Do you know what’s the most important indicator of a high-income youtube channel?
And no it’s not just a lot of views. For example, Passive Income Lifestyles had
about half a million views in twenty-twenty, yet he got paid almost ten thousand dollars for those views.
I went through a hundred YouTube income videos, that show their income for twenty-twenty.
okay okay… You got me there, I got some help going through the video.
And here is what I learned about ad revenue on YouTube.
Download the excel with all the data here
Here are five things I learned about YouTube ad revenue by watching a hundred videos that reveal the income for twenty-twenty.
Lesson 1: the riches are in specific niches
There is this cliche saying “The riches are in niches”,
but as corny as it sounds, it seems to hold true in this case.
And it’s not just any niche, it’s very specific niches.
For example, videos related to social media, finance,
and how to make money
have much higher CPMs than photography and gaming.
And it’s not just about the niche,
you need to look also at the keyword intent.
If are you making a video about how to use a product,
versus which product to buy.
Advertisers are willing to pay much more to get in front of people
that are in the buying process, so they are considering buying something.
This kind of video also drives more affiliate income.
Now youtube studio has a metric for this.
Which is called Cost Per Mile or CPM.
In a nutshell, the advertiser pays this amount to YouTube
for a thousand impressions.
An impression is counted anytime an ad is displayed.
The higher the number, the better it is for you.
As you get paid more for each view.
Let me show you how to check CPMs with Google Ads.
Lesson 2: Optimize for both RPM & CPM.
Another metric that you need to understand is Revenue Per Mile or RPM.
This metric estimates how much money you make
for every thousand views. This already takes into account YouTube’s
45% cut and other sources of income on YouTube
such as super Chat, and Super Stickers.
So this is a good number to use when you estimate your future earnings.
I think RPM is actually a more useful number than CPM.
And the ratio between these two numbers is not always
the same for everybody, it’s determined by few things like
First, your youtube ads settings. So do you allow mid-roll advertisements
or maybe you only want to show skippable ads.
This all influences your income.
Second, your video length, the longer videos the more ads you can show.
Obviously, you don’t want to make longer videos just to show more ads.
That’s a recipe for disaster.
And third, it includes your revenue from other sources such as
YouTube Premium, Channel Memberships, Super Chat, and Super Stickers
And remember RPM also includes views that didn’t have any ads on them.
Because not all viewers see an ad when they watch your video.
Whereas CPM includes only views that saw an ad.
Now, this is also a delicate balance,
I feel like youtube has been pushing way too many ads in people’s faces,
like the double ad thingy, and also non-skippable ads in the middle of the video…
That’s just a recipe for people to install ad blockers… which then…
Makes less money for youtube, so they start serving even more ads.
And it’s a never-ending cycle.
Lesson 3: Number of videos matters
Most YouTubers with high income have released
more than two hundred videos,
There are many that have more than a thousand videos…
That’s just insane. To give you some perspective,
if you would release one video per week
It would take you almost twenty years to get to a thousand videos…
Now there are exceptions, like Biaheza with just over a hundred videos,
but his videos are high quality and probably take a lot of time to put together.
But for most, it’s a numbers game, why?
Well, first of all, YouTube is a bit like playing poker,
you need to have skill but luck plays a part too.
So the more content you push out, the better you get
and the more chances you have that
The youtube algorithm picks up your content.
Also just in general youtube is a great platform,
But if it’s a long-term investment, very few start making money immediately.
You need about two or three years to get to some decent income out of it.
Again there are exceptions, but on average people reach
the thousand sub in about fifteen to twenty-two months according to VidIqs video.
And borrowing this inspiring comment from VidIqs video comment…
You can see this guy was struggling to get to a thousand subs for ten years,
but once he did, there was no stopping him. Just beautiful…
You just never know when you will make it, averages are just that… averages…
You need to take an action.
Lesson 4: Bigger channel equals Higher CPM
What’s interesting is that it seems that your CPM gets higher
as your channel grows. Except if you have more than a million subs.
Then your CPM stinks… No, but it’s not like that.
The fact that XL channels have low CPM, might just mean that
the topics that get millions of viewers are less interesting for advertisers on youtube.
Thats’ it. So for example finance companies
probably don’t advertise on mr. Beast’s videos.
He has a super-wide audience. There is no targeting in there.
However, he makes it up with a humongous amount of traffic.
Just because it’s entertaining.
For the small, medium, and large channels, the CPM increases gradually.
I think this is because the more you release videos on a topic,
advertisers interested in that topic,
start to actually include your channel as one of the audiences
that they want to target.
So they want to get specifically in front of your audience.
That just means that depending on your topic or niche,
you can either play the volume. So you attract a lot of views.
Or you play the quality game. And you attract viewers with a specific interest.
And don’t worry if your niche is super small and advertisers don’t pay much,
like a channel related to a poultry farm in your own backyard.
This is so specific that you can’t count on ad revenue,
but you can find other ways to make an income
for example by selling a course or products related to the industry like starter packs.
Lesson 5: The Magic Number
Look, this is really rough estimate, but it looks like that you need somewhere between sixty and a hundred thousand subs to make an average salary of thirty-eight thousand dollars from youtube. And I assumed you make 50% from youtube and another fifty from other sources such as affiliate links. But again, if you are in finance, this will be lower, maybe even thirty thousand. And if you are in gaming it will be much higher.
And the data I used for this video is available on my website, I’ll leave a link in the description. And feel free to use it, however, if you use it in your videos or website, please just add a link to my website as the source.
Just remember, for most creators youtube ad revenue is about twenty-five to fifty percent of their income, And for some, it’s just some pocket money and they make millions from their businesses.
Most content creators use other means of monetization to make extra,
Such as own physical or digital products, affiliate links, sponsored content,
and few other ways…
