I'm evaluating a mid-tier creator (~400K subs) for a skincare campaign. Their average engagement rate is around 2% across recent long-form videos. Is that a good benchmark or should I push for higher?
Sarah Kim2% is actually above average for YouTube at that subscriber tier. Most 100K–500K channels hover between 1–3%, so you're in solid territory. The more important number is absolute views per video — a 400K-sub creator posting 80K-view videos is more valuable than one posting 20K-view videos with 5% engagement on a much smaller base. Also look at comment quality, not just count. Spam/emoji-heavy comment sections are a red flag even if the raw numbers look good.
Marcus ChenTotally agree. Context matters a ton. For sponsored content specifically, I pay more attention to the view-to-sub ratio on sponsored posts (if any past ones are visible) than the organic engagement rate. Some creators whose organic content pops have mediocre sponsored retention because their audience skips ads — you can usually spot this in the comment section.
Derek M.