Publication date: 07 Apr 2021

In 2020, Russian bloggers made more than 11 billion rubles on advertising on Instagram and YouTube. This information was delivered by the Russian office of the international association The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

• Bloggers made 7 billion rubles on Instagram promotions last year, which is a 69% growth as compared to 2019. The most popular ads were in categories “fashion”, “beauty”, “home and interior”.
• On YouTube, products in categories “games”, “e-commerce”, “food and beverages”, “electronics” were top advertised goods. On this platform only, bloggers earned 4.1 billion rubles during one year, which is a 55% increase.

The share of other social media on the Russian advertising market is extremely small, according to the IAB study. Meanwhile, shadow earnings of bloggers may be exceeding the “white” income, experts believe. Now, even sites where bloggers post advertising content do not know how much these media dealers earn. There are no standard commissions or fees which agent companies require. Advertisers might pay individually determined commissions to the agencies for advertising on bloggers` pages. Thus, it can be hardly estimated how substantial the bloggers` incomes are.

• We must remind you, that Google earlier announced its intention to make bloggers, including Russians, pay taxes as they earn advertising on YouTube.

IGTV “likes” on Instagram are growing in number

Vertical videos attract more users than photos and advertisements on Instagram. Despite the smaller array of this type of content, on average, 70 thousand people view it every month, whereas a short video in the feed — only 65 thousand. The IGTV was launched in June 2018. Neither users nor businesses appreciated this option. Due to the massive negative reviews, the developers had to remove the vertical video button from the main screen of the app. A year ago, the social network inaugurated advertising on IGTV in the United States. And a week ago, the company announced that it would become available for users in the UK and Australia. The new option suggests that a user can run a 15-second ad integration along with the IGTV content.