View variability is a real worry for branded content
Organic reach is almost always a substantial part of the price paid by brands for influencer marketing campaigns. Brands may also manage campaigns with videos not published on the creator’s account on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok (these are often called UGC campaigns), but the vast majority ask for the video to be published on the creator’s accounts, even if it costs more than asking the creator to make a video published on another account.
The objective of organic views is not only to get organic reach, as a prelude to amplification, but also to benefit from visibility within the creator’s community, which would naturally be more inclined to follow their lead than audiences targeted through paid media or audiences following a brand’s own channel.
The big issue is that view counts on any published video do vary significantly from one video to another for the same influencer. While that variability may be reduced by paying for several videos for the same creator, this is of course much more expensive than just one video.
This variability is very different depending on which platform and format are used. That’s why we launched an analysis to estimate differences in view variability between YouTube VODs, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok videos.
YouTube videos - not Shorts - have by far the best reach reliability
We analyzed 30 creators active across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, based exclusively on content published in 2025, representing 32,587 pieces of content. For each creator, we compared the variability of views for every platform.
As a measure of variability, we used the Coefficient of Variation, which, for a channel on a platform, measures the average difference between each video’s views and the average number of views of that channel. On YouTube VODs, that coefficient is on average 80%, which is quite significant. It is smaller for channels with a high number of subscribers. Our tool, Influencer Access, provides details for every channel, particularly the worst-case views, which occur in 10% of videos.
Compared to YouTube VOD, all other formats are much more variable, and therefore more likely to result in disappointing view counts:
- 2× more variable on YouTube Shorts
- 2.5× on Instagram Reels
- 3× more on TikTok videos
This trend can be explained by differences in user behavior: YouTube VOD views are primarily driven by subscribers actively choosing to watch a creator’s content, whereas short-form formats like YouTube Shorts, and even more so TikTok and Reels, are largely consumed through algorithmic recommendations driven by each video’s topics. This naturally creates more variability than a strongly subscriber-based organic audience.
Does this mean that basing campaigns on Shorts, Reels, or TikTok videos is risky in all cases? There are two ways to mitigate this risk. One is simply to sponsor several short-form videos, which mechanically reduces variability and risk. For example, the overall variability versus the average in the combined views of three Shorts is comparable to the variability of one YouTube VOD. The second way is to buy paid media to amplify the views, which brings certainty to the number of views you’re paying for. In both cases, you pay more to reduce risk, but it can be worth it if the overall price is in line with your target CPM.
Bottom Line
To achieve predictable organic reach, controlled CPM, and reduced risk, YouTube VOD is structurally the best format. It is particularly crucial when dealing with a first-time creator partner, since it would be too risky to buy several videos from such a creator without knowing whether they will perform well or not. Using other formats is much riskier in terms of CPM, but this can be offset by buying paid media or ordering multiple videos.