YouTube in Influencer Marketing: A Complete Guide

YouTube might be the most overlooked platform in influencer marketing, but the brands that get it, get it.

YouTube is direct-response like Instagram and narrative-driven like TikTok. It's effective at generating short-term AND long-term brand awareness and sales. If YouTube isn't a part of your influencer strategy now, hopefully this chapter will convince you to get started!

“I personally really love using YouTube for smaller brands that are trying to get their product in front of audiences for the first time, and brands that do want direct conversions more quickly than what you would get on Instagram or TikTok.”

Milan Freeman, Influencer Marketing Expert and Strategist.

One thing to keep in mind: YouTube partnerships tend to cost more than other platforms. There is a lot more filming, editing, and technical work that goes into a YouTube partnership. So, when you're partnering with YouTubers, you need to very confident that they're going to align with your brand and achieve those intended outcomes.

Luckily for you, YouTube provides a whole host of data and analytics, unlike Instagram and TikTok—so you can really feel confident that you’re making an informed decision on your partnership.

Let’s dive into all the best practices of YouTube vetting:

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(Really) watch an influencer’s content

Diving into a YouTuber’s content is the best way to understand who their community is and whether this aligns with your brand. It’s not uncommon for YouTube creators to have diverse interests and produce content on several different topics. So, there may be opportunities for partnerships that are not immediately obvious after watching a single video. As Amber explains:

"I love to watch a few videos to kind of get a sense of the personality of the creator, their temperament, and what kind of brands they're already working with to make sure that it's an appropriate partnership. For example, if I'm working with a food influencer, but I have a family care brand available, does the creator share their family content?”

Amber Kai, Head of Creator and Brand Partnerships at Sequincial.

Reviewing plenty of a YouTuber’s content also gives you to a chance to explore the comments section across multiple videos. It’s important to check whether a creator is actively engaging with viewers and cultivating engagement, as active audiences are more likely to be receptive to branded content. During the vetting process, Molly always asks:

"Are they returning comments? Are they active in their community page? Those community pages go off. I love seeing people that are super active in those."

Molly Cole, Influencer Marketing Strategist + Partnerships at Epic Gardening.

In addition to watching a channel you're interested in, there are a few additional question you'll want to ask:

• Are their thumbnails consistent? Do they have regular themes or types of videos that they're publishing? For example, GRWM, vlogs, hauls, unboxings, etc.
• Do they have a regular posting cadence? This indicates sophistication and committment to their community.
• Have they posted a video within the last two weeks? This will ensure you're partnering with an active channel, which is what you want for the best engagement possible.
• Have they created problematic content or been involved in any drama on the platform? Stay away from YouTubers that create content just to go viral—that's someone who's focused on audience, not community.
• Are there any past partnerships that could be conflicting? Use the search feature of their channel to look for competitors they may have worked with.

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Look for the right audience demographics

Age, gender, and location are the three criteria you should be aligned on with any YouTube creator with whom you want to work.. These demographics may be broad or extremely niche, depending on the objectives for your campaign, and whether you’re mirroring an audience you’ve successfully reached on other social platforms:

“You want to check their demographics for sure and who's following them. For us, we want an age target of 25 to 45, typically moms.”

Kristen Althoff, Senior Director of Influencers and Socials at Mary Ruth’s.

On YouTube, age demographics are often the most important filter because this determines both spending power and level of intent to purchase. As Milan explains, targeting consumers that are too young to realistically convert is going to hamper the success of a campaign:

“If you're selling a very high consideration product, typically you'd want to target a slightly older audience. Audiences that may be under the age of 18, they're not really working yet. They're not gonna be the ones that are in charge of making that decision for buying that item.”

Milan Freeman, Influencer Marketing Expert and Strategist.

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Utilize all data available to you (hint: there's a ton!)

Arguably, YouTube's biggest benefit is the data that's available to you; it's traditional media buying meets influencer marketing! On YouTube, you don’t want get too distracted by big numbers when you’re vetting creators. Smaller creators who have a defined niche and a strong community are great candidates for partnerships, so it’s important to focus on interpreting these metrics the right way.

Look for a steady growth pattern in the metrics listed below. If a creator is relatively new to YouTube but is showing consistent growth in all the ways that matter, it’s worth considering a partnership.

Thanks to the role of SEO in YouTube’s algorithm, high-quality videos can have an extremely long tail and continue racking up views long after they are first posted. Plus, if you lock a creator in while they have a smaller audience, this is going to be a lot friendlier for your budget!

The data and insights that you can request from a YouTube to learn more about their channel includes:

Views and channel growth

While you can calculate average views on your own, it’s important to ask for an influencer’s all-time average views. This will give you an additional read on their YouTube channel engagement. As Molly notes, steady growth is a good sign of a positive channel trajectory:

"I want to see a solid view count—and going up. If somebody has a spotty view count where there are 20K views and then there are 200K or it's kind all over the place, I'm not deterred from that because people are just finding their groove and YouTube is kind of a tough platform.”

Molly Cole, Influencer Marketing Strategist + Partnerships at Epic Gardening.

View-to-subscriber ratio

As a general baseline, you'll want to see at least a 10% view-to-subscriber ratio on a YouTube channel.

Average Watch time

Average watch time is the average length of time that a viewer watches a YouTuber's content. Nowadays, some YouTube videos can be 30+ minutes long. If an influencer is producing videos that are 20 minutes long, but their Average Watch Time is only two minutes, that’s a tough channel to commit to. Generally, you want to partner with channels that are seeing over 50% average watch time.

"The metrics I think that I care about most, and I would recommend that you prioritize the most, are things like average watch time. So, how deep are audience getting into their videos?”

Mike Newton, Influencer Marketing Strategist.

Subscriber vs. Non-Subscriber views

This ratio tells an interesting story: Does that YouTuber generate interest from their subscribers or from non-subscribers? If a YouTube creator has majority subscriber views on their content, this indicates their community is coming back repeatedly to watch their content. A channel that has majority non-subscriber views may still make a good partner, but understand they may have viral content that’s skewing their channel metrics.

💡 As YouTube Shorts grow in popularity, more creators are leaning into either short-form of long-form video. Depending on which deliverable your brand prefers, comparing performance between these formats should form of key part of the vetting process.

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Cross-reference YouTube creators with your product seeding program

Once you’ve identified and vetted YouTube creators that are appropriate to partner with, check whether they’ve ever been a recipient of your product seeding program. If they haven’t, now is the time to get your products out to those influencers.

Outreach to a YouTube creator who is unfamiliar with your brand is less likely to bear fruit, compared with one who already knows your brand and has enjoyed your products in the past. As Kendall explains, this is also an excellent way get products featured in content BEFORE a partnership kicks off—for free:

“Sometimes, you just end up in a video and then it makes it so much easier because that means they liked it. So, they're putting it in a video for free. And that means, usually I can vet based off comments too i.e. if you had a code for this, I'd totally buy it.”

Kendall Dickieson, Head of Social and Influencer at Graza.

Product seeding as part of the creator vetting process requires a bit of forethought, as certain product categories require longer use periods. For example, a supplement needs to be taken for a few months before a genuine testimonial can be given. But because YouTube partnerships are generally longer-term than an Instagram or TikTok feature, this is a great way to set up a partnership for long-term success.

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Mastering outreach with YouTube influencers

YouTubers tend to be more savvy and business-minded than influencers on other platforms, thanks to how YouTube rewards creators for their content. It’s more common for larger creators to have an agent to manage partnerships on their behalf. As Mike states, it’s a good idea to understand how their relationships are typically run before engaging a creator:

“How do you actually run your channel? And what does this process look like for you? And then how will I fit in?” Mike Newton, Influencer Marketing Strategist.

Outreach to YouTube creators should be really concise, provide links to relevant information about your brand, and make it crystal clear what your brand is asking for. Especially when talent managers are involved, it’s a good idea to have things like contracts and creative briefs ready for review to avoid unnecessary delays.

If a YouTuber does have an agent, expect that correspondence is going to be more structured —agents expect brands to have their ducks in a row and to ready to answer any questions the creator may have:

“When you're dealing with an agent, you definitely want your email correspondence to be a lot more buttoned up. You also would want to be a lot more prepped to deal with more price negotiations. You would want to expect for the phase around drafting up a contract and getting that signed to take a lot more longer because agencies will have their own legal teams that they work with.”

Milan Freeman, Influencer Marketing Expert and Strategist.

(For more on creative briefs and contracts, check out those dedicated chapters!)

Vetting YouTube creators for partnerships can be overwhelming when you have so much data at your disposal, especially when approaching YouTube as a fresh channel. Make sure you stay focused on finding creators who are brand aligned and actively cultivating engaged audiences, and this will put you on a path to confidently vetting (and booking) the right YouTube partnerships!

Next, we’re moving onto the platform that influencer marketers are still figuring how to harness—TikTok.

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