The crisis is not a hindrance: how much Russian Youtube-bloggers earn from advertising

Novye Izvestia calculated the income of youtubers together with marketers.

Yelena Ivanova

The growth rates of active authors in the Russian YouTube segment are impressive. Over the year, their number has increased more than 10 times - from 600 thousand to 7, 7 million. There is a trend when universal social networks - Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki - are beginning to yield their positions to consumption "social networks" - Instagram, TikToku and YouTube. YouTube companions have relied on mobile applications, photos, videos and stories, as well as built-in special effects and recommendation algorithms - and they paid off. The number of people who want to watch their favorite bloggers, learn, and have fun is growing. At the same time, the activity of Youtube authors has noticeably decreased to three messages per month. Youtube with its "heavy", unlike TikTok with its short videos, is turning into a "new TV".

- We can say that TV lures away the audience of the Internet. For example, they create their own show on Friday with blogger Regina Todorenko, invite famous bloggers to participate in the "Oryol i reshka" (Heads and Tails show), such as Nastya Ivleyeva, Klava Koka, Yulia Koval, - says Anton Petukhov, founder of the analytical company BloggerBase and Co-chairman of the Influencer Marketing IAB Russia committee.

Bloggers

The influencer marketing market is growing and expanding. Advertising posted by video bloggers doubled over the year and amounted to 12.6 billion rubles . The pandemic affected the activity of Youtube bloggers. The amount of published content has increased by 3.5 times, according to analytical company BloggerBase, and amounted to almost 6 million videos in a year . But this is only data for 10 months. Traditionally, before the New Year holidays, advertisers spend about 30% of their budgets. This means, says Anastasia Vishnyakova, a BloggerBase marketer, that the volume of the influencer market will rise to 18 billion rubles.

Youtube users watch bloggers' programs more and more. The advertiser goes there too. In 2020, bloggers quadrupled their ad volume.

"More and more brands are ready to allocate budgets for advertising from bloggers, but, most importantly, they are ready to constantly increase them, which helps the market to actively develop. Influencers are ready to integrate brands' products into their content and tell their audience about them", - says Dmitry Kalabin, CEO of Woombat influencer marketing agency.

According to Forbes, the first and third lines of the Top15 are entertainment shows. In first place with 4.5 million subscribers is the comedian channel with TNT Labelcom. The most popular show - "What happened next?" Advertising on this channel is the most expensive, and as a rule, it is sold several months in advance. Advertising revenue is estimated at $ 3.5 million. The third position is occupied by Alexander Gudkov, a native of Channel One and "Vecherny Urgant" . The creators of Chicken Curry are also genetically linked to television. Their relationship with advertisers is not easy. In September, Unilever, the manufacturer of Dove soap and 400 other brands, among other global companies, announced a break with Chicken Curry, when the “chicks of the nest” of the First made bad jokes about the protests in Belarus and Khabarovsk. 2.5 million people have subscribed to Gudkov , and the channel earns about $ 1.1 million from advertising .

The star of modern Russian journalism, Yuri Dud, is only fourth in the YouTube “table of ranks” in terms of advertising revenue, although he has many times more subscribers - more than 8 million people. The country's chief interviewer has been viewed 1 billion times . Alexei Navalny gave his first interview to the VDud program after a coma and poisoning by Novichok. Tens of millions of people watched Yuri Dud's documentaries. Yuri Dud earned 980 thousand dollars from advertising.

Interestingly, 5 of the 15 most successful bloggers in the country deal with the news agenda in one way or another. Alexey Pivovarov (1.6 million subscribers, income of 920 thousand dollars), Ksenia Sobchak (1.8 million subscribers, 840 thousand dollars) and Irina Shikhman (1.4 million subscribers, 650 thousand dollars)) became famous on TV. Yuri Dud and Nikolay Sobolev (№ 12 in the top, 5 million subscribers, $ 600,000 in advertising revenue) found their fame immediately on the Internet.

Four other top bloggers make automotive or DIY content.

Where are the most ads on YouTube?

Most of the commercials were posted this year on the topic "People and Blogs". This category has been in the lead for 3 years in a row. Compared to 2019, the volume of advertising in it has grown 5 times. In 2020, advertisers have shifted their focus to gaming-related video. From the 6th place last year, the Games moved to the second line. The third place was taken by "Entertainment". The most populated with advertising topic is still the section "Science and Technology". Every fourth video contains ads.

Who, how and what advertises

Most of all advertising videos were posted in September 2020, but in August their volume reached the figures for November 2019. In October, there was a decline in anticipation of the second wave of coronavirus.

Platform users began not only to watch the content itself more, but also advertisements in and around it. On average, about 15% of users watched videos, and at the peak of quarantine in April, this figure increased even more - to 17.5%. Analysts cite the quality of ad integrations as one of the explanations. Channels compete for quality ads, which makes them more interesting.

"Bloggers now have a choice of what to advertise. More and more large brands appear on the site, which have already earned trust", - says Anton Petukhov, founder of the BloggerBase analytical company and co-chairman of the Influencer Marketing committee at the IAB Russia Association.

The most popular ad video was shown on Little Big (video here) and has been viewed 51 million times. The second and third places went to the program "What happened next", where videos of the water of Baikal, Gazprom and Samsung were shown. Yuri Dud advertised Samsung TVs and Eldorado stores better than others.

More often than others, they advertised their brands Raid Shadow, E-katalog, as well as the games World of Tanks and Vikings.

Two bloggers surprised me in 2020. Musician Akstar (Pavel Aksenov) has gained 1.5 million subscribers in six months. In October, the number of views reached 1.2 million, although in May there were only 150 thousand.

Slava Marlow (Artem Gottlieb) - Alisher Morgenstern's beatmaker made his own channel. For 9 months, the number of subscribers has grown 6 times and reached 1.7 people. His videos were viewed an average of 1.9 million times a month.

So the leaders of the Youtube blogger rating shouldn't relax. Dozens of other young and no less talented people step on their heels.