- Garena Free Fire’s influencer marketing strategy: YouTube dominance and recent challenges
- Published 13/11/2023
- 5 min Read
- Written by Julia Shandrokha
Table of contents
Garena Free Fire (also called Free Fire Battlegrounds or just Free Fire), a game that has consistently made waves in the digital world, is currently a top contender on YouTube, ranking fifth among games in terms of mentions. Despite facing a recent decline in mentions, views, and influencer engagement, the game still boasts impressive figures: 23.15B views and mentions by over 7k influencers in the last year. In this article, the Famesters gaming influencer marketing agency delves into the game’s unique position in the online gaming landscape, exploring its fluctuating popularity and the diverse geographical spread of its mentions.
In the article, our experts also highlight the profiles of influencers who champion Free Fire on YouTube, offering insights into their impact on the game’s marketing strategies. Additionally, we touch upon the game’s financial milestones, noting a peak in revenue and downloads in 2020, followed by a downward trend. Want to understand the intricate dynamics of influencer marketing and the enduring appeal of battle royale games like Garena Free Fire? Read further!
VIEWS AND MENTIONS OF GARENA FREE FIRE ON YOUTUBE
Right now, Garena Free Fire is #5 on YouTube by the number of mentions among games. It’s noticeable that the game’s mentions are allocated almost exclusively on YouTube (99%) versus Twitch (1%). While most games tend to leverage the power of live streams on Twitch, Garena Free Fire sticks to YouTube more than average.
However, in the last year, Free Fire Battlegrounds has faced a decrease in mentions (-62%), views (-13%), and the number of influencers mentioning the game on YouTube (-52%) compared to the previous period. Although the battle royale game genre remains one of the most popular on YouTube and Garena Free Fire one of the most played and mentioned, it seems like the game’s influencer marketing budget has decreased – it might be an opportunity for its competitors to step in. Despite all that, here are the impressive numbers. For the last year, Garena Free Fire got:
- 23.15B views;
- 288.68k mentions;
- 7.15k influencers mentioning it.
Here’s the mentions dynamics chart for it to be more visual:
Anyway, on YouTube, any day is the day to watch some of Free Fire Battlegrounds: each day of the year there has been posted at least one new video mentioning it. Actually, on average, there have been 634.78 mentions per day. Tuesday is usually the most “rich” in videos – it gets 16.1%, while Saturday gets the least of it – 11.9%. Seems like Garena Free Fire players are busy on weekends, unlike PUBG Mobile fans, for example. See full report on PUBG’s influencer marketing here.
Were Free Fire is mentioned the most
The geography of the game’s mentions is surprising in the least: the #1 country where the influencers mentioning it is India. And Garena Free Fire is now banned in India! It has been since February, 2022. Well, guess the ban can’t stop gamers and fans from doing what they truly love. This shows Free Fire’s audience strong loyalty and dedication.
And here are top 5 countries that show the most mentions of the game on YouTube:
- India – 28%
- Brazil – 18%
- Indonesia – 9%
- Colombia – 4%
- Mexico – 4%
WHAT INFLUENCERS GARENA FREE FIRE WORKS WITH
First of all, most of them are gamers, of course. The influencers creating content in the Gaming category are 80% of those who promote Free Fire on YouTube. And top 5 categories look like this:
- Gaming – 80%
- Entertainment – 6%
- People & Blogs – 5%
- Science & Technology – 2%
- Music – 2%
Average influencer chosen for Garena Free Fire promotion on YouTube looks like this:
- They have 549k subscribers on average – a macro-influencer, that is.
Here’s a guide on the topic:
- Their videos get 55.2k views on average.
- Their average engagement rate is 11.9%.
$419 is the average price an influencer charges for their services in the case of Free Fire Battlegrounds, and with this the game’s marketers get CPM (Cost Per Thousand views) at almost $7.6, which is relatively low compared to other games’ CPMs.
EXAMPLES OF GARENA FREE FIRE YOUTUBE ADS
Here’s one of the most popular YouTube Shorts videos on a Mexican channel CharlyBannana (3.08M subscribers). Here, a character, weapon, and some Free Fire features are presented. The video has over 1.6M views, almost 98k likes, and an engagement rate of 6.06%.
And this one is a longer one – a video that may be described as classical for such gaming channels as Golemcito Games (11.4M subscribers, Peru). Over 1M views and 30k likes with the engagement rate of 15.28% – quite a good result, also the ER is significantly higher than the average for this channel – 2.92%.
GARENA FREE FIRE REVENUE AND DOWNLOADS
2020 was The Year for Free Fire – that year, the game’s revenue got over $2B, and this is its best yearly result so far. After that, the revenue has gradually decreased to $1.2B in 2021 and $500M in 2022. The number of downloads has also decreased from 450M in 2020 to 262.3M in 2023. The 2023 revenue is yet to be counted, but it seems like Free Fire Battlefield is cooling down. The game’s ban in India where it still is the most popular seems to be the major reason for that.
However, it would have been wrong to underestimate and write Garena Free Fire off. In 2023, the game reports to have 187M daily active users – which is an improvement over 2021’s 150M.
See the opportunity you can take with your own game while Free Fire is striving to maintain its place among the most mentioned games on YouTube and the one of the most played battle royale games? Contact the Famesters influencer marketing agency via [email protected] to build a successful strategy for your game’s promotion!
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