What is YouTube?

YouTube isn’t strictly gaming-focused, but there is a strong audience of gamers who flock to the site to watch content creators, game trailers, and all types of gaming-related content. Here are a few stats showing just how strong YouTube’s gaming audience is:

• In 2020, over 100 billion hours of gaming content was watched on YouTube

• As of 2020, there are over 40 million active gaming channels on the site

• YouTube saw live stream watch time grow to over 10 billion hours

With content creators covering such wind ranges of topics, there are many opportunities to engage with YouTube gamers that won’t stray too far from your brand.

Opportunities on YouTube

YouTube has plenty of chances to interact with gamers, whether your brand wants to test the waters or dive in headfirst. Here are a few examples of ways you can activate on YouTube.

• Sponsoring a gaming content creator, group, or company

  • Many content creators have paid promotion in videos, be it delivery services, VPN companies, or more. The integration of these sponsorships can be minimal, with just an ad read within the video, or more extensive where the content is shaped around the partnership.

• YouTube advertising

  • If you would rather connect with users on a wider, less intimate scale, brands can create ads that are geared towards gamers. With affinity-based targeting, you can serve your ads to those who’d be most interested.

• Creating gaming-specific content

  • The biggest step you can take in creating your own gaming-focused content. You could play a popular game, do a parody video, maybe play a game that aligns with your brand. Just be sure to consider the time vs the potential reward.

Additionally, YouTube also does live streaming and has the second-largest market share, so many of the ways you can activate on Twitch can be used with YouTube streamers as well.

Measuring Success

You can track many metrics on YouTube to determine success, but it all depends on your goal. Impressions aren’t as important if you’re trying to get users to visit your website. Here are a few key stats that you should keep in mind:

• Average view duration

  • This tells you the average time users watched your content. The higher the time, the longer users watched the video.

• Impression click-through rate

  • As YouTube counts users seeing a video thumbnail as an impression, the click-through rate shows how many users clicked on your video after seeing the thumbnail.

YouTube has a wide range of analytics you can pull, so be sure to know your goal and what analytics would help determine if you have met that goal.

Potential Risks

There are risks to activating on YouTube, like any other platform. Brands will need to gauge the pros and the cons and if they want to take risks to connect to new audiences. Here are a few examples of potential risks on YouTube:

• Appearing in front of unfriendly content

  • This is something YouTube has dealt with A LOT in the past few years, with ads appearing in front of content that is not brand-safe. YouTube has done a lot to address this and is continuing to improve so advertisers won’t have to worry.

• Negative reactions to content creator partnership/trolls

  • This is something you face with influencers in general. If you partner with an influencer and it seems like a weird fit, the messaging is robotic or provides no value to the viewer; the creator’s audience may share their thoughts on social and in comments. Just be sure to work with your partners to have messaging that works for their audience and adds to the video.