When in 2018 Harris Poll conducted a survey on behalf of LEGO about the interest of children and teenagers in space exploration, the results surprised the public. It turned out that the most popular among representatives of the younger generation is the profession of… YouTuber. This option was chosen by every third respondent from the US and UK. This compares to 11% of young participants who chose the astronaut profession. Why is this choice so popular? Running your own channel on YT guarantees not only the possibility of earning money, but can also provide fame and interesting professional challenges. However, the ways to make money are very diverse. It is important to learn about them and create a well thought out strategy before taking action.
YouTuber profession increasingly popular
As technology evolves, so do the formats preferred by viewers. Just two decades ago, it seemed that nothing could shake the position held by TV channels. Today, it is well known that trends have changed. According to a study by Zenith, this has already happened in 2019. At that time, the estimated average daily consumption time of online content was 170 minutes, overtaking TV by 3 minutes. This is the end of an era. It’s worth noting that just eight years earlier, the average user spent 178 minutes in front of a blue screen, while using the Internet for 76 minutes a day. Undoubtedly, mobile technologies had a big impact on this. While in 2015 a phone or tablet was used to consume content for 80 minutes on average, in 2019 it was already 130 minutes.
The unquestionable advantage of the Internet is that it blurs the line between viewer and creator. Every internet user, who has a completely basic equipment, can start to create their content and thanks to that also earn money. This is also a great merit of the global YT community.
In total, there are now 51 million channels on YouTube. In just one year, the growth has been over 35%! Every minute YouTubers add 500 hours of video to their library.
How much money can you make on YouTube?
Even more interesting may be the earnings of youtubers. Of course, it is the number of subscribers and the number of views that determines their level, which translates into reach and the possibility of displaying ads or showing recommended products to a larger number of users.
How much do the best ones earn? According to the website Statista, the annual earnings of youtuber Mr. beast (105 million subscribers) is 54 million dollars per month. Jake Paul (20.4 million subscribers) earns 45 million dollars, and closing the podium Markiplier (33.2 million subscribers) earns 38 million dollars.
Of course, you need a very large number of views and an audience to be able to earn such amounts. However, this doesn’t mean that making money on youtube is out of reach for smaller channels.
Socialblade.com provides a tool that allows you to estimate how much you will be able to earn depending on how your daily number of impressions is.
- For 1,000 retreats, earnings will range from $7.50 to $120 per month.
- 5,000 retreats is as low as $37.50 to $600.
- 10,000 plays will earn you up to $1,200 per month.
- At 50,000 plays, you’ll manage to earn between $375 and $6,000 per month.
- 150000 retreats are between $1125 and $18000.
As you can see, making money on YouTube offers great prospects, but the level of monthly revenue depends on a number of factors, including viewing time and engagement with your community. Above all, youtubers need to prepare well for their work: this applies not only to the content they share with their subscribers, but equally to the business strategy that will allow them to make money on youtube.
How to make money on YouTube? Some proven ways
Of course, your channel will help you earn money primarily through ads. However, they can take different forms. Also reaching out to advertisers needs a separate strategy, especially if you want to start making money on youtube right away and your account doesn’t have too many subscribers yet.
In the following article, you will learn some proven ways to make money on YouTube.
Earning with YouTube Affiliate Program
The basic way to make money on youtube is to use the official YouTube affiliate program. However, it gives you several different ways to make money:
- Adsense ads: of course, your main source of income is the display, video and overlay ads that appear during your content. These are tailored to the interests of your audience. The author also has the possibility to set many parameters for the ads in YouTube Studio. Among other things, you can decide when your ads will appear, whether they can be skipped, and what form they will take. 68% of the money donated by advertisers goes to the creators who display ads.
- Revenue from YouTube Premium: of course, there is also a paid version of YouTube available to users, which allows you to avoid showing ads in the first place. However, this does not mean that you cannot earn from Google adsense ads. Instead of the funds coming from the advertiser, you will receive a portion of the fee paid by the viewer for the subscription.
- Channel support from viewers: monetizing on youtube is not only about ads. You can also receive direct support from your viewers through the official youtube program. In return for the financial support you can offer your most loyal viewers access to additional content.
- Earning from your own products: one of the most important sources of income for many recognizable creators is merchandising. You can use your popularity and established brand to sell other products to your fans, such as gadgets or t-shirts or other type of clothing. Through affiliate programs, you gain access to a product shelf, a special place where you can promote your products on yotube to audiences all over the world.
- Superchat and superstickers: your channel isn’t just about videos. It’s also about engaging and interacting with your audience, and a great tool to accomplish this is live chat. Your subscribers can buy messages that will be listed in it. The funds, in turn, will go to you.
Earnings are also possible from the YouTube Shorts fund: it will distribute $100 million to the creators who create the most engaging short content on YouTube.
The rules of the youtube affiliate program
In order to start making money on YouTube this way, you and your channel need to meet a few basic requirements. Importantly: they may vary depending on the specific way you receive income. In order to profit from ads, you must be at least 18 years old or you must designate an adult legal guardian to manage AdSense payments. Besides, the content you create must comply with YouTube’s affiliate program rules.
The option to receive channel support was reserved for adults whose channel has more than 1000 subscribers. An even higher limit has been provided for the product shelf – in this case, the minimum is 10,000 substrubers. The superchat and stickers, on the other hand, can only be used by a youtuber who lives in a country where the feature has been made available. If you want to learn more about adsense advertising and other ways to monetize YouTube available from the Google platform, visit the service’s support page.
Making money on YouTube in partnership with other advertisers
Ads can prove to be a great source of revenue outside of the official YouTube program as well. Advertisers – apart from adsense – are also using other ways to reach audiences and promote their products. To make this possible, they choose to engage youtubers directly. There are several basic models of cooperation:
- Product placement: recognizable youtubers undoubtedly influence the buying attitudes of their audience. They often promote various types of products. For one of such collaborations you can get even several thousand zlotys, but the material itself does not have to resemble standard advertisements. In many cases, brands pay for the very appearance of a product on a channel. What is important: the material containing a paid promotion must be marked in an appropriate way so as not to break the law. Of course, this way of earning money is mostly available for channels with high number of subscriptions and recognition.
- Affiliate network: a good way to generate income, also for smaller channels, is through an affiliate network. It mediates between the youtuber and the brands interested in establishing a partnership. After signing up, youtubers can choose from a variety of products to promote and then prepare an engaging video about them, e.g. in the form of a review. The affiliate link is usually placed in the description of the video. The creators get paid in the form of commissions for purchases made by their viewers. Although it is not the most profitable form of earning money on YouTube, its indisputable advantage is the simplicity of operation and the possibility of profit even in the case of a smaller number of views.
- Promoting your own products: The ability to make videos and run an engaging channel can of course also come in handy when it comes to promoting your own products. This form of promotion is becoming more and more popular with entrepreneurs who choose to make their own videos. Links can be placed directly in the video or in the description.
Social media marketing – monetize your skills
The ability to create videos and manage a channel can also allow you to find employment in the marketing industry. YT is an increasingly important communication channel and social platform used for communication by many brands that don’t necessarily want to focus solely on ads.
The requirements of employers are very diverse. Creators are often offered flexible forms of cooperation that allow involvement in specific projects. On the other hand, it is also easy to find permanent employment both in the target company and in the marketing agency preparing video materials and managing the channels of its clients.
What’s important: in this profession, actual experience is more important than a resume and formal education. Your own YT channel, which has gained a lot of subscriptions and enjoys the interest of viewers, can therefore serve as an interesting portfolio that will certainly make it easier to get noteworthy assignments.
Are you making money on YT? Remember about taxes!
It really doesn’t have to be difficult to create and publish videos and then earn more and more money through increasing views. As you can see, there are also proven ways to make an income even if you’re just making your debut and haven’t managed to gain much recognition among the YouTube community yet. However, you must not forget that the income you make this way is also taxable. So you need to properly account for your YouTube income with the tax authorities.
A significant number of online creatives choose to set up a sole proprietorship, especially if their work is continuous. This also gives you additional benefits. You can, for example, consider the equipment and stuff necessary to make your video as a deductible expense and thus save a lot of money. You also open up a lot of new earning prospects, such as related to selling your own product lines to viewers.
