YouTube now has around 2.5 billion monthly logged-in users worldwide. In the UK, 43.94M UK adults are active on YouTube. These numbers show how the great potential of YouTube as a platform for your influencer marketing campaign. But what statistics about YouTube influencers do marketers need to know in 2024? Read on to find out.
YouTube is the second most visited website in the UK, with 2.2 billion monthly visits. In fact, only one website currently has a higher user base: Google.
Worldwide, YouTube has 2.5 billion users logging on each month. In terms of social media platforms, YouTube beats key rivals like TikTok (1.5B monthly users) and Instagram (2B monthly users.) It is only topped by Facebook with 3B monthly users.
Compared to the 73% of US adults who regularly use YouTube, only 69% are logged on to Facebook, and 37% are logged on to Instagram.
The Pew Research Center reported that 51% of all YouTube users click through a wide variety of videos daily. In addition, more than 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day, according to data sourced by Cloudincome. That results in the average person spending 48 minutes per day watching YouTube videos.
Personal interest also plays a vital role in the selection of the watchlist. It is also three times as important to users that the videos are related to their passions than they feature a celebrity and 1.6 times more important than high production value. This makes niche influencer marketing on YouTube all the more impactful.
Image by Google
Personal interest and strong values are also extremely important for Gen Z. Learn all about influencer marketing strategies for Generation Z on the Kolsquare blog.
Besides the personal interest that should already convince brands to work with influencers, there is another argument: consumers are informed and consider every purchase carefully. YouTube is a popular platform for researching a product's pros and cons through tutorials and reviews.
YouTube influencers and users, therefore, have close bonds built upon authenticity. They often exchange comments or interact with each other through shoutouts. This mutual relationship creates trust and loyalty, which brands can build on.
The gaming sector is particularly popular on YouTube, with 66% of female gamers watching gaming videos to interact with the gaming community, and almost half of YouTube gamers spending more time watching gaming videos than playing games themselves. Again, this often creates a strong bond between creators and viewers, which is essential for successful influencer marketing.
Overall, YouTube is the second most popular platform for influencer marketing, according to Statista.
Here are some more YouTube stats:
It is also important for marketers to understand how people watch YouTube videos and the reasons people use the app. The majority (63%) use YouTube via mobile apps.
According to Statista, 500 hours of new videos are added to YouTube every minute. Data suggests that there are over 14 billion videos on the platform.
As mentioned before, many users see YouTube as a source of information and a tool for learning online. Even 78% of Baby Boomers confirmed this, citing YouTube as their preferred platform.
90% of Millennials use YouTube to watch sports videos. Overall, 74% of those interested in sports visit YouTube several times a week, while 79% think YouTube offers sports content not available anywhere else.
The value of long-form content is its educational, in-depth explanations. On the other hand, YouTube Shorts is a short-form video service that YouTube introduced to compete with platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. Launched globally in March 2021, it allows users to create and share videos up to 60 seconds long.
As of 2024, YouTube Shorts has a massive audience. However, it is the least-watched short-video platform and is beaten in popularity by TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
Despite that, the channel is growing. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan shared on the YouTube official blog that "Shorts is averaging over 70 billion daily views, and the number of channels uploading Shorts has grown 50% year over year."
Evidently, creators have embraced this new format, with around 849 million Shorts uploaded from 49 million channels. In addition, Shorts are the best way to reach young target audiences. In terms of demographics, Shorts is particularly popular among younger audiences. Users aged 25 to 34 make up 21.3% of the viewership, followed by those aged 35 to 44, who account for 17.5%. The platform also sees a nearly equal gender split, with 54% male and 46% female users.
Trends are making waves across all social networks. Today, a trend may start on, say, TikTok and then spill over to other platforms. One example is the now-famous viral YouTube channel Skibidi Toilet. While the trend initially grew on YouTube, it is now also popular on TikTok, with a wealth of content being made about the channel.
The top 10 most popular search queries on YouTube worldwide are primarily related to music and movies, with “song,” "video," “baby,” "None," "Big Boss 17," and "tange tange" being trending worldwide topics.
In the UK, "caseoh" and "angry ginge" are rising topics. These are two popular YouTube channels currently gaining popularity.
Graphic by Uscreen
Content marketing works well on YouTube. Many brands rely on paid advertising on YouTube in addition to influencer marketing, with Tenlira and Walmart being the leading US company YouTube advertisers in 2023.
Who are these advertisers reaching? Let's break down the demographics. Statista suggests that 12.% of the global YouTube audience is male users aged between 25 and 34. Approximately 9% are female users in the same age bracket. Male users between 35 and 44 make up nearly 10% of total users, while women of the same age comprise 8% of the audience.
If you advertise on YouTube, you have the potential to reach 49% of the world's population.
Here are some more key YouTube stats:
It's estimated that there are over 38 million active YouTube channels. The following are some YouTube stats about these influencers' earnings.
YouTube claimed in 2024 that it has "paid over $70 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over the last three years."
According to GlassDoor's data, the average salary of a YouTuber is £21K - £55K, with an overall average of £33K.
However, top creators earn much more. MrBeast, also known as Jimmy Donaldson, is one of the highest-earning individual creators on YouTube. As of 2024, he earns approximately $30 million annually from his YouTube videos alone. This figure does not include his substantial income from merchandise sales, sponsorships, and other business ventures like his food company Feastables and MrBeast Burger.
In addition, Cocomelon's nursery rhyme YouTube channel earns approximately $223 million annually from YouTube ad revenue alone. On the other hand, smaller creators may not earn a living wage.
The revenue a creator can earn per view is variable and, therefore, difficult to measure accurately. The average rate for YouTube videos is about $18 per every 1,000 ad views, as reported by Influencer Market Hub, though this rate can fluctuate between $10 and $30 depending on several factors. These factors include the total number of YouTube video views, the number of ad clicks, the quality of the ads, the presence of ad blockers, the industry, and the length of the video.
To start earning money through the Partner Program, an influencer must have over 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of content watched during the last year.
You can use a combination of YouTube’s monetisation metrics and various online tools to check how much a YouTuber makes. YouTube earnings primarily come from ad revenue, with CPM (Cost Per Mille) indicating the amount advertisers pay for 1,000 ad impressions and RPM (Revenue Per Mille) representing the revenue a YouTuber earns per 1,000 views after YouTube's cut.
It's possible to use this data to analyse the general spend. However, tools like Influencer Marketing Hub's calculator can also help.
There's no one-size-fits-all for sponsoring a YouTuber. The cost will depend on the industry, the YouTuber's follower count, engagement rates, schedule, and more. What is certain is that costs are rising.
Brands can now expect to pay around $20-$200 per video for a nano-influencer, $200-$5,000 for a micro-influencer, and between $5,000 and $10,000 for a macro-influencer.
One valuable marketing tool is parent company Google's Google Trends, which can be used to view YouTube analytics in a broader context. By entering relevant search terms, you can track the popularity of topics over time and compare interest levels across different regions. This helps brands understand trending topics and audience interests, providing a strategic advantage in content creation.
Interested in more numbers? On the Kolsquare blog, we offer statistics on all social networks, such as Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. You can also download our own, original studies around influencer marketing for free, just click on the link.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, a data-driven solution that allows brands to scale their KOL Marketing strategies and implement authentic partnerships with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Kolsquare’s technology enables marketing professionals to easily identify the best Content Creators profiles by filtering their content and audience, and to build and manage their campaigns from A to Z, including measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors. Kolsquare has built the largest community of influencer marketing experts in the world, and offers hundreds of customers (Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, El Corte Inglés, Lacoste, …) the latest Big Data, AI and Machine Learning technologies to drive inspiring partnerships, tapping into an exhaustive network covering 100% of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers in 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As a Benefit Company, Kolsquare has been pioneering Responsible Influence by championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations to inspire change.
