YouTube is the second most popular platform for influencer marketing, with 70% of marketers agreeing that it is an important part of their influencer marketing strategy. This means that if you are looking for a new outlet for your brand influencer marketing strategy, YouTube is a great place to start.
However, because YouTube is a video-only platform, working with influencers will be a bit more involved than it might be on a platform like Instagram.
Throughout this article, we will learn about the benefits of YouTube influencer marketing, how it works and how you can set up your successful campaign.
Why Use YouTube Influencer Marketing?
YouTube is not only the second most popular platform for influencer marketing, but it is also the second most popular website in the world, reaching over 2 billion users every year. This huge reach makes it the perfect platform to put your brand in front of a large audience.
While YouTube has traditionally been a platform dedicated to long-form video content, the introduction of YouTube Shorts has opened up another avenue for short-form impactful content, similar to Reels or TikTok.
But with YouTube, your brand is able to get more in-depth reviews, tutorials, and use cases from the influencers you want to partner with. This can be even more valuable to your brand and even more persuasive to an audience of influencers.
6 types of YouTube influencer marketing campaigns with examples
There are many different ways a YouTube influencer marketing campaign can present itself and you can get different results. Some are better for brand awareness while others can be good for lead generation and conversions. We’ve covered six different types of influencer marketing campaigns that do well on YouTube.
1. Unboxing Videos
An unboxing video can be a haul of multiple packages (more on this below), but what we’re talking more about here is a single brand shipment being opened on-screen.
We have a perfect example of that with this Quirky Crate unboxing video sponsored by YouTube CurvyHipsAndTintedLips.
She includes a disclaimer in her video description that the video is sponsored, which means that Quirky Crate not only sent her these two subscription boxes for free, but they also paid her fees for the single sponsored video.
2. Hulls
Totes are similar to unboxing videos but they are much larger and can include many different brands. These often include brands that only send free products to influencers, but do not pay for their own brand-specific videos. This means that it is a great option for brands who are looking to get started in YouTube influencer marketing and may not have a big budget right now.
Take a look at this example from YouTuber Laura Lee:
She goes from box to box, introducing the brand and showing each and every item that comes in the package. This gives each brand a small amount for only the cost of the free products.
3. Product Reviews
Another great type of campaign is asking influencers to review your products on video. It helps to present your business with a trusted influencer and their positive review of your product.
We have an example of this from health and fitness professional Renee McLaughlin, reviewing “Wonderful Amino Acids” that she wholeheartedly loves and recommends.
We see that this YouTuber is also offering a discount code in the video description. Although the video description doesn’t say sponsored, an influencer-specific discount code indicates a partnership of some sort. This is a great way to get people interested in buying right off the bat.
4. Everyday Vlogs
Many influencers post day-to-day vlogs that feature their specific weekdays or weekends. This type of content is popular with their audience—and as a brand, you can take advantage of it.
Take a look at this example below from influencer Katie Musser. She has made a video that accompanies her normal workday.
Although this particular video is not sponsored, it has included affiliate links in its description for the specific products it mentions. If you’ve identified an influencer you’d like to work with who regularly posts daily life videos or vlogs, get in touch to see if they support product placement or your brand in their videos. mention will be included.
This is a more organic way of putting your brand in front of a new audience, rather than creating promotional videos that are explicitly about your brand.
5. Tutorials
Have influencers show their audience how to use your product. This is great for complex products, but it can also serve to showcase different use cases for your product, giving viewers even more reasons to shop.
This video by Cynthia Dhimdis is not sponsored, but it still shows a great example of what your tutorial video could look like.
Contact influencers to ask if they’d be interested in partnering and if they can teach viewers how to get the most out of their product in a YouTube video. Include a discount code to entice them to go ahead and make a purchase.
Tutorial videos are also a great way to move users who are already on the fence about your product to click on that product link and make a buying decision.
6. Contests or Gifts
A contest or giveaway is another great way to partner with an influencer. In an instance like this, they might do a tutorial or review in conjunction with the product giveaway.
In this example below by YouTuber Anissa Jones, she’s offering an unsponsored giveaway to reach 5,000 subscribers—but anything like this would be the perfect time to partner with an influencer to help them take their product to their big mile. Let’s help you get cheaper for the stone.
How to Build a Successful YouTube Influencer Marketing Campaign
Ready to create your own YouTube influencer marketing campaign? It’s easy—just follow these four steps.
Step 1: Set clear goals
What is the goal of the campaign and KPIs for success? With influencer marketing, the top objective revolves around brand awareness and reaching new potential customers.
This means you will be checking KPIs like:
- raid
- clix
- unique view
To make your goals even easier, set UTM parameters or short links for each influential campaign that you can track.
Step 2: Set a Budget
Influencers don’t partner with brands for free! It’s their job, which means you need to set a budget specifically to pay each influencer you partner with. Rates vary from influencer to influencer and are also based on their total reach. This means it will cost less to partner with micro-influencers than influencers with millions of followers.
Influencer Marketing Hub has set the following averages for how much you should pay YouTube influencers:
- Nano-influencers: $20-$200 per video
- Micro-influencers: $200-$1,000 per video
- Mid-Tier Influencer: $1,000-$10,000 per video
- Macro-influencers: $10,000-$20,000 per video
- Mega-Influencer: $20,000+ per video
To give an idea of how these different levels break down, they also provide the following explanation:
- Nano-influencers: 1,000-10,000 followers
- Micro Influencers: 10,000-50,000 Followers
- Mid-Level Influencers: 50,000-500,000 followers
- Macro-influencers: 500,000–1,000,000 followers
- Mega-Influencers: 1,000,000+ Followers
Step 3: Find YouTube influencers
The next step is to find YouTube influencers who align with your brand and your campaign goals. Make sure their followers align with your potential customers so that the people you reach are more likely to be interested in your brand.
During your search, start by researching which influencers your competitors are working with. This is a good sign that these influencers and their audience are likely to use your product. You can also browse YouTube videos by searching keywords related to your industry and see which YouTubers pop up.
Also, consider using Sprout Social to aid your search. By engaging in different online conversations with the Social Listening feature, you can see which popular users are talking about your industry and similar products—or even mentioning your brand. are.
Step 4: Measure the success of a YouTube influencer campaign
In the end, you cannot launch any type of marketing campaign without a plan to measure success. The same goes for your influencer marketing campaigns.
While it can be difficult to measure the success of someone else’s social media channel, there are a few things to determine for each campaign:
- As we mentioned, you will want to create UTM links which will help you track all the link clicks and traffic
- Create an influencer-specific discount code so you can track purchases from each campaign
- Ask the influencer to send you reports on their behalf every month to track performance
You can take advantage of Sprout’s cross-network tag performance reports to keep track of how all influencers are doing and which products are being mentioned. You’ll set these mentions as the tags you want to track in your Sprout account.
Launch your own YouTube influencer marketing campaign
Working with influencers is a great way to create content that promotes your brand and its products more naturally. It is one of the best ways to reach out to the younger generation – also known as digital natives. If you’re trying to appeal to Millennials and Gen Xers, learn more ways to reach digital natives.
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