If you want to make money from video content, YouTube is the place to be. It’s by far the largest video-sharing platform in the world, with thousands of creators already making a living from YouTube traffic.
There are many ways to make money on YouTube, differing in monetization techniques and types of content you publish. Your success depends on the monetization as much as your content quality. It’s wise to understand it even before you start uploading your YouTube videos.
Here, we’ll discuss how to make money on YouTube most efficiently with five proven methods. To fulfill any of them, you must grow your channel first, so we’ll discuss strategies for growing your viewer base as well.
Ways to Make Money in the YouTube Partner Program
Not everyone who uploads videos to YouTube will become a star, but the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) makes it so that almost anyone can make money on YouTube. Google makes millions in ad revenue, so it’s only fair that they share part of the profits with creators.
There are some other monetization platforms, such as Patreon, Kickstarter, or Buy Me a Coffee, but the bar of entry in the YPP is quite low. If you want to successfully monetize your videos elsewhere, you will qualify for YPP anyway.
Minimum Eligibility Requirements to Turn On Monetization Features
Even an average YouTube channel can become eligible for YPP and access monetization features. There are two different sets of features with different eligibility thresholds.
Early Access YouTube Partner Program requirements
Google is trying to make it easier for small creators to make money on YouTube with a smaller early access threshold. They give Fan Funding and certain Shopping Features earlier than the full YPP eligibility.
- Get 500 subscribers.
- 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days.
and - 3,000 valid public watch hours on long-form videos in the last year.
or - 3 million valid public shorts views in the last 90 days.
Full YouTube Partner Program requirements
- Get 1,000 subscribers.
and - 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months.
or - 10 million valid public shorts views in the last 90 days.
Both options also require you to be of legal age, live in a country where YPP is supported, and have an AdSense account to receive earnings. You also must follow YouTube’s monetization policies on content. Simply put, they require you to publish your own original content regularly and avoid explicit topics.
You can apply and check for eligibility in YouTube Studio, which is a dashboard for administering your YouTube channel. In the Earn section, you can apply for YPP, track your progress, and even get notified when you become eligible.
After you enable monetization in your YouTube account settings, you can use any of the techniques below to make money on YouTube.
1. Turn on Ads for Videos on YouTube Videos
The YouTube Partner Program allows creators to monetize their content by displaying ads on their videos. It’s the easiest way to make money on YouTube. Creators earn a portion of the ad revenue generated when viewers watch these ads.
You cannot control what ads YouTube will show on your videos, and your audience might be disappointed. Viewers of a gaming channel, for example, might still see ads unrelated to games. It’s because YouTube accounts for factors related to the viewer.
You can control whether ads are turned on in the Revenue tab of the YouTube Studio. With long-form videos of over eight minutes, you can also control whether there are mid-roll ads.
You will need to test your audience and track metrics to see what ads work best for your audience. It also helps to create natural breakpoints for the YouTube ads algorithm or to include them manually.
2. Take Advantage of YouTube BrandConnect
BrandConnect helps brands and YouTube creators to connect with each other. Brands get an easy way to find influencers, and creators get extra income. BrandConnect includes deals for product placements, sponsorships, and branded entertainment.
It solves a problem for channels in niches, such as food and jewelry. It’s difficult to find viable partners and valuable deals. There are brands to promote, but you cannot know whether the offers and products are legitimate.
With BrandConnect, you have YouTube brokering deals for you, which takes away a lot of stress and gives legitimacy. Besides making connections, BrandConnect enables users to track the execution of a campaign with analytics tools.
To succeed with BrandConnect, you will need to be active in analyzing the data and executing campaigns. The added work pays off as BrandConnect deals are potentially more profitable than regular ad revenue.
3. YouTube Fan Funding
Earning money from ads and brand sponsorships might not be the best option for channels with a strong community. In fact, you don’t even need a huge fan base to make money, as two Fan Funding features are available with early access to YPP.
- Channel memberships take it a step further and allow you to create exclusive content or publish new videos ahead of time for your members.
- Super thanks allow creators to earn direct donations from their viewers. Any viewer can donate money by simply making a super thanks comment.
If you are eligible, you can set up channel memberships on the monetization page of YouTube Studio. You can also add five different levels of support your viewers can show.
Each level is meant to have an increasingly higher price tag but with some additional perks. They can include anything from badges and custom emojis to special posts and livestreams.
To maximize your earnings, you must approach pricing levels cleverly. The idea here is to adhere to viewers of different budgets so that you receive the most income. For example, you will earn more with pricing of $5.99, $12.99, and $19.99 than with $19, $19.50, and $20.
4. Monetize Your Live Streams
For channel memberships to work, you must be active and engage with your audience in videos. That’s why monetizing your live streams is worth mentioning separately. Fan Funding features allow users to send paid messages.
Super Chats and Super stickers are most useful for YouTube creators who do live streams and premiers. It’s a bid from the viewer to get your attention with a special message, as text with donations will be pinned.
Super Chats and Stickers are enabled in the Monetization tab under Supers. Once they are on, you should do live streams at regular hours to collect as many donations as possible.
You can receive from $1 to $500 in one message during a livestream. The strategy to earn more from Super Chats is quite simple – do more live streams and address these messages directly.
It’s easy to do in a live stream since usually it’s a question or a comment you can react to on the go. Star YouTubers earn thousands from Super Chats, but even an average YouTube channel can earn decent money from a successful live stream.
5. Get YouTube Premium Subscriptions
YouTube Premium is a subscription-based service that provides users with an ad-free experience, access to exclusive content, and offline playback. While its primary target is users, YouTube Premium subscribers are your main supporters.
When a YouTube Premium subscriber watches a video from a monetized channel, the creator receives a portion of the subscription revenue based on how much time the subscriber spends watching their videos.
That’s why the best strategy for making money on YouTube with Premium subscriptions is to increase your viewer watch time. Make content that is long and interesting for users to watch in full. It’s easier said than done, but it’s still possible for many.
When YouTube Premium was first created (formerly known as YouTube Red), many creators flocked to produce content exclusively for paid users. While this is no longer the case, it shows that YouTube Premium revenue is significant and consistent. Relying only on ad revenue, on the other hand, is more risky.
Strategies to Grow Your YouTube Channel to Earn More
Now that you are a YouTube partner and even make some money from creating videos, you can start working on ways to grow your income. There are many strategies with varying success rates for different audiences. The ones below are great starting points to test with your viewers.
1. Posting New Content Consistently
It’s almost common knowledge that if you want to make money from YouTube videos, you must post new content frequently and consistently. Allegedly, this is how the YouTube algorithm works for both long videos and shorts. There are some caveats, though.
No one really knows how exactly the YouTube algorithm works. You can make some educated guesses, but there are no universal truths because it all depends on your audience. You are creating videos for them to watch, so make it convenient.
People looking for educational content, for example, will appreciate you posting less but better research content. There are plenty of educational creators with millions of viewers posting YouTube videos once or twice per month.
Most other niches will likely attract more viewers with more frequent posting, especially if you are chasing trends. You must find your balance and stick to it so that your viewers can know when to expect your masterpieces.
You can also post content on other social media, like TikTok or Instagram, and use the possibilities of other YouTube features. Making shorts, writing text posts, or even polls is a good way to retain your YouTube traffic and ad revenue without new videos.
2. Create Informative and Entertaining Shorts
Even if your main creations are longer format videos, you should create shorts. Their purpose is not just for YouTube to compete with TikTok. It’s also for YouTube creators to advertise their channels. The best part is that it doesn’t take that much effort.
You can simply take some of your well-performing long videos and make multiple shorts using them. There are even specialized tools to make the videos automatically, but any video editor will do. Just make sure to use informative and entertaining parts of your videos.
There are some misconceptions that YouTube might penalize you for creating shorts out of your videos, but it’s actually the opposite. Shorts are meant to be a hook to your channel, and using them that way is a legitimate strategy to attract new viewers.
3. Collaborate With Other YouTubers
This tip might require some connections or lots of persistence, but it’s highly rewarding when you succeed. Write to your favorite YouTubers with overlapping audiences and ask them to promote your videos and channel.
You can make a video together or host a live-stream Q&A session. Often, it opens up new demographics for all the participants involved, and the YouTube algorithm also prefers such videos.
Many more YouTubers are willing to help out fellow creators than you might think. It’s especially true if you have something additional to offer – promotion in your channel, donations, or video ideas. YouTube is a community of viewers and creators, after all.
If you are too humble to actively reach out, another strategy is to be active on YouTube comments. Try to be the first to write clever comments in popular videos of other creators. You can even promote your own channel a bit. Just don’t be too straightforward.
4. YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program
Most YouTubers use Amazon or other third-party affiliate links to make extra money. Once the viewer presses the link in the video description and purchases something, the creator receives a cut. While this strategy is effective, it’s no longer the best one. YouTube’s own affiliate program is the way to do it.
The aim of the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program is to help your fans shop for items tagged in your videos directly from the brand’s shop. Instead of pressing on the links in the video description, they will be able to press on special shopping widgets.
For this technique to work, you’ll need to advertise the fact that you have a shop. It’s much easier than getting viewers to press on links in the video description, but it will still require some creativity.
There’s also a shopping tab on your YouTube channel page and various tools to analyze the data on how effective your marketing is. At the time of writing, there is no revenue sharing with Google, so all profits go to you and your partner stores.
You can connect one or multiple stores to the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program in YouTube Studio by clicking on Earn, then Shopping, and then Connect. Unfortunately, this program has quite strict eligibility requirements.
- Eligibility for YPP.
- More than 10,000 subscribers.
- Not an official music channel or made for kids.
- Based in the United States or Korea.
It seems that YouTube Shopping is still being tested in select countries, so hopefully, the requirements will be lowered in the near future.
5. YouTube SEO
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet, so it shouldn’t surprise you that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques work. It might even be argued that optimizing your video descriptions, titles, thumbnails, keywords, and all else is even more important than in Google.
Many videos on YouTube are discovered not by being searched for but by being suggested. You must put effort into writing good descriptions and formulating correct titles so that the algorithm shows your videos to users and they click on them.
Video thumbnails are especially important here. Many viewers don’t even read the text associated with videos. Instead, they decide based on the thumbnail. Invest time in creating a nice thumbnail and upgrade it over time to keep the video relevant.
Video quality is still the most important factor for making money on YouTube, but without YouTube SEO, it might never be watched.
Conclusion
The question of how to make money on YouTube is not something that you can answer one time and forget. Once you have an active YouTube channel, the process is ongoing, with new opportunities often arising. Keep on exploring.
FAQ
How many views do you need on YouTube to make money?
To make money on YouTube, you need to join the YouTube Partner Program. For basic monetization, you’ll need 500 subscribers, three uploads, and 3,000 views on videos or three million on shorts. Don’t expect to earn much when you start. Most creators start with around a dollar per thousand views.
Does YouTube pay monthly?
Yes, every YouTube partner gets paid monthly through AdSense. Your previous month’s earnings are posted between the 7th and 12th of each month. If the balance exceeds the payment threshold by the 20th, the money is processed between the 21st and 26th. The rest depends on your bank and chosen payment method.
Is YouTube still profitable in 2024?
Yes, YouTube is still profitable in 2024, and for some creators more than ever. You might struggle initially, but if you are creative enough and use effective monetization tactics, you can make money.
How many YouTube subscribers do I need to make $2,000 a month?
Getting 100,000 monthly views consistently and maintaining $2,000 subscribers could earn you $2,000 from ad revenue alone. But this estimate isn’t set in stone, as earnings highly depend on your niche, audience, and other factors.
How much does YouTube pay per 1,000 views?
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, most creators, on average, earn $0.018 from each view, which is $18 per 1,000 views. Keep in mind that this is an average estimate and highly depends on your niche, audience demographics, location, and monetization techniques used.
How can I make $10,000 per month on YouTube without making videos?
You can make money on YouTube without making videos. Methods like content licensing, management of other channels, video licensing, narration, and many others are proven to be profitable for some YouTubers. Alternatively, you can try and make money podcasting.
