Last year, Ukrainian brands invested over $12 million in the niche influence market, where popular bloggers advertise products on Facebook, Instagram, Twitch or YouTube. As influencers become more popular, Ukrainian businesses plan to invest 50-70% more money on influence marketing in the next two years. Influence marketing became a good business for Ukrainians. For example, Instagram blogger Anna Pogribnyak earns $2,000-3,000 a month, while the average monthly salary in the country is $400.
“The influence market is rapidly growing and now competes for money with other media like television or websites where brands are used to advertising their products. As influencers become more popular, Ukrainian businesses plan to invest 50-70% more money on influence marketing in the next two years,” says Nastya Baydachenko, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), that conducted the research, Kyiv Post reports.
Baydachenko said that the market will continue to grow unless the government tries to regulate it. Globally, the influencer marketing industry is to be worth nearly $15 billion by 2022, up from $8 billion in 2019, according to another research by analyst eMarketer.
During the pandemic, more businesses turned to influencers to advertise their brands, even though their advertisement expenditures shrank following the global economic downturn.
Instagram remains the most popular platform for the influence market, “the gold standard.” Nearly four in five brands choose Instagram for influencer campaigns, the research said. According to various estimates, 1,000 followers on Instagram cost $5-10 globally. The businesses are ready to pay, they say that the quality of customers and traffic is better from influencer marketing products compared to other sources.
In Ukraine, nearly 13 million people use Instagram but influence marketing in the country develops slower than the global one because Ukrainian influencers are popular locally and don’t attract as much money as international stars, according to Natalia Petryshyn, social media head at creative agency Grape.
There are over 800,000 bloggers in Ukraine and the number of local agencies that work with influence marketing continues to grow, said Anna Golub, head of influence marketing at advertising agency Vivid, which participated in the IAB’s research.
However, the market is in the shadow as many influencers get paid under the table and don’t follow any generally accepted standards, Golub said.
Among the most popular Ukrainian influencers are children, according to the ranking by Forbes. For example, there’s “Kids Diana Show,” an English-language YouTube channel that has nearly 77 million subscribers, or Russian-language “Miss Katy” and “Mister Max” that have 20 million subscribers each.
Another popular blogger is Alana Velum with 5.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 4.3 million on Instagram. Ukrainian travel blogger Anton Ptushkin has less than 5 million subscribers on YouTube.
For many Ukrainians, influence marketing is a business. For example, popular Instagram blogger Anna Pogribnyak earns $2,000-3,000 a month, while the average monthly salary in the country is $400. Ukrainian star influencer Yan Gordienko with 3.3 million subscribers on Instagram claims to earn $6,500 per publication.
Globally, some of the highest-paid Instagram influencers are soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, pop singer Ariana Grande and actor Dwayne Johnson. Each of them can earn over $600,000 per post.
