Agentio‘s findings from a sweeping survey of brand partnerships on YouTube can be summed up with a classic proverb: Good things come to those who wait.
Fresh off a $40 million funding round (its third round in as many years), the influencer marketing matchmaker is delving into its data. It has analyzed more than 10,000 YouTube integrations to build what it calls the “2026 YouTube Creator Marketing Playbook.”
Among other insights, Agentio is letting brands know that they shouldn’t lose hope if their YouTube campaigns initially underperform. The longer those campaigns are allowed to run, the better the results will be. Agentio found that 40% of the views it measured and 30% of the corresponding clicks occurred at least 30 days after the initial go-live date.
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That effect is even stronger for brands that partner with “macro-creators.” Agentio defines that group as channels that average at least 300,000 views per video, and within that cohort, nearly half of campaign views come after the 30-day mark. For micro-creators who average fewer than 50,000 views per video, the corresponding figure is 30%.
Agentio’s thesis is that YouTube’s massive content archive makes it more like a search engine than a social feed, and some of the brands that have worked with the “agentic” matchmaker are singing similar tunes. Bombas, for example, has reported that 52% of its lifetime YouTube integration impressions have come at least 30 days after the initial go-live date.
“People engage with YouTube content in perpetuity,” reads a quote from the playbook attributed to Maev Senior Director of Brand Maddy Tank. “While integrations naturally see a spike on publish day, the views generated days and weeks later often deliver equal, if not greater, long-term value.”
That value compounds as brands build on their initial YouTube activity. Agentio reported that a brand’s click-through rate improves by 10% with each integration it runs, and marketers see their CPMs reduce by an average of 38% when they complete two full quarters of YouTube activity. Diversity plays a role as well; brands that work across at least ten different verticals see more success than those who don’t.
The subtext beneath all of these data points elucidates the overall appeal of YouTube-based campaigns. One reason why the creator economy has become a $37 billion business is because influencers can cultivate unprecedented levels of trust among their fans. That trust, however, is only built over time. The brands driving the creator economy to record growth must keep in mind that they can only see the best results by staying the course.
Agentio believes its platform is the perfect tool for brand reps who act within that patient frame of mind. Its YouTube integrations are priced based on expected views delivered over 30-days, so the partners who stick around for the long run end up with the most bang for their buck.
