YouTube shorts won influencer marketers’ attention in 2023 with a 700% spending boost as investment in short-form content climbed

• Creator content drives more and more value for brands. The “earned-media value” that creator content provided brands in 2023 amounted to $62.3 billion, up 14% from 2022. “Earned-media value,” or EMV, is a metric used in influencer marketing to measure the success of an advertised piece of content. CreatorIQ uses a formula to measure it that includes a post’s impressions, reach, and engagement.

• Short-form video dominated. There was a 700% year-over-year increase in spending on branded partnerships with creators on YouTube shorts, a 113% increase on TikTok, and a 100% increase on Instagram reels.

• Instagram was the preferred platform, with CreatorIQ brand clients sharing 1.2 million posts and 600,000 stories on the app.

• Brands are also experimenting more with other platforms like Twitch, which saw a 300% increase in branded partnerships year over year, and Snapchat, which saw a 242% increase.

Marketers are finally paying attention to short-form content on YouTube

While TikTok and Instagram have been leading platforms for short-form branded partnerships for several years, shorts on YouTube are newer (introduced in mid-2021), and brands had been somewhat reluctant to invest heavily in it from the get-go.

But the tide is shifting, CreatorIQ data shows. Brands are investing more in short-form content on YouTube, and creators are starting to see returns.

“The number of sponsored shorts I’ve shared on my channel has dramatically increased in the last six months,” said Jade Beason, whose channel has about 160,000 subscribers.

Beason said most of her partnerships on shorts are bundled with a long-form video ad. But she’s also had brands request short-only ads as a cost-effective alternative when their budgets were more limited.

And Alasdair Mann, whose channel Alementary has about 750,000 subscribers, said the majority of his revenue as a creator now comes from sponsored shorts on YouTube.

A variety of brands have invested in creator partnerships on YouTube shorts, CreatorIQ data showed.

Food-and-beverage companies, ranging from energy drinks (like Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime) to fast food (Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Raising Cane’s) were popular, as were brands in the technology and automotive spaces, and pro sports, with the NFL making a major YouTube shorts push.

Categories like beauty and fashion — brands like Milani, E.l.f., Nyx, Shein, and Aritzia — also spent more on YouTube shorts.

“This shift reflects a broader movement toward short-form video across both beauty and fashion and the social media landscape as a whole,” Alexander Rawitz, director of content marketing at CreatorIQ, told Business Insider. “While long-form beauty and fashion tutorials remain a YouTube staple, their popularity is waning as Gen Z prioritizes short-form video content.”

According to CreatorIQ, brands typically invest in creators with over 1 million subscribers, particularly channels with big names on YouTube and early adopters of shorts. Like Mann and Beason, these creators tend to make YouTube their primary platform to publish content.