Purpose: To ensure budgets are properly and accurately allocated, accounted for and dispersed across all paid influencer client programs.
Influencer Budget Process:
1. Each month influencer leads will complete/reconcile budgets in their client-specific internal trackers in the Historical Budget tab:
2. It is the Strategist(s) job to ensure all budget is properly allocated based on monthly budgets. While monthly spend might fluctuate, our team is accountable for underrages and overages through the length of the client partnership.
3. Should you have any changes in budget (ie: client is shifting budget from one service to the next, they are doing a campaign and increasing budget on a one-time basis etc.) the Strategist(s) must:
Flag it to the Account Manager
Flag it to Zhanna Kutsenkova
Flag it to the Accounting Team; Frank Hawthorne and Bryton Benda
This may require a statement in writing (email and slack ok) to confirm the increase or shift in budget
4. During the designated Reporting Block at the beginning of every month, each influencer lead will update their client budgets for the month (ie: If it is October 1st, you are confirming budget for October) in the Ad Spend Tracker
Note: If you have visibility into your client budgets ahead of time, you are encouraged to update this in advance!
5. During the designated Reporting Block at the beginning of every month, each influencer lead will slack their campaign trackers to their managers and flag that they are ready for review. This review process will encompass the previous month of partnerships to ensure all budget has been spent or carried over into incoming months/campaigns. The template for this is below:
Ex. Hi (@your manager) my budgets are ready for review!
Client A - HERE
Client B - HERE
Client C - HERE
Client D - HERE
Client E - HERE
etc.
Managers will be prepared to review their DRs Client Budget Trackers each month to ensure accuracy across all budgets, cross-referencing notes in the Ad Spend Tracker as needed. In your 1:1s, Managers are expected to confirm discrepancies with budgets (overages, underrages) and ensure this is accounted for with Lizzie + Frank Hawthorne (Accounting)
Why do these need to be QA’d?
In general, client budgets should be accurately documented and are vital to accomplishing our contracted KPIs. Additionally, we need to be prepared to bill back any unspent budget, or conversely bill a client for additional budget. Every team member is expected to own and allocate all budgets properly and will enlist their managers as a safety net/second set of eyes.
It is your responsibility as a strategist to ensure budgets are properly allocated, spent and remitted to external talent.