Earning Strategies for Successful Youtube Shorts: What You Need & How Much?

YouTube Shorts have grown in popularity since the launch of the platform in 2021. At first, they offered a way for creators to share their content in a vertical format. However, YouTube Shorts monetization is also a great way for creators to earn money. When you monetize YouTube shorts, you increase the potential of earning more income on the platform. In this article, we explore what entails monetized YouTube shorts and how to increase your YT shorts earnings.

YouTube Shorts Monetization A cross-platform offers useful features for making your YouTube videos stand out to earn more revenue!

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Part 1. YouTube Shorts Monetization: Eligibility Criteria

With short monetization options, you can monetize your short-firm content by joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Being a member of this program gives you access to all tools for making money on YouTube. This includes the ability to place ads on your videos or make money directly from your audience through fan funding.

Eligibility Requirements for Monetizing Shorts

The easiest way to monetize Shorts on YouTube is to access the fan-funding program. This program gives you access to special tools that you can use to generate revenue by interacting with views. This is a great option for creators who primarily make short-form videos. The requirements for this option are as follows:

• At least 500 subscribers to your channels
• At least 3 public video uploads in the last 90 days
• At least 3,000 public watch hours in the last 365 days, or
• At least 3 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days

Eligibility for Monetizing Shorts and Videos

The other way you can monetize shorts is by accessing ad revenue and fan-funding. With this option, you will generate income from ads that appear between Shorts in addition to interacting with viewers. This is a great option for creators who make long and short videos. The requirements for this include:

• At least 1,000 subscribers to your channels
• At least 4,000 public watch hours in the last 365 days, or
• At least 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days

Additional Guidelines for Creators

Once you meet the eligibility criteria, you will be required to follow certain guidelines or policies to continue earning. The additional guidelines include:

• Follow YouTube’s Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines
• Make sure your channel does not have active Community Guidelines Strikes
• Live in a region where the program is available
• Avoid uploading another creator’s content by transforming the content or adding a new perspective to it
• Avoid using unedited clips from TV shows or movies that you don’t have rights to
• Don’t pay for fake or automated views
• Turn on 2-Step verification for your Google Account
• Have an active AdSense account
• Have access to advanced YouTube features by verifying your identity

Part 2. Monetizing YouTube Shorts: Step-by-Step Guide

Can you monetize YouTube shorts? Yes, in more than one way. The easiest is through the ad-revenue sharing model. Follow these steps to become part of the YPP and start monetizing your Shorts on YouTube:

Step 1Sign in to YouTube

Step 2Select YouTube Studio

In the top right of the YouTube page, click on your profile picture. From the pop-up menu that appears, select YouTube Studio.

Step 3In the left menu, Click on Earn

Step 4

If you are eligible for the YPP, you will see an Apply Click on it to go to the next step. If you are not yet eligible, click the Get Notified button to be notified once your channel becomes eligible. That’s when you will have the opportunity to finish the application process.

Step 5

Click Start to review and accept YouTube’s Base terms.

Step 6

Link your existing AdSense account if you have one. If not. Click Start to set up a new one.

Step 7

Wait for YouTube to review and approve your application. The process will normally take a month. Once you are approved for the YPP, go to the Earn section in YouTube Studio. Then accept the Shorts Monetization Module. This will allow you to access ads and other money-making tools on YouTube.

The instructions shared above are for applying for the YPP using a computer or desktop. You will still follow the same steps when using a mobile device, but you will do so using the YouTube Studio app.

The money-making feature monetizes Shorts in exciting ways. To start monetizing with Super Thanks fan funding, click Supers on the Earn tab in YouTube Studio. Then click Get Started, and follow the presented prompts. The same process is applicable for Channel Memberships, and other fan-funding options.

Part 3. YouTube Shorts Monetization: A Realistic Look at Earnings Potential

Monetizing YouTube Shorts has the potential to make decent earnings. Although the amount is not as much as a long-form videos, it is a great way of making money on YouTube quickly. Most YouTube Shorts creators agree that the revenue per thousand views (RPM) for short-form content is currently around $0.05 - $0.07. This means that for a million Shorts views, you will make $50 - $70.

Factors That Influence Earnings

The amount of money you make on YouTube Shorts is not fixed. It will depend on several factors, including the revenue channel and your interactions with viewers

• Ad revenue: A higher view count on Shorts increases ad revenue from the ads that are between Shorts on the platform.
• Viewer engagement: Viewer engagement brings in additional revenue through features like Super Thanks.
• Number of monetized Shorts: Monetizing most of your short-form videos will increase the revenue generated.
• Shopping Revenue: How well you promote your products and the set price point of the products will determine the shopping revenue generated.

Examples of Creators Who Have Earned from Shorts

The revenue-sharing program is the easiest way for creators to earn money on YouTube. Since monetizing their Shorts, these creators earned some decent bonus amounts:

• Hassan Khadair (2.1 million subscribers) - Earned $872.14 in ads from 22 million Shorts views
• Riley Lemon (84,000 subscribers) - Earned $76.23 in ads from 1.9 million Shorts views
• James Seo (573,000 subscribers) - Earned $445.09 in ads from 10.3 million Shorts views
• Matthew King (212,000 subscribers) - Earned $163.73 in ads from 4.2 million Shorts views

Part 4. Editing YouTube Shorts with WonderShare to Boost Revenue Potential

The best way to reap big from Shorts YouTube monetization is to make quality videos that will go viral easily. Videos that generate more views will earn you more revenue and increase the number of subscribers within a short time. With Wondershare Filmora, making such videos is easy. The video editing software offers useful features for making your videos stand out. From jaw-dropping sports videos to cinema-like production, the choice of options is endless.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

The choice of Filmora features you use on your editing projects will depend on your goals. Here are a few favorites to get you started:

1. Auto Reframe

Before uploading a short-form video on YouTube, you want to make sure it is of the right resolution. The Auto Reframe feature on Filmora allows you to instantly resize your videos while keeping all the important details. You only need to record one video for all platforms, and edit to fit with auto reframe.

2. Text to Speech

Narration is an important aspect of YouTube Shorts. You can tell what is happening in the clip in the simplest way for your audience to understand. The Text to Speech (TTS) feature on Filmora allows you to convert your text files to voice-over. This makes your Shorts video more entertaining and enriched with more elements.

3. AI Portrait

Just like other vertical social media videos, Shorts require some bit of personalization. You may want to add a bit of elements or filters. The AI Portrait feature automatically removes background with high accuracy to further enhance your videos. It also comes with over 70 portrait and sticker effects to bring out the mood you are going after. Automatically recognize the faces of your subjects and add AR stickers on the go.

Conclusion

YouTube Shorts have become immensely popular. They tend to have a higher ROI and receive more engagement compared to long-form video content. This makes vertical short-form videos more important and lucrative for content creators. When it comes to YouTube short video monetization, posting quality videos is the key ingredient. We recommend using Wondershare FIlmora to edit your videos. This will make sure they are more entertaining and keep more people engaged.

Free Download Free Download Learn More

Part 1. YouTube Shorts Monetization: Eligibility Criteria

With short monetization options, you can monetize your short-firm content by joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Being a member of this program gives you access to all tools for making money on YouTube. This includes the ability to place ads on your videos or make money directly from your audience through fan funding.

Eligibility Requirements for Monetizing Shorts

The easiest way to monetize Shorts on YouTube is to access the fan-funding program. This program gives you access to special tools that you can use to generate revenue by interacting with views. This is a great option for creators who primarily make short-form videos. The requirements for this option are as follows:

• At least 500 subscribers to your channels
• At least 3 public video uploads in the last 90 days
• At least 3,000 public watch hours in the last 365 days, or
• At least 3 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days

Eligibility for Monetizing Shorts and Videos

The other way you can monetize shorts is by accessing ad revenue and fan-funding. With this option, you will generate income from ads that appear between Shorts in addition to interacting with viewers. This is a great option for creators who make long and short videos. The requirements for this include:

• At least 1,000 subscribers to your channels
• At least 4,000 public watch hours in the last 365 days, or
• At least 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days

Additional Guidelines for Creators

Once you meet the eligibility criteria, you will be required to follow certain guidelines or policies to continue earning. The additional guidelines include:

• Follow YouTube’s Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines
• Make sure your channel does not have active Community Guidelines Strikes
• Live in a region where the program is available
• Avoid uploading another creator’s content by transforming the content or adding a new perspective to it
• Avoid using unedited clips from TV shows or movies that you don’t have rights to
• Don’t pay for fake or automated views
• Turn on 2-Step verification for your Google Account
• Have an active AdSense account
• Have access to advanced YouTube features by verifying your identity

Part 2. Monetizing YouTube Shorts: Step-by-Step Guide

Can you monetize YouTube shorts? Yes, in more than one way. The easiest is through the ad-revenue sharing model. Follow these steps to become part of the YPP and start monetizing your Shorts on YouTube:

Step 1Sign in to YouTube

Step 2Select YouTube Studio

In the top right of the YouTube page, click on your profile picture. From the pop-up menu that appears, select YouTube Studio.

Step 3In the left menu, Click on Earn

Step 4

If you are eligible for the YPP, you will see an Apply Click on it to go to the next step. If you are not yet eligible, click the Get Notified button to be notified once your channel becomes eligible. That’s when you will have the opportunity to finish the application process.

Step 5

Click Start to review and accept YouTube’s Base terms.

Step 6

Link your existing AdSense account if you have one. If not. Click Start to set up a new one.

Step 7

Wait for YouTube to review and approve your application. The process will normally take a month. Once you are approved for the YPP, go to the Earn section in YouTube Studio. Then accept the Shorts Monetization Module. This will allow you to access ads and other money-making tools on YouTube.

The instructions shared above are for applying for the YPP using a computer or desktop. You will still follow the same steps when using a mobile device, but you will do so using the YouTube Studio app.

The money-making feature monetizes Shorts in exciting ways. To start monetizing with Super Thanks fan funding, click Supers on the Earn tab in YouTube Studio. Then click Get Started, and follow the presented prompts. The same process is applicable for Channel Memberships, and other fan-funding options.

Part 3. YouTube Shorts Monetization: A Realistic Look at Earnings Potential

Monetizing YouTube Shorts has the potential to make decent earnings. Although the amount is not as much as a long-form videos, it is a great way of making money on YouTube quickly. Most YouTube Shorts creators agree that the revenue per thousand views (RPM) for short-form content is currently around $0.05 - $0.07. This means that for a million Shorts views, you will make $50 - $70.

Factors That Influence Earnings

The amount of money you make on YouTube Shorts is not fixed. It will depend on several factors, including the revenue channel and your interactions with viewers

• Ad revenue: A higher view count on Shorts increases ad revenue from the ads that are between Shorts on the platform.
• Viewer engagement: Viewer engagement brings in additional revenue through features like Super Thanks.
• Number of monetized Shorts: Monetizing most of your short-form videos will increase the revenue generated.
• Shopping Revenue: How well you promote your products and the set price point of the products will determine the shopping revenue generated.

Examples of Creators Who Have Earned from Shorts

The revenue-sharing program is the easiest way for creators to earn money on YouTube. Since monetizing their Shorts, these creators earned some decent bonus amounts:

• Hassan Khadair (2.1 million subscribers) - Earned $872.14 in ads from 22 million Shorts views
• Riley Lemon (84,000 subscribers) - Earned $76.23 in ads from 1.9 million Shorts views
• James Seo (573,000 subscribers) - Earned $445.09 in ads from 10.3 million Shorts views
• Matthew King (212,000 subscribers) - Earned $163.73 in ads from 4.2 million Shorts views

Part 4. Editing YouTube Shorts with WonderShare to Boost Revenue Potential

The best way to reap big from Shorts YouTube monetization is to make quality videos that will go viral easily. Videos that generate more views will earn you more revenue and increase the number of subscribers within a short time. With Wondershare Filmora, making such videos is easy. The video editing software offers useful features for making your videos stand out. From jaw-dropping sports videos to cinema-like production, the choice of options is endless.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

The choice of Filmora features you use on your editing projects will depend on your goals. Here are a few favorites to get you started:

1. Auto Reframe

Before uploading a short-form video on YouTube, you want to make sure it is of the right resolution. The Auto Reframe feature on Filmora allows you to instantly resize your videos while keeping all the important details. You only need to record one video for all platforms, and edit to fit with auto reframe.

2. Text to Speech

Narration is an important aspect of YouTube Shorts. You can tell what is happening in the clip in the simplest way for your audience to understand. The Text to Speech (TTS) feature on Filmora allows you to convert your text files to voice-over. This makes your Shorts video more entertaining and enriched with more elements.

3. AI Portrait

Just like other vertical social media videos, Shorts require some bit of personalization. You may want to add a bit of elements or filters. The AI Portrait feature automatically removes background with high accuracy to further enhance your videos. It also comes with over 70 portrait and sticker effects to bring out the mood you are going after. Automatically recognize the faces of your subjects and add AR stickers on the go.

Conclusion

YouTube Shorts have become immensely popular. They tend to have a higher ROI and receive more engagement compared to long-form video content. This makes vertical short-form videos more important and lucrative for content creators. When it comes to YouTube short video monetization, posting quality videos is the key ingredient. We recommend using Wondershare FIlmora to edit your videos. This will make sure they are more entertaining and keep more people engaged.

Stream Your Success: A Step-by-Step Guide to Earning

How To Make Money on YouTube

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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