What three brands spend there
| Brand | Share of media on YouTube | What they say |
|---|---|---|
| Jones Road | about 15%, from 12 to 20 across the year | Pretty steady. Hard to measure, but they think it performs well |
| Ridge | 5% over 60 days, 6 to 8% at Father's Day | Hit or miss |
| HexClad | 1 to 1.5% | Kept low because it couldn't prove the channel worked |
Source: Dennis's notes on how DTC brands buy YouTube, from what their teams said in interviews
- William Painter and, early on, Dr. Squatch ran 70% of their budget on YouTube. At that share, a failure is obvious.
- The hard part is the middle. Connor MacDonald says he doesn't talk to many brands anywhere near 25% of spend on YouTube.
- With data pulled from a few places, four to six, maybe 10% of spend can be backed up.
Why YouTube looks worse than Meta at first
- YouTube buyers come in later. A one day click count misses a lot of them.
- Many growth leads can't prove it to their CFO. Its ROAS looks worse than Meta's.
- Jones Road set its YouTube target 40% below its Meta target for that reason. Here's how to work out your own floor.
Long videos can be the ad
HexClad's highest ROAS ad of the year was an eight and a half minute Gordon Ramsay video.
- It was made to live on YouTube as a fun recipe piece.
- It still had the best one day click, one day view ROAS of their year.
- It's proof long form can work very well as an ad.
The check before you spend more
Every brand profitable on YouTube has a way to measure what it does beyond the click.
- Ask every buyer where they heard about you, in a post purchase survey.
- As your YouTube spend grows, the share who say YouTube should grow too.
- If it doesn't grow, the extra spend probably isn't adding sales.
- Keep an eye on total sales against total ad spend while you scale.
See how much of your budget to put behind creators.
This audit comes from Influencer Advisory, our influencer marketing agency.