The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

Depends, that could be worth up to $15,000 depending on ads you attract (the car YouTubers make the most).

Kofuzi himself has said he made something like $50k pre tax from ads last year. Is he making much more than this in sponsorship? He is getting free shoes, running kit and holidays, which would be nice but is a partnership with someone like Runna really bringing in enough to survive?

He's so busy he needs an assistant and an agent.

He said he charges appearance fees but didn't disclose them in the same video. He was paid to go on the Asics around the country tour. He has a merch partnership with Rabbit. And he's probably paid for brand themed shakeout runs. All of this could well be $20k a pop. It wouldn't surprise me if his salary was significantly higher than that if most pro runners. Given his reach on YouTube and Instagram, $150-$200k a year sounds about right. Ad Revenue isn't the primary source of income for running influencers because companies won't pay a high conversion rate because the cost of the product is low. The real $$$ is in brand activation events. Why companies do that, I don't know. Even if all 600 people who show up at your event plus 1 percent of 100,000 viewers buy your shoe (and that's beyond a reach), you're looking at $1.5 to $2 million in revenue, and maybe $150,000 to $200,000 in profit off of an event like that. You're paying some influencer 10 to 25 percent of your profit when you can't quantify how many people who showed up at your event and watched the video just like your brand and would've bought the shoe anyway?

ben parkes - whats happened to him?

used to be a fairly decent runner and product decent videos. find him hard to tolerate now as have no interest in training tips or shoe reviews. whats he doing with himself? last time i checked he seemed to be basically a fun runner. hard to understand how a guy who bangs as much training as he does and who has run a 2:25 can now only produce mediocre efforts in the 2:40 - 2:55 range for the last few years

surely his fan base will be diwindling as i cant see who would be interested in him... there are far better runners producing race vids and plenty of people publishing ad-hoc shoe reviews

I'd like to know the figures. 1% of all viewers transacting seems high. Which brings into question, even more, the ROI brands are getting. I can see it makes sense if you're selling snake oil Ketone IQ shots at £5 a pop - they must cost pennies to produce.

I agree that's an absolute best case scenario. Probably more like 1/10th of a percent, in which case you're giving the influencer 10-20% of revenue, which is nuts.

He doesn't necessarily need to profit off this individual video in order for him to feel like it's good for his channel/brand/reputation. Even putting that aside, this video could essentially be an audition to make similar content for another event for a fee.

Exactly this. Kofuzi has always done stuff for free, up until he had the leverage to charge for it. And now, he is represented by a social media manager, so they are adding fuel to the fire. It isn't that complicated.

Kofuzi absolutely wants to have a media brand for running...covering events, interviewing athletes, etc. He is testing out the interviews over on his secondary channel, Kofuzi Run Club. He really sucks at interviewing, by the way. I've never seen a more awkward and uninspired interviewer. He should stick to selling shoes.

Maybe he dislikes this thread so much that he's trying to create a "new, better let's run," lol.

I generally like Allie O, but I'm tiring of the caption “..as a pro runner” in every video. Maybe it draws clicks, who knows.

Nah man. That’s just mean.

Generally these comments, albeit harsh at times, are not directed at immutable characteristics.

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

A lot of marketing is like this. There are just too many uncertainties to be sure what works and what doesn't. All it takes it one marketing manager at one company to go out on a limb.

Did New Balance get $125K+ per year in value from Boris Berian in 2016-2018? This is no different.

Jake’s channel is one of the best running channels since the oversaturation. I also like Yowana.

The OG is open to being convinced to bring back shoe reviews. Indicates viewership has gone down considerably since having stopped his reviews. Suggests he stepped away from them because Shoe Tubers were copying his content. Closes out the video by saying he’ll bring reviews back next week if the video gets 100k views.

Everyone should watch and like his video. He would bring much needed competition back into the ShoeTube scene!