You Have Options…
YouTube Partner Program
The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) is a program that allows content creators a way to monetize their content on YouTube. Creators can earn money from advertisements served on their videos and from the YouTube Premium subscribers watching their content.
YouTube Ad-Serve Process
Like most forms of online advertising, YouTube advertising is based on a bid amount,. Advertisers who are willing to spend the most are the most likely to win the bid auction and their ads will play alongside videos.
Advertisers have control over the bid amount and which topics and keywords they want theirs to run on.
How It Works
For each singular view on a video, the advertiser who submitted the highest bid will have their ad displayed to the viewer either before the video starts, as an overlay on the bottom of the video, or appear on the top of the sidebar.
When an advertisement is triggered by your video – you will earn a certain amount of revenue regardless of what actions the viewer takes. If the viewer should click on that advertisement, you will earn a higher revenue rate (so it is in your best interests to make sure that your videos are in the correct category).
YouTube partners earn on average 55% of the total amount an advertiser is spending.
The only responsibility a content creator has to worry about is publishing quality content – YouTube will take care of all the business details for you and you receive more than half of the income (which is pretty good considering the Google is acting as an ad agent, collection agent, and payment processor for you).
Ad Placement Determining Factors
• The demographics of viewers (age, gender, and location) watching your videos.
• The keywords in video title, description, or transcript.
• The category the video is listed under (interest-based targeting) – be sure to choose a category that is most suited for your content.
• Channel statistics such as views and subscribers also play a factor in ad placement. Typically, high profile advertisers do not want to be featured on channels with view stats or few subscribers. Advertisers are in the business of trying to sell products and want to be featured on channels with millions of views and hundreds of thousands subscribers.
As your channel grows and you receive more subscribers and views, you should see the quality of your advertisers increase. This growth will also correspond to a proportionate increase in your revenue since those high profile advertisers typically bid higher.
Applying to YouTube Partner Program
If you’re goal is to monetize YouTube, you’ll want to apply to the YouTube partner program. This is the only program to place advertisements in front of your content offered by YouTube.
Requirements
There are some requirements that you need to meet in order to apply for this program:
- You must live in one of the eligible countries (and yes, the USA is on the list).
- You must read and agree to the YouTube partner program terms.
- You must comply with the YouTube partner policies and the community guidelines.
- You must sign up for the Google AdSense program and link your YouTube account to your AdSense account.
- And as of January 2018 – your channel must have received for 4,000 hours of watch time within the last 12 months and you must have at least 1,000 subscribers.
- Payments will begin once you’ve occurred a minimum of $100 in your AdSense account.
- You must set your monetization preferences – basically informing YouTube what type of ads to run on your content.
Once your account is approved, your videos will have a new button available in your dashboard labeled “Monetization”. This new section will contain the settings to choose the types of ads you want to display:
- Display ads – which are only available on desktop (and are required). They show up on the right of the screen outside of the video.
- Overlay ads – which are only available on desktop. They show up as a banner over the bottom of your video.
- Sponsored Cards – available for all devices. They show up at the end of your video.
- Skipable video ads – available for all devices. They are entire videos that play before the actual video. These are the types of ads that will make you the most money.
If your goal is to use YouTube for monetization, then my advice is to enable all of these types of advertising formats giving you the most potential for revenue share. Enabling all of the ad formats will allow you the most opportunity to have advertisers (that find your content relevant) display theirs ads.
Warnings
- You are agreeing to upload and monetize only content you have 100% ownership of. That means you can’t use music or audio that was done by somebody else. YouTube would consider that plagiarism and you risk having your account shut down if you try to monetize content you do not own.
- You’re also agreeing that you will not click on your own advertising. Google has a very complex system of checking compliance with this and if you do click on your advertising you will have your account shut down.
Other Monetization Opportunities
Regardless if you join the YouTube Partnership Program, if your using YouTube for monetization, then it is important that you understand there are more options available to you. Here are some other ideas for you to monetize your content:
• Sponsorship’s – Depending on the type of content you’re producing and the topic of your content, there are companies that may pay for a quick shout out during your video.
Example: If you’re making videos about balloon animals, there may be a balloon supplier that would interested in forming a partnership or paying you for a sponsorship.
You can have paid sponsorship’s in your videos and still display Google partner program advertising.
• Sponsored Links – You might not mention another company’s product or services within your video, however, some companies might pay you to include a link in your description to their products or services.
Warning: You do not want to appear to be spamming your audience, especially if it’s a product or service that you don’t personally believe in. However, if this is a product or service that you personally endorse, and the vendors is offering a discount to your audience, then it might be a worthwhile endeavor.
• Affiliate Programs – You join an affiliate program that will pay you to send traffic to an offer. This would involve you putting a link in your description to an affiliate program. You would receive a commission for every sale by one of your viewers who clicked that link and completed a purchase.
• Product Reviews – Highly popular channels often have companies approach them to do a review of their products or services. Typical product reviews involve the video to give a detailed review about a specific product and giving their opinion (good or bad).
Warning: There are some legal considerations (FTC) when doing product reviews that involve disclosure.
• Selling Your Own – If your marketing on YouTube, chances are you already have your own product or service to sell. If you’re monetizing on YouTube, you might consider creating your own product since you already have an entire community watching your content.
• Partnerships & Joint Ventures – There may be potential partners within your community or within the community of some of your competitors. Consider reaching out to them about forming a partnership or joint venture. This may include cross promotions or promoting each other’s products or services.
When thinking of monetization opportunities, it’s important to think outside the box. Many of these options can be used in combination with the YouTube partnership program.