If you’ve spent any time on YouTube, you would have come across a Raid: Shadow Legends (‘RSL’) ad. It is a freemium mobile game that involves turn-based combat. But how much does RSL pay YouTubers?
RSL pays anywhere from a few hundred to up to tens of thousands for a single advertisem*nt. They seem to be a reputable business that pays on time and makes themselves available to a wide variety of YouTubers.
Let’s look at why RSL is everywhere, what they pay, how to get paid by RSL and whether RSL is successful or not.
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Why Are Raid: Shadow Legends Sponsoring YouTubers?
The main reason why you see so many RSL pre rolls and advertising across so many different Youtubers is because RSL gets value for money off advertising via YouTube.
RSL has done the calculations and found that if they treat Youtubers well and offer the tools necessary, they can get access to people who are in their target audience via good and interesting advertising which has a high clickthrough rate.
YouTubers are a specific type of person that RSL likes for several reasons. This is mainly that YouTubers have the talent stack that RSL is looking for, YouTubers like sponsors and respond well, and YouTubers have certain audiences.
YouTuber Talent Stack
The talent stack is a concept first brought to my attention by Scott Adams, and involves a collection of skills and abilities that make you successful or good in certain situations.
With most YouTubers, they generally have the ability to do video editing, follow a script, make entertaining concepts and also can do promotional abilities.
RSL likes this, as that means they can merely provide the footage, script, necessary tools and other guidance and then get a high quality advertisem*nt of their product.
YouTubers Keen for Sponsors
YouTubers are generally always keen for sponsors, and so are quite available and keen to work with RSL and produce good enough content to keep RSL sponsoring them.
RSL has a reputation that they are available and accessible, and are sometimes the only sponsor for a YouTuber. This enthusiasm is what RSL likes and if you only have one sponsor, you’re probably going to go above and beyond to please them and make good videos.
This is particularly true for certain ‘edgier’ YouTubers, as many channels have been demonetized completely for certain topics or because certain keywords are mentioned, such as any mention of weapons or death.
YouTubers Have Certain Audiences
Reaching certain demographics is very difficult, and YouTubers will often have access to one of the hardest audiences to reach: male, late teens to early 30s, with an interest in technology.
RSL is a mobile game, so they want to reach this audience, and of course, RSL wants to reach people who have a bit of disposable income, a good enough phone to play the game and a basic understanding of technology.
YouTubers have audiences that meet all these requirements.
How to Make Money From Raid: Shadow Legends?
The money you get from an RSL deal is going to depend on the size of your channel. If you average in the thousands or tens of thousands of views, this is more attractive to RSL as it means more eyeballs.
RSL will let you know the type of advertisem*nt they want and will provide you with almost everything you need to make a good one, so if you follow their directions carefully, you should end up with a few hundred if not into the thousands per ad on a successful video.
It’s possible to even earn up into the tens of thousands per advertisem*nt.
RSL ads also allow a lot of freedom, and it is common to see the personalities of YouTubers coming through in the RSL ads, which actually makes the YouTubers much more invested in making an interesting piece of footage, again working off their talent stack aptitudes.
Is Raid: Shadow Legends Successful?
The mobile game sector as a whole is majorly successful, and RSL is one of the bigger players. The sector runs into billions of dollars already.
One reason for a large amount of monetization success with such platforms is that many people already have a payment method set up for Google or Apple, so it is literally one tap to refill coins, diamonds, gems or whatever is needed to do better for the game.
RSL also is quite accessible (many sponsors disappear when it is time to pay up), makes it easy to get paid and generally offers same day or next day payment once the RSL ad is up on the video.
Given the amount of time RSL has been around, it is unlikely that it is an unsuccessful business. To be spending this much on advertising for this long, you would need some seriously lax capital investors if your game was terrible in revenue.
Many players like the game for its very detailed art and display, but a common criticism is how formulaic and pay-to-win it is. It is possible to grind the game for a very long time and get to the high levels, but mainly you will want to spend at least a small amount.
It’s always hard to do anything interesting in the mobile space, especially when your opponent is not a human.
How Many Active Players Does RAID: Shadow Legends Have?
RSL has many millions of players, and some tracking reveals its likely numbers around 3.3 million. [1]
It is also clear that there are many millions of ratings, downloads and comments on the respective app stores. These are not all active users, but it at least shows how many people may have played it at least once.
The true number of active players is only really going to be known by Plarium, the developer, and they are not always going to be wanting everyone to know what this figure is.
There are some other data to look at, such as the size of the RSL subreddit and the Plarium forums, but not all active or hardcore players will be in these forums. Many casual players who still login every day may also never look into these places.
Mobile gaming is all about the data. RSL has worked out that if they get enough players, some of them will spend a lot on the game.
RSL also knows how much it costs to get each new user, and what percentage of new users will spend a lot, so they are fine with paying a lot in advertising in order to get that small percentage of users who make up a lot of their revenue.
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Laura Bais
Laura is a co-owner of Computer Zilla and an editor. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Cultural Studies and a Master's degree in Journalism, both of which have sharpened her skills as an editor. During her college years, Laura served as a marketing team leader for one student asso...
