As consumers continue their shift to digital commerce, brands have increased ad spend on social media platforms.
According to the research data analyzed and published by Finaria, sponsored videos on YouTube increased by 40% during Q3 2020. Sponsored viewership also rose to an all-time high of over 1.3 billion in the same period, equivalent to 600,000 views per hour.
Based on a NeoReach report, the tech industry was the highest spender, accounting for 46% of the total spending of the top 5 industries.
YouTube Influencer Marketing Spend Set to Reach $6.6 Billion in 2020
The top 5 brands overall on YouTube used a total of 138 influencers on 874 videos. These accumulated 300 million views and over 50 million engagements.
They required $50 million in aggregate influencer media value (IMV). MrBeast’s Honey sponsorship was the most valuable, with over $5.5 million in IMV. It had more than 32 million views and over 250,000 new users.
For the tech industry, there were a total of 6 billion viewers during the quarter. Its leading brands spent a collective $68 million on influencer marketing. NordVPN was the highest spender, using $11.97 million on 87 videos. Its ads reached 2.2 billion viewers, had 70.31 million views and elicited 5.7 million engagements.
The top three influencers for the tech industry were MrBeast, Dude Perfect and PewDiePie. They had a combined 198.4 million subscribers at the time.
According to Statista, YouTube influencer marketing spend reached $5.5 billion in 2019. It was projected to surge to $6.6 billion in 2020.
Moreover, a Social Bakers report points out that there was an increase of 56.4% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) in global social media ad spending. North America was in the lead with a 61.7% QoQ rise. Central America followed with a 55.6% increase while Europe was third with 50.4%. Average industry ad spend soared by 38.9% QoQ with FMCG food in the lead with 61.3%.
