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Anyone working in Digital Marketing? I need of some advice (20)

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Hey STMers,

I need some advice. A digital marketing startup company has asked me to work with them on a 1 day a week on a rolling contract. They ultimately want to use my knowledge of affiliate marketing to help scale their campaigns. Kinda like an affiliate consultant I guess. I have about 1.5years experience in AM.

They are asking me for my day rate. Does anyone work as a contractor in a similar role? Could you shed some light on what the rates are for this kinda gig?

Cheers

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Your rates for this should be pretty high - you have a very in-demand skillset.

Exactly how much you can get is subject to negotiation, location etc, but your rates should be at least comparable to a senior programmer in an in-demand field, if not considerably higher.

Given you're doing consultancy, the sky's the limit on this stuff - I know individual consultants whose rates are $30k pw or more. Some of that is experience, though - you won't hit those levels as a starting consultant.

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Holy shit! Nice...

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I would think this would depend a lot on what you have to bring to the table ...

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Please don't ask them for anywhere near this.

I am sure caurmen is referring to the top .001% here.

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And when says "his friend" he means "himself" right?

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Haha probably.

Listen, like most things in business it is a matter of supply and demand. If you have great client testimonials from Steve Jobs and Jack Welch, you have an international reputation, and you are one of the few people in the world to be able to carry out a highly valuable task, then there will be high demand and low supply for your services, so you will be able to price higher.

I am not really sure if "1.5 years of AM experience" as such is that rare or even that it really means much, if I am being honest. If on the other hand, that 1.5 years was spent on white hat promotion of an offer similar to that which your client is looking to promote and you were able to get that to 8 figures of profit from scratch, that would be valuable.

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Thanks cmdeal. You definitely put things into perspective for me.

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Two ways to approach this.

1. Time based pricing:
Work out how much you could make in that day if you were working fulltime on affiliate marketing.

That's your current value in affiliate marketing and therefore your day rate.

2. Value based pricing:
Find out what the value is to them. How much $$$ do they stand to gain from you're efforts with them.
Then a % of that $ value (I don't know enough to suggest what %, I usually aim for around 10% - 20%).


I'd prefer the 2nd option, but it's just good business to go for the one that pays you more.

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Couldn't possibly comment

cmdeal's on the money as always. A lot of this will depend on how closely your experience matches what the startup's looking for.

It is worth noting here, though, that ANY kind of PPC experience is highly in demand right now, and there are more people looking for folks with ability in that area than there said folks. If you can genuinely show that you know your stuff in the areas that this startup wants you for, don't undervalue yourself! (But also don't try to charge $30kpw out of the gate )

It's worth asking or looking around in places like Hacker News to get an idea of how hot the market is for startup-friendly marketing consultants at present.

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Yeah, you aren't going to get 30k - especially from a startup agency - they definitely aren't bankrolled for that.

What you do not want to do is price your services at an hourly rate, if you can help it. Why? Let's say you charge $100.00 bucks an hour. In that first hour, if you're really good, you may uncover and fix and/or optimize things that could produce X,XXX or XX,XXX in value. And you just got paid $100.00 - not right.

If I were you, I would tell them that you on work on retainer, and determine your fee. Whether that's $1,000/mo, or several thousand a month, you will protect your value. Do not whore yourself out at an hourly rate.

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is it possible for you to measure the value you deliver? change in their revenue, profits, sale numbers etc?

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Could not agree more about the hourly rate. Charging hourly is almost always a bad idea, IMO.

As several people have suggested, measuring the value you deliver and charging a percentage of that is a good way to work, and will cause a lot less headaches in the long run.

Brennan Dunn writes a lot of excellent stuff about consulting and freelancing, covering these sorts of points - definitely worth a read. http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/

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Thanks for all the advice guys. It has definitely helped me come to a decision. I'll send through my proposal and let you know how it turns out. I'm sure there will be a bit of negotiation involved though.

I'll detail the process and outcome in this post if you guys are interested - or for anyone else in the future who may come across a similar situation.

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Hey guys,

If anyone is interested in how this panned out. Read on;

So apparently, after some research based on similar roles, the going rate for this kind of work went from $400-$800/a day. I went for something in the middle and thats what I got

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I work as a consultant/contractor and that's indeed my going rate.

Depends a bit on the company and how far I have to travel to get there.

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Nice little income.

The trick is to use this and maybe finding a similar gig in other companies (you know, scale ).

Well, if you are interested of course...

Would like to see you update this thread after some time, like a few notes about how this consultant thing is going.

Good luck!

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The thing is: you can scale yourself only so much.

And in the end, it's just a job. When you're not doing it, you're not making money.

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Of course. Thats why I also said "if you are interested".

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I am glad it worked out for you! $600 or so a day is nothing to sneeze at ...

$600 a day on an annualised basis is $220,000 year, which is way more than what many self proclaimed ballers on Wickedfire or Warrior Forum actually make.

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