Exclusive: YouTube sponsorships surge 54% as brands bet on creators
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Sponsored videos on YouTube jumped 54% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, according to new data from Tubefilter's Gospel Stats.
Why it matters: Brands are pouring more money into creator-driven ads and partnerships, which don't show up in Google's reported revenue for YouTube.
By the numbers: Gospel Stats tracked 65,759 sponsored videos in the first half of 2025 that drove 19.1 billion total views, up nearly 28% year-over-year
- News aggregation app Ground News was the top brand sponsor based on number of sponsored videos with 1,863 integrations in the first half of 2025, up 202% year-over-year, followed by Squarespace, BetterHelp and DraftKings.
- Ground News also ranked first based on total video views at 664 million, followed by Shopify, BetterHelp and Incogni.
- MrBeast was the top creator by views on sponsored videos at 1.4 billion, followed by The Ramsey Show, Linus Tech Tips and MeidasTouch.
The fine print: Gospel Stats counted videos with at least 25,000 views in seven days after upload from English-speaking channels and video count is taken from the 90-day view count of each video.
Zoom in: Gospel Stats is run by Tubefilter, a publication that launched in 2007 to cover YouTube and online video news — what's now known as the creator economy. Tubefilter also created and produces the Streamy Awards to honor video creators.
- "We thought when we first started out that creators are going to be the future of entertainment. We didn't realize it would also be the future of marketing, media, advertising and more," Tubefilter founder and COO Joshua Cohen says.
- "We've been around for 17 years now, kind of waiting for this moment in time when creator culture was becoming just culture," Cohen adds.
- Gospel Stats was initially focused on creator discovery but has since expanded to providing sponsorship insights and other analytics through a paid subscription platform. It currently has a few dozen customers, all through word of mouth, Cohen says.
Zoom out: The surge in YouTube sponsorships underscores a broader shift in digital advertising as marketers invest more in personality-driven campaigns that operate outside traditional ad networks.
- YouTube itself is leaning into this ad format. At its Made On event in New York last month, the company announced a new product that lets creators dynamically insert branded segments. That function makes sponsored content easier to update, resell and track.
- At that event, creator Samir Chaudry asked whether YouTube would take a commission on brand deals and sponsorships through the product, to which CEO Neal Mohan responded by talking about the benefits for creators and audiences with "optionality." YouTube isn't currently taking a cut.
- "If we can make that process easier and more effective for you, recognizing that that's a meaningful part of all of your businesses ... I think that's good for the overall sort of creator ecosystem," Mohan said.
What's next: Gospel Stats plans to release quarterly reports.
