• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 30, 2020

The pandemic gave live streaming video a boost. Now nightly network news shows are seeing the same success in performance. Much of the content is watched on television screens and influencers are helping brands reach consumers on more than just smartphones and laptops.

To determine just how much sponsored campaigns on YouTube influenced buying decisions, Gen.video looked at YouTube data for sponsored campaigns that ran on its social commerce platform for all of 2019, and compared it with data collected from January through August 2020.

The company layered on purchase data directly correlated to the sponsored YouTube videos to understand shopper activity, purchase intent, sales and basket size coming from this content. Here is what they found.

There are many channels focused on providing entertainment content garnering millions of views on every video, and thousands of other channels that are more personal, informational and created to help people learn and do research.

These channels promote products and collaborate with brands as a way to monetize content and promote discount codes from brands, retailers and participating in affiliate programs. Analyzed were 250 brand deals, 33.97 million YouTube Plays, and 1.4 million retail sessions.

Gen.video divided influencers into three tiers. The Micro tier has between 5,000 and 100,000 subscribers, while the Mid tier has between 100,000 and 750,000 and the Macro tier has 750,000 or more.  

The three types of behavior related to purchases analyzed include click-through rates, conversion rates, and cart size.

Here is the average breakout of three key metrics influencing purchase behavior:

• Micro    1.76% CTR         3.39% Con. Rate             $ 8.67 Cart Size
• Mid       2.55% CTR         1.96% Con. Rate             $10.70 Cart Size
• Macro   1.76% CTR         3.18% Con. Rate             $ 7.62 Cart Size

Different types of content creators and channel visions work. For the study, Gen.video also grouped dozens of industry specialties into three categories within the consumables space to analyze the differences in various key performance metrics between them.

Beauty and Personal Care led in CTRs, as most beauty influencers have a loyal following to research products. Despite their loyalty, these shoppers are less likely to purchase the product immediately in that initial session or online pre-COVID-19 resulting in lower conversion rates, according to the data. In this category, the average CTR came in at 3.14%, while the average conversion rate was 1.75%.   

In this category, interestingly, the cart size at $9.06 for Micro influencers was more than double that of the Mid category at $4.96 or the Macro category at $3.25. The lower CTR and conversion rates make these a less cost-effective solution for driving sales in this category.             

Another interesting insight that emerged from the data is the finding that grocery and consumer product (CPG) videos have a high conversion rate making each click extremely valuable. These shoppers are not only more likely to purchase after watching a YouTube video, but they also have higher cart sizes when compared to Beauty and Personal Care. The average CTR is 1.83%, average conversion rate is 2.62%, and average cart size is $10.21.

In this category, the Mid tier influences the highest cart size at $12.06, followed by Macro with $ 9.40 and Micro at $9.31.

The impact of home improvement and DIY influencers is huge, yet they tend to have a smaller following who consistently perform product searches and research before making purchases, according to the data. Here again, the Mid tier has more influence on the cart size.

In this category, the Mid tier influences the highest cart size at $11.99, followed by Micro with $6.89 and Macro at $5.72.