When it comes to virtual private networks or VPNs, ExpressVPN is the #1 trusted leader in the industry. In recent years, ExpressVPN has made a name for itself, especially on YouTube. According to similarweb.com, 84.17% of its website traffic came from YouTube links.
ExpressVPN has risen through the ranks amongst its competitors Surfshark, NordVPN, and Proton VPN. According to similarweb ExpressVPN ranks #133 in the computer electronics category, beating out NordVPN (with a category ranking of #193), Surfshark (with a category ranking of #387), and Proton VPN (with a category ranking of #358).
With this in mind, Neoreach conducted our Social Intelligence Insights Report for Q3 2022 to provide analyzed data from the US and Canada that was pulled from 7,667 YouTube videos indicating brand partnership. Through this report, we found that ExpressVPN landed a spot as one of the top 5 spenders, putting much of its marketing strategy into influencer marketing on YouTube to promote the brand, its products, and its benefits.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN was founded in 2009 by Peter Burchhardt and Dan Pomerantz, two entrepreneurs from Wharton, with the goal of protecting people’s privacy in mind. According to their “about us” page, ExpressVPN seeks to protect against “corporations, governments, and hackers [who] are now able to monitor, manipulate, and restrict in once-unimaginable ways.”
ExpressVPN is a virtual private network that provides a secure and encrypted link from your device to the internet. As illustrated above, their technology is largely used to protect against hackers, censorship, and data exploitation.
In recent years, ExpressVPN has also become a way for users to connect to different wifi networks in different countries. This allows people to access content and data that might be different or restricted in their home country. More specifically, this feature is often utilized to find different content on streaming services like Netflix.
It is their ease of use that allows ExpressVPN to boast 3 million active users around the world.
Via Mozilla
If you want to read our Honey Marketing Campaign Teardown, click here.
Top Spenders
Our dataset from 2022 was composed of 7,667 videos that complied with all FTC guidelines and received over 10,000 views. Of these 7,667 videos, the Tech industry spent the largest amount on influencer marketing. The Tech Industry’s IMV for 2022 came out to a grand total of $23,360,823.18. A total of 1,098 videos were made with a total reach of 11,342,788,664 users. The average view per video amounted to 2,016.09 seconds.
ExpressVPN made it to 3rd place, behind Hello Fresh and Keeps. These 127 videos lead to a whopping IMV value of $3,344,751.08.
| Brand | IMV | Number of Videos |
|---|---|---|
| Hello Fresh | $4,795,222.74 | 172 |
| Keeps | $4,214,907.84 | 144 |
| Express VPN | $3,344,751.08 | 127 |
| Manscaped | $3,316,745.08 | 181 |
| NordVPN | $3,265,567.38 | 95 |
Statistics Gathered in Q3 2022 – NeoReach Raw Social Intelligence Data
Working with Influencers
ExpressVPN ended up experimenting with a wide variety of content. All in all, ExpressVPN partnered with 33 influencers with reach that ranged from 29,300 to over 10 million people. The combined reach of influencers by ExpressVPN would total 40,926,400 users. This would play out with 72.8% of influencers residing in the United States and 27% of users residing in Canada.
The ease of sharing ExpressVPN’s streamlined UI and effective service allowed it to be in many different categories of content. For instance, ExpressVPN was represented across comedy, education, entertainment, film and animation, gaming, how to & style, music, news and politics, people and blogs, and sports.
The most sponsored category was “News and Politics” with “Comedy” and “Film & Animation” following behind. This usage of different categories allows ExpressVPN to maximize its reach to its intended audience.
If you want to read our Squarespace Marketing Campaign Teardown, click here.
Standout Content and Influencers
The information featured in the table below was pulled from the standout sponsored content posted between July and August of 2022 on YouTube by standout creators identified in the Q3 2022 report.
| Handle | Total Views | Total IMV | Reach |
|---|---|---|---|
| benshapiro | 14,393,707 | $2,028,136.06 | 3,810,000 |
| actualdannygonzalez | 3,134,248 | $520,885.34 | 4,960,000 |
| filmtheorists | 1,876,787 | $276,774.46 | 10,200,000 |
Statistics Gathered in Q3 2022 – NeoReach Raw Social Intelligence Data
Ben Shapiro is the owner of the Daily Wire as well as his own show called The Ben Shapiro Show. Ben Shapiro is known for being an American conservative political commentator. His main channel consists of him reacting to pop culture, economic, and political events from a conservative point of view. As of now, Ben Shapiro has 5.19 million subscribers on his personal channel.
ActualDannyGonzalez is a YouTube comedian who started off on Vine. Like many YouTube comedians, Danny makes video game content, skits, and reaction videos. He is known for his criticisms of Jake and Logan Paul as well as his commentary on TikTok stars. His personal YouTube channel hosts around 5.86 million subscribers.
Film Theorists is a new spinoff channel by YouTuber Matthew Robert Patrick (MatPat). He started off his career with his main channel Game Theory, which broke down video game lore using an investigative style that involves math, science, and other fields. His channel Film Theorists builds on this original style and applies it to movies. As of now, MattPatt has a subscriber count of 11.4 million subscribers on his Film Theorist channel.
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Results
The ExpressVPN Q3 Report Data accumulated $3,344,751.08 in IMV, as well as a total view count of 23,457,576 views. Looking at the data, ExpressVPN is one of the leaders in the VPN industry, beating out close competitors in user count. The top 3 performers were Ben Shapiro, Danny Gonzalez, and Matthew Patrick.
We expect to see increased usage of ExpressVPN as more domestic consumers learn about the beneficial values of VPN technology as well as increased usage of ExpressVPN in countries with strict speech laws. We look forward to seeing how ExpressVPN improves its influencer marketing strategy and its user base in the next year.
If you want to read our Netflix Marketing Campaign Teardown, click here.
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