entry-thumbnailNew Media Rockstars says that top YouTubers make money in the millions, some even in the tens of millions. Income can fluctuate vastly relying on the premise of the channel.
Listed below are just a few of their estimates and the number of subscribers these YouTubers have:
- EpicMealTime makes around $3.1 Million (7 million subscribers)
- Ray William Johnson is at $4.2 Million (10 million subscribers)
- FunToyzCollector sits at a whopping $30.4 million (8 million subscribers)
But YouTube channels on the smaller side can still be monetized. Your earning potential is not determined solely by the number of subscribers and views you have, but also by the level of engagement you generate, the niche you cater to, and the revenue channels you discover. That is not to say subscriber count does not matter.
However, before we get into how you can earn money on YouTube, you’ll need to have a clear understanding of what your viewers appear like first.
Understanding Your Audience Demographics
Constructing your own viewers puts you in a great position to monetize in a variety of methods. However, you’ll only be able to take full advantage of the opportunities you have when you understand the makeup of your viewers.
For many YouTubers trying to earn money on Youtube, the more niche your channel is, the better a position you’ll be in work with brands looking to goal specific audiences (more on that later).
Check out your viewers’ demographic data by clicking here.
You should pay especially more attention to:
- Gender for the distribution of female and male, and if your viewers skew a method.
- Age for the ranges that most of your viewers’ members fall into.
- Geographic location for the nations or cities where your viewers are watching your videos and some brands may need to concentrate on.
- Watch Time: The overall engagement of your viewers when watching your videos.
- A mixtures of the above to paint a more accurate image of your viewers by things like the number of male viewers you have in a specific age range.
With this demographic data at hand, you will have a greater understanding of your own viewers and also be able to work better with brands. You may also use Social Blade to compare your own channel against others.
Now, with that out of the way, we will begin talking about the different ways you may actually earn money on Youtube.
How to Earn money on Youtube
Just like being an Instagram influencer or a blogger, your viewers may unlock your incomes potential, but it’s the creation of multiple income streams that helps you actually earn money on Youtube. Let’s take a deeper look at each one.
1. Become a YouTube Partner and Make Money From Advertisements
The first income stream you’ll likely discover is adverts.
You should set yourself up as a YouTube Partner, which is definitely carried out within the Creator Studio part of your YouTube account by going to the Channel menu to confirm your account and enable Monetization (click here to go there directly).
After you become a Partner, you will need to have an AdSense account to opt into Google’s promoting network to actually get paid and see advert income reports like the one below. If you don’t have, you are able to apply for one here.
Once that is finished, you will notice a green “$” next to your videos in the Video Manager, indicating whether it’s been enabled for monetization, which you’ll click on to access the monetization settings for each video.
It is easy to arrange, but promoting as a YouTube partner is far from being the most lucrative income stream you may create for yourself.
Why You Should Look Beyond Adverts for Income
YouTube recently received a lot of backlash because of its decision to be more transparent about advertising on the platform and what qualifies as “advertiser-friendly” content material. Basically, many creators feared they might lose out on the advert revenue that helps support their channel because of the nature of their content material.
According to YouTube, your content material will get excluded from adverts if it contains:
- Sexually suggestive content material, including partial nudity and sexual humor
- Violence, including display of serious harm and events related to violent extremism
- Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
- Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, utilize and abuse of such items
- Controversial or sensitive topics and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters, and tragedies, even when graphics imagery isn’t shown.
However, the reality is that YouTube has been demonetizing content material that it does not deem “advertiser-friendly” since 2012 through an automated process.
YouTubers were already losing out on advert revenue because their videos would at times be demonetized without warning and without their knowledge.
Now the situation is actually better, as creators are notified when this occurs and might contest any videos that were mistakenly excluded from YouTube’s promoting network.
Advertising might be a common means of generating passive income for creators, however, the trade-off is that YouTube gets to keep around 45% share of ad revenue.
In brief, YouTubers should discover other revenue streams to sustain their creative interest.
So let’s do that.
2. Earn Money On YouTube By Selling Products or Merchandise
Selling merchandise—t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, snapbacks, you name it—has a profit beyond income.
It improves your exposure by putting your online brand and personality out there into the offline world and deepens the relationship between you and your followers as they literally “buy into” what you are doing.
Roman Atwood sells more merchandise in his own store under his Smile More brand.
Selling branded swag is simpler than it may appear at first.
You may order affordable designs tailored for specific merchandise, like t-shirts, utilizing freelance websites such as Fiverr.
And when it comes to handling orders and clients, you may combine your store with services such as Oberlo or one of the many print-on-demand providers that take care of all of the shipping, fulfillment and buyer support, letting you reap all of the benefits of a dropshipping enterprise that demands less effort on your part.
You may even go a step further by manufacturing and promoting your own unique merchandise, powering your business with your YouTube channel like Luxy Hair did to promote their hair extensions with hair-related how-to video tutorials.
As a YouTuber who’s already earned viewers, you’ll have two advantages from the beginning that other store owners can be jealous of:
- A content material engine that consistently drives traffic to your store.
- Your viewers’ trust, which you’ve got already earned by regularly serving them your own brand of content material at no cost.