In recent years, you’ve probably heard friends telling you how to make money on TikTok, or maybe even dabbled with the Amazon Affiliate program.
In short, influencer marketing has become a great source of income for many, and YouTube is no exception.
This industry-leading video platform is not only a way to watch funny videos that reach a large audience, but it can also be an efficient way to earn an income.
If you are tired of your 9-to-5 job and want to work online, consider creating a YouTube channel and taking advantage of YouTube monetization techniques.
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YouTube Monetization Overview
YouTube allows its content creators to make money off the videos they put on its platform.
Through advertisements, memberships, third-party applications, and additional monetization instruments, you can start making money off your YouTube channel.
How Does It Work?
Once your YouTube channel is up and running and you’re beginning to gain traction, you should start thinking about ways you can monetize your growing audience.
You can do so by becoming a YouTube Partner, signing up for AdSense, enabling advertising on eligible videos, and allowing ads to be placed within your videos.
After that, a portion of the revenue generated through your videos will be sent directly to your AdSense account.
It’s as simple as that, but don’t worry, we’ll go into more detail below regarding setting up monetization and the different types of advertising. But first, let’s see how much money you can make.
Is it Possible to Make Money on YouTube?
Yes, money can be made from ad revenue as ads during your videos.
There is also the option of channel memberships, where members make monthly payments in exchange for perks that you offer.
A subscriber can also pay to use Super Chat and Super Sticker features during your live streams.
In addition, video creators can have their affiliate link to their products on their channel for their viewers to purchase.
Different Types of YouTube Monetization
YouTube offers several different ways to monetize on its platform. While display ads may seem like the most obvious format, there are a few other ways you should think about making money off your content.
Advertising Revenue
YouTube advertising revenue comes from when you place display ads, overlay ads, and video ads within your YouTube videos. Think of all those pop-up ads you see on videos or the video ads that play before you watch a video — these are all types of YouTube advertisements.
There are several different types of YouTube ads you can enable on your channel. Let’s take a look at what you’ll be working with:
- Display ads
- Overlay ads
- Skippable video ads
- Non-skippable video ads
- Bumper ads
- Sponsored cards
For more information, you can head to this guide to YouTube’s advertising formats.
Minimum requirements: You’re at least 18 years old or have a legal guardian who’s 18 and can accept payment via AdSense. Your content must also follow these advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
Channel Memberships
Instead of relying solely on ads to bring in revenue, you can also charge a monthly fee to your most loyal viewers. In exchange, Channel Memberships give special perks like exclusive content, access to live chats, badges, and emojis that they can display on your channel. This is an excellent way to lock in more monthly recurring revenues, however, the minimum requirements are a little more challenging to hit.
Minimum requirements: You’re at least 18 years old, have more than 30,000 subscribers, and don’t have any Community Guidelines strikes.
Merchandise Shelf
If your channel is continuing to grow, a great next step is creating your own custom merchandise that fans can buy on your page. Merchandise Shelf allows you to showcase these products directly on your video pages.
Companies like Teespring and Bonfire make it easy to design merchandise that limits your risks and the amount of overhead you’ll have. When you have your merchandise ready to go, you can feature it on your video pages for viewers to purchase.
Minimum requirements: You’re at least 18 years old, have more than 10,000 subscribers, and don’t have any Community Guidelines strikes.
Super Chat
YouTube also allows you to engage with your audience through a chat stream. Super Chat then allows your fans to pay to have their messages shown at the top of the chat stream. In some cases, your subscribers can even pin their message at the top of the screen for a set amount of money.
Minimum requirements: You’re at least 18 years old and live in a country where Super Chat is enabled.
YouTube Premium Revenue
YouTube Premium is the paid subscription service that allows viewers to watch content without being interrupted by ads. You might be thinking, “But I’m supposed to be making money from ads on my videos.”
In order to combat this conundrum, YouTube pays out a small fee every time a Premium subscriber watches your content.
Minimum requirements: Create content that’s watched by YouTube Premium subscribers.
Additional YouTube Revenue Streams
If you’d like to pursue additional ways to monetize with YouTube or are too antsy to wait until you hit the minimum threshold for monetization, you can also turn to the following third parties to find more income streams.
- Worthyt: Enables users to ask questions and interact with you via online messenger for a small fee.
- FameBit: Gives you the ability to be an influencer and get paid for sponsorships in your videos.
- PayPal: Allows you to add a PayPal button to your page so you can receive donations from your fans.
- Amazon Affiliates: You can get paid every time someone purchases a product with an Amazon tracking link you’ve featured on your videos.
These aren’t the only third parties that allow you to monetize online, however, they are some of the more popular ones. If interested, there are also some other high-paying non-YouTube affiliate programs you can look into.
How Much Money Do YouTubers Make?
Your payout for enabling monetization and advertising features on your YouTube channel all depends on how much traffic you can generate to your videos. The more engaging your video content is, the more people will watch, and the more you’ll get paid in the end.
In order to make a decent amount of money, you’ll need to be able to attract many viewers. This means being able to hit high viewing metrics in order to even qualify for monetization, which we’ll discuss further below.
Two other factors that play into how much you’ll be able to make are the type of ad and the pricing of ads that show up in your video. But at the end of the day, you’ll need high user engagement and viewership to make a significant dent.
Google pays out 68% of its Adsense revenue, equating to $0.18 per ad view.
This equates to about $18 per 1,000 ad views or $3 to $5 per 1,000 video views.
If you have one million subscribers, you can earn about $5,000 per month.
So a YouTuber with over ten million subscribers can easily make a living.
How Much Money Do You Make per 1,000 Views on YouTube?
YouTubers will earn $18 per 1,000 ad views or $3-5 per 1,000 video views.
Examples of High-Grossing YouTube Stars
Jimmy Donaldson, who goes by MrBeast, made $54 million from YouTube in 2021 with 88.7 million YouTube subscribers.
This is more than any YouTube creator in history.
Jake Paul is the second-highest earner making $45 million in 2021 from YouTube.
YouTube Monetization Calendar
Use this YouTube monetization calendar to determine how much money a certain channel makes.
It will take a rough estimate of earnings before YouTube takes its cut.
YouTube Monetization Requirements
You must be a verified YouTube Partner to earn money with your YouTube account.
Requirements include 1,000 subscribers, 4,000 valid watches over in the past year, and you must create an Adsense account.
You must also follow YouTubes community guidelines.
This includes not having spam, impersonation, or fake engagement on your channel.
There also can’t be any sensitive content such as nudity, child endangerment, or self-harm.
Violent content that includes hate speech, predatory behavior, or malicious attacks is also against YouTube’s policies.
All of their policies can be found here.
How Many Subscribers Do You Need to Monetize YouTube?
You must have at least 1,000 subscribers to join the YouTube Partner program.
How Many Likes Do You Need to Monetize YouTube?
Your videos must have had 4,000 watch times in the past year, but likes do not matter.
Is YouTube Monetization Exclusive?
Any content that follows YouTube’s guidelines is acceptable.
However, if the content has spam, violent, or sexual behavior, the video will become demonetized.
This means that the user cannot earn money from views on this video.
Is YouTube Monetization Available in All Countries?
YouTube Monetization is not available in all countries.
However, a user can change their channel country to the USA to still monetize content.
This will change who the content is shown to, so it is not against the guidelines.
Here is a list of the countries that allow for monetization.
Youtube Monetization Policies
It’s important to realize that not all videos are capable of being monetized. YouTube enforces strict guidelines as to which videos can bring in cash.
YouTube allows you to monetize videos that are your original content where you have the commercial rights to use every aspect of the video. This includes getting the written permission if others have made contributions to your video in the form of audio, visuals, or any other type of content you didn’t create yourself.
For example, if you have a video that features background music that someone else owns, you’ll either need to prove that it’s royalty-free music and provide a link in the description or obtain written permission from the owner to use it in your video.
Videos that violate these copyright rules will not be allowed to be monetized. If you know that you don’t host any videos that violate these rules, then let’s get you set up with YouTube monetization.
What Does YouTube Check When Reviewing Your Channel?
YouTube checks the main theme of the channel, the most viewed videos, the newest videos, the most significant proportion of watch time, and video metadata.
They may inspect any other parts of the channel as well.
Read over the guidelines and ensure that all of your content meets them.
What Is Allowed to Monetize?
Any videos that are daily vlogs, DIY videos, tutorials, short films, or original music videos can be monetized.
The video creator must own all rights to what they are posting.
The best way to ensure that your content is monetized is to make sure that all of the content was created by you.
Don’t steal or borrow any content from other videos.
If you do, the original owners should be mentioned.
This is why daily vlogs and videos about your life are smart ideas.
In addition, advertisers are more likely to place their ads on advertiser-friendly content.
For videos to be available for monetization, the creator must own all the audio and visual elements.
This includes thumbnails, logos, music, interfaces, and video games.
Therefore, if YouTube asks for additional rights documentation, you should always provide them.
Examples of these rights for original audio issues could include the artist’s name, song name, music label, and any third-party audio used.
Content That Violates These Guidelines
Any content that is not originally made by the video creator violates the guidelines.
Moreover, any content that goes against the YouTube Terms of Service or Community Guidelines is in violation.
This includes violent, sexual, or illegal videos.
How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel
If you’d like to make money off your YouTube channel, you’ll need to follow these four steps to enable monetization on your channel.
The application process consists of agreeing to YouTube’s Partner Program guidelines, signing up for AdSense, choosing your monetization preferences, and getting reviewed after you hit a certain level of viewership.
You can begin this application process at any time, however, you can only be reviewed once you hit 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and you have at least 1,000 subscribers.
1. Agree to YouTube Partner Program Terms
The first step is agreeing to the YouTube Partner Program policies, terms, and conditions. Once you read through the fine print, you can head to the next step.
2. Sign Up for Google AdSense
The next step is setting up your Google AdSense account. This also includes agreeing to a series of terms and conditions, as well as selecting your payment preferences. AdSense is what enables you to get paid for having advertisements on your videos, so make sure you set up your payment details before moving on.
3. Assign Monetization Preferences
After that, you can be proactive and tell YouTube which types of ads to run once you’re approved. Remember, you can’t make any money until you’re approved by YouTube, but it’s still a great idea to have everything set up for the moment your channel is approved.
By default, all of the ad formats will be enabled, so if you’d only like certain ad types, make the required changes now.
You can also select whether or not you want to monetize all of your videos or just pick and choose which ones. If you take the latter route, you’ll need to manually go into your YouTube account and set which videos you’d like to monetize.
4. Get Reviewed
After you’ve completed all of the previous steps, the only thing left to do is reach the viewing and subscriber threshold of 4,000 watch time hours in the previous 12 months and at least 1,000 subscribers.
Once you hit this mark, your channel will automatically be reviewed by YouTube before you can start monetizing. This review process may take at least a month, so don’t worry if you don’t hear anything back immediately.
If you’re accepted, then you’ll be sent an email confirmation. Then it’s all downhill after that. Now all you need to worry about is creating engaging content, increasing your viewership, and tinkering with the different ad formats that YouTube has to offer.
What To Do When if You’re Rejected From the YouTube Partner Program
Keeping up to date with YouTube’s policies and guidelines is the best way to avoid being rejected from the program.
However, if you are rejected, you can reapply in 30 days.
During this time, make sure that all of your content follows their guidelines so that you can continue getting your YouTube earnings.
There should be no inappropriate videos, copyright infringements, or anything that goes against any of the policies.
Once your channel is free of anything that goes against the policies, reapply.
Wrapping Up
Now that you know how to set up your YouTube account to make money off your videos, it’s time to focus on ways you can continue to create engaging content that viewers love to watch.
The better you can connect with your viewers, the more likely they are to come back and keep watching. If you’re able to create a loyal fanbase, you can steadily increase your revenue month after month.
Who knows, maybe one day you can leave your day job and focus on your YouTube channel full-time.
