In 2024, YouTube's global advertising revenues amounted to approximately 31.51 billion U.S. dollars, up by almost eight percent from the 29.2 billion U.S. dollars in the preceding fiscal period. Whereas the owned online video platform does not generate the same amount of revenue as Google's key segment Search, it is nonetheless a significant money-maker for parent company Alphabet.

In 2024, YouTube's advertising revenue accounted for approximately 13.66 percent of Google's total revenue. That year, the video platform's annual ad revenues amounted to 36.1 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 31.5 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. YouTube creators Video content creators on YouTube have been evolving with the platform since its creation. In 2020, it was estimated that YouTube supported over 800 thousand jobs worldwide, almost half of which referred to creators located in the United States. Apart from sharing a portion of YouTube advertising revenues, the most popular video creators can decide to license their existing content libraries for a limited amount of time in exchange for their advertising revenues. As YouTube ranked among the leading ad-selling companies worldwide in 2021, the recent success of financing companies focusing on user-generated video content does not come as a surprise. Digital video ads In 2021, global spending for online video advertisement surpassed 61 million U.S. dollars and is expected to reach approximately 90 million U.S. dollars by 2024. Video ads can engage users across multiple devices, with a 2021 survey of app developers worldwide seeing over 40 percent of respondents considering full-screen videos the most effective ad format to acquire new app users.

In 2020, YouTube’s net advertising revenues in the United States are projected to reach 4.34 billion U.S. dollars, up from 3.88 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. That year, the video platform generated 7.8 billion U.S. dollars in global net ad revenues. YouTube advertising During a November 2018 survey, 90 percent of responding internet users from the United States stated that they used YouTube to watch online video. This significant reach, coupled with an increase in online video consumption among the U.S. online population, positions YouTube as a major player in terms of online advertising and marketing. Brands and influencers can upload ads and promotional videos to the online video platform and in the beauty segment, influencers account for 60 percent of beauty content video views on YouTube, making this a popular category for influencer marketing. Influencer marketing With increasing professionalization of YouTube channel owners and stronger monetization of video content, the bar for successful YouTube videos has been raised significantly during the past few years. Gone are grainy webcam videos, and most YouTubers and influencers have a professional camera and lighting setup in order to produce high-quality videos that look and sound good on any device. When factoring in the time it takes to produce and cut a YouTube video, it comes as little surprise that YouTube is a popular medium for influencers in the 1 million plus follower segment, but rarely for those who have significantly less followers (micro-influencers) or vastly more fans (major celebrities). Small influencers may focus their efforts on other platforms with less initial production costs and efforts, and big celebrities do not need to produce YouTube videos to further their fame.

In 2024, Alphabet's revenue from Google websites (including YouTube advertising) amounted to around 234.23 billion U.S. dollars, up from 206.5 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year. Google Search is by far the biggest revenue segment of Alphabet. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by or tied to Google.

Advertising remained the main revenue-generating segment for Google in 2024. During the examined year, 77.8 percent of Google’s revenue came from advertising on Google properties and YouTube. The Google Cloud revenue segment generated 10.8 percent of the company's revenues, up from 4.3 percent in 2018.

An increase in the average revenue from AdSense has been observed in Poland. In 2017, the aforementioned monthly revenue was nearly 8.6 thousand zloty, while in 2021 it amounted to more than 22 thousand zloty.

In January 2025, YouTube held a market share of 2.01 percent among online social networking platforms in the United Kingdom (UK). Figures were calculated based on approximately fifteen billion hits online per month. YouTube’s reach within the UK In 2021, users in the United Kingdom spent over 16 hours per month on the popular social video and streaming platform YouTube, making it the most engaging video platform after TikTok. This made it the most widely used social networks, and one of the more attractive digital advertising tools for marketers. During this period, YouTube was the most popular video app among children in the UK, with 65 percent of respondents reporting to engage with this platform. The future of digital advertising A report published in 2019 cited YouTube as the digital platform forecasted to enhance communications in the near future, as advertising shifts to become more visual. YouTube’s worldwide advertising revenues have also increased year on year since 2017, attesting the effectiveness of its monetization methods. The introduction of services such as its Partner Program, which collaborates with leading content creators to earn through in-video-advertising has helped YouTube stay relevant while generating and retaining a large audience base.

In 2021, global social media advertising spending stood at around 116 billion U.S. dollars. The source projected that this figure would more than double and exceed an all-time high of 262 billion by 2028.

Where to advertise in a sea of social media platforms?

While there are many regional differences when it comes to social media usage and accessibility, some platforms reign supreme among users and advertisers alike. As of 2022, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram were the most popular social networks worldwide. Thanks to their massive audiences, these Meta-owned properties also ranked among the leading social media platforms for marketers. What makes advertising via these channels so appealing is not only the prospect of boosting brand awareness and generating leads but also the possibility to strengthen brands’ relationships with consumers via direct communication.

Spotlight on influencer marketing

In addition to posting photos and videos on their social media accounts and interacting with followers, companies can also enlist the help of content creators to drive visibility and potentially unlock new audiences. Over the past few years, the global influencer marketing market value has expanded rapidly and is now sized at an estimated 16.4 billion U.S. dollars. Instagram remains the primary playground for this creator-driven form of online marketing, though apps like TikTok are also becoming more appealing to brands from around the world.

This statistic shows the total revenue of eSports in the Netherlands in 2017 with a forecast for 2018 and 2019 (in U.S. dollars). In 2017, the Dutch eSports market reached a size of approximately 9.4 million U.S. dollars. This revenue is mostly based on what popular gamers and the video platforms Twitch and YouTube earn through advertisements and donations. It is forecast that the revenue will increase to 11.5 million U.S. dollars in 2018.

As of 2017, more than three quarter of the eSports viewers were between the age of 18 to 44 years old, whereas almost five percent were aged 13 to 17 years old. In June 2018, YaraskyGaming attracted the most followers on Twitch.tv in the Netherlands with his streams of Fortnite and Cities: Skylines.

Every year billions of dollars are spent on advertising on social media in the United States. In 2022, the amount reached 66 billion U.S. dollars, and included paid advertising on social networks as well as games and applications on social media. By 2025, advertisers are expected to spend over 82 billion dollars on promoting their products on social networks. Facebook commands the lion’s share of these expenditures (more than 80 percent), followed by LinkedIn and Pinterest with four and two percent respectively. Social network advertising – a closer look   Studies show that a little over 90 percent of U.S. companies are and will be using social media for marketing purposes. In 2017, social messaging and video were thought to be the trends of the future in relation to social media advertising and believed to have the biggest effect on marketing strategies. Lo and behold, advertising spending on social video has been growing ever since, and is expected to amount to nearly 15 billion U.S dollars in 2021. Even in this respect, Facebook has the lead, especially when it comes to influencer marketing. In fact, all tiers of influencers - from microinfluencers to celebrities - post the majority of their videos on Facebook. The second choice of platform to share their videos is YouTube, which despite being 'the' video sharing platform is not as popular yet among influencers most probably due to smaller user reach.

Over the last years, Coca-Cola has spent an average of four billion dollars a year on advertising worldwide, aside from 2020, with only about 2.8 billion U.S dollars, and 2024, with over five billion dollars spent. Spending in the United States accounts for over 20 percent of that cost, totally 646 million U.S. dollars in 2022. Advertising innovation Soft drinks still made up the overwhelming majority of Coca Cola’s sales volume in 2017. The company spent 327 million dollars advertising its flagship brand, Coke, in 2022, more than any other non-alcoholic beverage brand in the United States in that year. Coca-Cola has a long history of innovative and appealing advertising campaigns, going back to art done by American painter Norman Rockwell, to the iconic polar bears of Christmas advertising. Dominance across mediums The Coca-Cola brand’s image is not only maintained through traditional advertising mediums but social media as well. It ranked fifth on Facebook, in terms of fans, as of September 2023, with almost 107 million fans. Coca-Cola’s YouTube channel was equally popular with roughly 3.28 billion views accrued by the channel.

How much does a Super Bowl ad cost in 2025? In 2025, advertisers are paying an average of eight million U.S. dollars to air a 30-second long commercial during the Super Bowl LVI broadcast. The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar, but it is so much more than just the football being played on the pitch. The spectacle surrounding the event, which culminates in the legendary half-time show, is hotly anticipated and watched by millions around the world. With so many captive viewers before, during, and after the game, advertisers use the Super Bowl as a means of raising awareness for their products. However, this awareness and visibility comes at a cost – since 2017 the average price of a 30-second TV advertisement during Super Bowl stood at a minimum of five million U.S. dollars and has risen even further in the last few years. Super Bowl ads The Super Bowl commercials have become a phenomenon in their own right, with social media buzzing with speculation about the innovative ways in which big corporations will sell their products. A 2020 survey revealed that 79 percent of viewers see the commercials as entertainment, while almost 71 percent stated that they enjoyed watching the commercials. It also seems the viewers will go to some lengths to see these commercials beyond their original air date during the big game – during the 2019 Super Bowl, consumers spent 641 thousand hours watching Super Bowl ads on YouTube, representing a 58 percent increase over the previous year. Large corporations spend big The allure of a Super Bowl commercial spot is hard to resist for big corporations. Some of the largest Super Bowl advertisers in 2021 included Pepsico and T-Mobile, while Anheuser-Busch sat top of the list, spending 52 million U.S. dollars on advertising during the big game. As a result of this big spending, Super Bowl advertising revenue reached a record 485 million U.S. dollars in 2021, more than twice the figure of 2011.

In 2023, the total home video market in the Netherlands generated a revenue of nearly 1.06 billion euros, up from 1.03 billion euros reported in the previous year. Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) recorded the highest revenues. Netflix and YouTube were the most watched video streaming services in the country in 2024, with domestic providers becoming increasingly popular as well. The gap between TVOD and SVOD in the Netherlands Noticeable in the figures shown here is the large difference between SVOD services such as Netflix and domestic player Videoland versus TVOD. Transactional video-on-demand stands for services like iTunes or Rakuten TV, where customers can, for example, purchase or rent individual movies or series. These services do exist in the Netherlands. Videoland offers this as a feature on its SVOD platform and cinema operator Pathe has TVOD platform Pathe Thuis, where it offers individual purchases for newly released movies. What sets TVOD in the Netherlands apart from SVOD, however, is that Pathe Thuis and television broadcasters KPN and Ziggo do not invest directly in original content. This is where Netflix especially comes in, as Netflix originals were in high demand in the Netherlands in early 2019. The rise of Disney+ in the Netherlands There are more than 50 VOD platforms available in the Netherlands and one of the fastest growing services is Disney+. In 2020, the daily active users of the Disney+ app in the Netherlands was higher than those of Amazon Prime or Pathe Thuis. While no data supports this, it is suspected that the service’s catalog as well as Disney originals such as “The Mandalorian” and "Wandavision" are the main drivers for the popularity of Disney+ in the Netherlands.

Few individuals better represent the rise of the YouTube celebrity than Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, operating on YouTube as PewDiePie. The Swedish YouTuber was the content creator with the largest audience on YouTube for several years, until he was surpassed by American YouTuber MrBeast. As of January 2025, the popular creator had around 110 million subscribers. In total, videos on the PewDiePie channel have been viewed approximately 29 billion times. Subscribe to PewDiePie meme The surge in subscriber numbers from the end of 2018 onwards is attributable to PewDiePie’s “Subscribe to PewDiePie Meme“, a demonstration of his immense ability to mobilize his subscribers. In the campaign to overtake T-Series and become the channel with the most subscribers, PewDiePie’s challenge required followers to plaster words to the effect of ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ wherever possible, either in the physical or digital realms. Despite the obvious success of the campaign in terms of subscriptions, PewDiePie recently called for the campaign to be stopped following three major incidents. In the first a World War II memorial was defaced in New York City, and in March 2019 a gunman uttered the phrase before opening fire on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 people and wounding several more. In April 2019, the gunman who opened fire on a Southern California synagogue, killing one and wounding at least three others, also referred to the campaign.   The rise of the YouTuber Now a decade old, YouTube’s ability to connect content creators with massive audiences has led to the emergence of channels that rival mainstream media outlets in terms of audience size. In some cases, videos can reach 100 million views in just a matter of days . It isn’t just traditional celebrities that are finding audiences either, with channels for kids such as Cocomelon - Nursery Rhymes attracting over 194 billion views, and generating significant revenue in the process.

According to data published in April 2019, distribution income for TuneCore artists grew by 28 percent between 2017 and 2018, and publishing administration royalties grew by 42 percent in the same time period. The biggest growth in income came from YouTube monetization, which increased by 48 percent. TuneCore is an independent digital music distribution service, and also helps independent musicians with publishing and licensing. By liaising with rights collection agencies across the globe, TuneCore aids musicians with promotion and distribution of their work, and helps them to claim their royalty payments, secure their rights and sell their music via platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and Amazon Music.

In 2023, YouTube was the leading platform for podcasts in Hungary, accessed by approximately 37 percent of internet users for this purpose. Spotify ranked second with a user share of 23 percent while Google Podcasts came in third place. Nearly every third Hungarian listens to podcasts Despite the growth in popularity podcasts have achieved over the past decade, in Hungary, still only a smaller share of the population listens to them. In 2023, approximately 30 percent of Hungarians listened to podcasts, and only three percent of the population could be considered a heavy user. Podcast advertising revenues are growing The market revenue of podcast advertising saw significant growth in Hungary between 2017 and 2023, rising from 270,000 U.S. dollars to 1.6 million. Even if at a much slower rate, this figure is expected to continue following an increasing trend and peak at 1.74 million U.S. dollars in 2029.

With roughly three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, Facebook is the most used online social network worldwide. The platform surpassed two billion active users in the second quarter of 2017, taking just over 13 years to reach this milestone. In comparison, Meta-owned Instagram took 11.2 years, and Google’s YouTube took just over 14 years to achieve this landmark. As of January 2022, Facebook’s leading audience base was in India, with almost 330 million users whilst the United States ranked second with an approximate total of 179 million users. The platform also finds remarkable popularity in Indonesia and Brazil. Social Media usage in the United States In January 2021, Facebook was the platform on which users in the United States spent the most time per day. The average time spent on Facebook was 33 minutes, followed by TikTok with 32 minutes and Twitter with 31 daily minutes. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, all major social media platforms saw an increase in daily usage, which then either plateaued or decreased in 2021. At the end of 2021, over a quarter of all Facebook users in the United States belonged to the 25 to 34 year age group and 18.2 percent of users were in the 35 to 44 year age group. In general, Facebook users were more likely to be female. Meta Platforms Meta is Facebook’s recently renamed parent company and had a grand total of 3.59 billion core product users by the final quarter of 2021. Other Meta products include Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus – Meta’s virtual reality subsidiary which produces VR headsets. In 2021, Meta's revenue amounted to 117 billion US dollars, up from around 86 billion U.S. dollars in the previous financial year.

Based on survey results from 2018 and following calculations, Spotify and YouTube were the most popular ways in the Netherlands to stream music. The Swedish music service, however, was used more often as is suggested by the time spent on the platform compared to its competitors. One should note, however, that exact user numbers are rare to find in the Netherlands, as companies usually do not share this information on this specific level. The mentioned numbers in this ranking are therefore estimates, based on the survey methodology of this source. This point is amplified when looking at information from a second source (which used its own methodology). This source predicted that the number of Spotify users in the Netherlands was forecast to reach 6.2 million users in early 2018. Nonetheless, the different methodologies do seem to agree that the Netherlands is a country that favors Spotify more than other music streaming services.

What is the market size of music streaming in the Netherlands?

In 2018 (according to data published in July 2019), music streaming reached its highest ever revenue in the Netherlands. The market size of streaming reached a value of 128.6 million euros that year, an increase of roughly 18 percent compared to 2017. Digital streaming through Spotify and YouTube Music also made much more revenue than other segments of the Dutch music industry, like physical sales (which includes both cd’s as well as vinyl) and digital downloads. The source of this ranking states that Spotify had around three million paid users in the Netherlands in 2018.

The most popular podcast services in the Netherlands

The numbers provided in this ranking do not take podcasts into consideration. As of 2019, podcast platforms in the Netherlands were largely influenced by which type of smartphone was used. Apple Podcasts, for example, comes preinstalled on iOS devices, whereas Android users did not have native podcast support (which meant these users had to download a separate app). Spotify and apps like Overcast were therefore popular choices on Android devices.

As of January 2020, Malta is the European nation with the highest active social media penetration. Cyprus with an 83 percent penetration rate comes in second, followed by Iceland with 82 percent. Only 35 percent of the population in Moldova was actively on social media, making it the European country with the lowest level of social media use as of this year.

Leading social networks in the United Kingdom

YouTube leads the way in terms of penetration in the United Kingdom (UK), with a rate of 77 percent. YouTube and Facebook are extremely similar with 77 percent and 76 percent respectively. Twitter is the next non-facebook entry on the list, at fourth place, achieving 43 percent.

Facebook in the United Kingdom   

The UK is a significant market for Facebook, with approximately 36.34 million users as of May 2019. Facebook’s UK arm was able to generate revenues amounting to 1.27 billion British pounds in 2017, creating a gross profit of 506.54 million British pounds with costs of sales reaching approximately 758.66 million British pounds. There was a significant increase in revenue from 2015 to 2016, which according to Facebook UK Limited is attributable to the commencement of advertiser reseller services on the 1st of April 2016.