with 3 rounds of approvals/revisions on each, with usage rights and – oh by the way – can we go live a week from last Tuesday?

I’m exaggerating (kinda), but the point is that it’s not that creators are raising their prices for the holidays – it’s what marketers ask for, and when they ask for it. 

Where it all leaves us

Marketers aren’t wrong. They didn’t lie. Their perception of Black Friday was that creators were largely too expensive, too busy, and too exclusive to work with. 

While the reality probably falls somewhere in the middle, this all feels like Black Friday Chaos Tax manifested. 

Being disorganized brings chaos – and while that’s not always an influencer marketer’s fault (you can only start as early as leadership does), it's usually their responsibility to fix it. 

That chaos spills into timelines, demands faster turnaround times, more revisions, etc. 

And all of that ends up driving up a creator’s prices (or driving them well out of your budget). 

So how do you get ahead of it? Get started on your prep campaign right now. Literally just send an email to your best creator or affiliate with “Hey, mind penciling us in for Black Friday? Still working out the details.” 

Even just doing something during the summer lull can help you down the line. And if all that fails, have a contingency plan in place. 

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Our data is based on two separate surveys of 53 influencer marketers and 53 content creators located primarily in North America and Europe.

Our influencer marketers work primarily in ecommerce DTC brands (or within agencies who primarily work with ecommerce DTC brands). 

Our content creators are either located in North America or Europe, or they have audiences primarily in these regions. They come from a variety of demographic backgrounds but are primarily female, and are present across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The average follower count of our creator respondents is 87.6K.

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