When investing in influencer marketing, brands aim to increase visibility through views and/or generate direct revenue from campaigns. If views fall below expectations, both objectives are negatively impacted.

This is exactly where Guaranteed Views offers are a smarter alternative to fixed-price deals.

1. Flat fee: brands are left with a big risk

A fixed offer is priced based on expected average views. But actual view counts can fall well below projections. On average, 65% of sponsored videos underperform that average in terms of views. For the average YouTube creator, the “worst-case” scenario (bottom 10% of outcomes) means that organic views are 75% lower than expected, or even 80% lower for more than half of creators. Which means the worst case CPM is 3 to 4x the expected CPM. 

Of course, for a flat fee contract for several videos with the same creator, then overall view risk, vs. expectations and vs. price paid, is much lower and decreases with the number of videos ordered. But a brand won’t pay for multiple videos with a new creator, or even for the renewal of a creator who is barely profitable, so other solutions have to be found

2. CPM model: hard to sell to creators 

A first alternative is to compensate creators based on views, typically using the number of views generated within 30 days on the sponsored video. In this model, brands and creators agree on a cost per thousand views (CPM), and the creator is paid proportionally to the number of views delivered. If the video underperforms, the brand pays less; if it exceeds expectations, the total payout increases, but the unit cost remains consistent. There is always a cap, or maximum amount paid, so that the brand doesn’t commit to an open-ended budget. 

Despite the increase in max budget vs. a flat fee, this is good for brands, since most of the performance risk is shifted to the creator, but of course less attractive for creators. Some may accept it, particularly those with strong control over their viewership, but given the inherent variability of content performance, many decline such deals.

Increasing the proposed CPM to get an agreement sometimes works, but not always; and many creators ask for a minimum flat fee in that offer, so that they don’t take the risk of getting almost nothing. Both those mitigation measures reduce the benefit for the brand. 

3. Guaranteed views : lower risk and lower CPM

Here’s how a guaranteed views model works: the brand pays a flat fee, and the creator commits to delivering a minimum number of guaranteed views. To achieve this, the creator may publish as many videos as necessary until the total view threshold is reached.

As a result, the worst case CPM is a flat fee divided by guaranteed views, and is much lower than the worst case CPM with a standard flat fee offer: so much less risk. 

But there is also one other major advantage: guaranteed views substantially lower the average CPM. The reason is that the model substantially increases average views: 

• actual views for a video are distributed among all points from worst case to best case. Average views are each of those points weighted by the probability, with the highest probabilities around median views. 
• but with a guaranteed views model, total views - including the views of the make-good video(s) - are all going to be higher than the guarantee. So the average of those total views is way beyond the average views of one video with no guarantee.
• the higher the variability of the creator’s video, the bigger the increase in average views from one single video to a video with a guarantee! 

Consequences of this are significant:  

• for a given flat fee, getting a view guarantee from a creator allows you to reduce your average CPM.
• or, possibly, with a view guarantee, you can keep the same average CPM while increasing the flat fee, and therefore lock the deal with the creator.

The chart below shows how this works

4.What is the right number for a view guarantee? 

Many brands ask for a guarantee based on the wrong calculation: my target CPM is 20€, so if I pay the 10K€ asked by the creator, I’m going to ask for a 500K views guarantee.
As demonstrated above, this is overkill: with a 500K guarantee, average views will be largely above 500K, so your average CPM will be substantially below 20€. 

20€ is your worst case CPM, in the impossible event that the creator delivers just 500K views, not one more. The risk, of course, is that the creator flatly refuses such a request.

It is therefore crucial that brands properly estimate the average views for any given creator with a given guarantee, same as they estimate the average views of a creator with no guarantee. 

This can be done either very approximately, by using a rule of thumb to guess average views as a multiple of the view guarantee. But that multiple is in fact very variable depending on both  the level of views guarantee and the variability of the creators 30d viewcount.

Wizdeo’s Influencer Access tool provides a simulator which, starting from the flat fee,  automatically calculates the average views and CPM for any creator, for whatever level of view guarantee. In our own agency operations, around 30% of our offers use a views guarantee and thus this tool, which greatly helps solve the risk and pricing issues. 

5. Why guarantees can be accepted by creators

 Creators prefer working on flat fee deals. However, they do accept guaranteeing views for two reasons: the first of course is if the brand offers a higher flat fee with a guarantee than without. Often, the creator’s asking price is too high for the brand with a flat fee model, and the creator will be happy to give a guarantee if he can avoid lowering his price. 

Second, some creators do have some experience in managing their view count: not in the wrong sense by buying views - which usually ends very badly for their YouTube channel- but by alternating between programming formats, or even launching star series. In fact, many tend to justify high pricing asks by saying that they have a strong video coming…some are ready to act on their promises by giving a guarantee; 

In practice, this means that creators often accept. Across our own campaigns, view guarantees are now used on average in 30% of deals. And, as expected, 31% of those resulted in a second video delivered,  and across those deals total views were way above the expected views for a flat fee deal for one video. 

In practice, the majority of negotiations lead to an agreement, precisely because this model aligns incentives instead of opposing them.

Summary: the hidden power of view guarantees

As a brand investing in influencer marketing, you should strongly consider integrating guaranteed offers into your pricing strategy, especially when dealing with creators with highly fluctuating view performance, high CPMs, or simply very high view counts where a big miss is really costly. 

This approach reduces average CPM, mitigates performance risk, and ultimately helps close more deals under sustainable conditions. Have a look at what happens to creators’ risk and average CPM on Influencer Access (48-hour free trial available) and simulate fixed vs. guaranteed offers to directly compare.

Explore why YouTube offers a more predictable and lower-risk environment for influencer marketing.