Context
Source URL:
Why is it important: I need to understand how monetization and content works if I create solutions for it
Keywords
monetization, youtube, content creation, personal branding
Summary
...
Highlights
Logistics
- You need to meet minimum requirements before monetizing: >1000 Subs >4000 hrs watch time
- Once you hit these landmarks, you can apply for the program and turn on ads
- Ali made 77 videos before he enabled monetization. For him, making $5-$10 was not worth annoying the audience. But $500-$1000 was totally worth annoying the audience a little
- Before monetization, he had 340k views, 8300 subscribers, and 22.6k hours of watch time
- From April-Sep 2018 (right after turning on monetization), made £6,100 pounds in 6 months. CPM: £5.85, RPM: £1.91 (RPM is much lower because adblock, YT taking a cut etc)
Watch time
- Important for both revenue and optimizing the YT algorithm
- Really look at the drop-off graph to figure out where/why people are leaving
- For the same views, a higher watch time will generate far more revenue
- >10 min videos earn about 3x the revenue at <10 min videos because of mid-roll ads. Though YouTube has recently enabled mid-roll ads after 8 mins
CPM
- Depending on the topic and the audience, the CPM will be much more different
- For post YouTubers, the CPM is $3-$7 per 1000 views
- For the right topic, can be as high as $30-$40 per 1000 views
- YouTube takes a 45% cut of CPM
Sponsors
- Getting money for plugging a product into your video
- With some channels (like Casey Neistat), you can make $10k-$100k/video
YouTube Analytics
- Ali only has around a 100k pounds in revenue over the lifetime of his channel. Crazy for a channel with a milioj subscribers
- After being a YouTuber for 9 months and then enabling monetization, Ali was making between £5-£15 per day
- After making his iPad Pro notes video in August 2018, Ali's revenue shot up to £40-£70 pounds per day
- The revenue kind of stayed at the same level until around March 2019
- Form March 2019 - March 2020, was consistently making between £70-£130 per day
- From March 2020, it's been an exponential rise (because lockdown)
- Made £578 in a single day on 3rd Jul 2020. Made £711 in a single day on 23 Aug 2020
- In last 28 days of August, made £11.6k in revenue [!]
Closing thoughts
- It's very much a "slow-and-steady", followed by exponential growth process
- You have to keep at it