Introduction to YouTube Ads and Monetization
YouTube shows ads on the videos that you upload at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, and at the end of your videos. Once you get 4,000 hours of watch time and 1,000 subscribers, you can join what’s called the YouTube Partner Program. Then YouTube will pay you a cut of the revenue, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this video—how much you actually make.
My Research on YouTube Earnings
I personally run a ton of different YouTube channels, and I did some research into both my own channels and other people who’ve uploaded videos talking about how much money they make per thousand views. The answer is that channels make between $1 and $30 per thousand views, so the average channel, based on my research, makes $15.50 per thousand views. But with that being said, most channels from my personal experience only get around $5 to $10 per thousand views.
Ways to Increase Earnings per Thousand Views
In order to make more money per thousand views, you can do a couple of things. First of all, you can create a channel in what’s called a high RPM niche. RPM is how much you actually make per thousand views, and depending on the niche you’re in, some advertisers pay more money to put ads on videos than others. For example, Apple is one of the top advertisers on YouTube, and they’re likely going to be putting their ads on technology videos. Expedia is another one of the top advertisers, and they’re likely going to be putting their ads on travel videos.
High RPM Niches
Here’s a list of some of the highest CPM niches, so feel free to pause this and screenshot if you want. They include:
- Finance
- Make Money Online
- Technology
- Health
- Investing
- Travel
- Legal
- Insurance
- Makeup
- Marketing
- Real Estate
- Cars
- Movies
- DIY and Tutorials
Low RPM Niches
But with that being said, some channels in lower CPM niches can get more overall views. Some examples of low RPM niches include:
- Pranks
- Scary Videos
- Gaming Videos (depending on the game you’re playing)
- General Top 10 Videos
Strategy for Increasing Revenue: Longer Videos and Multiple Ad Breaks
Another way to make more money per thousand views is to create videos longer than 8 minutes. Then you can go to your YouTube Studio, go to content, select any of your videos once you’re monetized, go to the monetization tab, and from here you can add multiple different ad breaks. If the video is longer than 8 minutes, you can add more ad breaks to increase revenue. I recommend spacing out your ad breaks at least every couple of minutes so it doesn’t interrupt the viewing experience too much. However, don’t just make videos long for the sake of ad breaks—there’s a trade-off if you make long videos without providing real value.
Providing Value in Longer Videos
If you make a longer video, make sure to only extend it by providing more value to the end viewer. Remember, value can be either educational or entertainment. Keep in mind that videos of any length can go viral.
Secret to Higher Earnings: Digital Products
Now I’m going to let you in on a little secret: this channel you’re watching right now makes over $200 per thousand views. You might be asking, “How is that possible if channels typically only range from $1 to $30 per thousand views?” The answer is by selling a digital product with my channel, which is my YouTube course, Tube Mastery and Monetization. We average around $100,000 per month with this channel, while ad revenue only brings in about $6,000 to $12,000 per month.
Digital Product Ideas
Make sure to check out my video on 12 different digital product ideas that you can sell from your channel. I go over a bunch of different ideas that could potentially make you even more money per thousand views. A link to that video will be down in the description below.
Example of a Low RPM Channel: Chills
Let’s break down how much YouTube channels could be earning. This channel called Chills uploads videos within the scary niche, and I’m using an extension called vidIQ to see how many views per month they get. They’re getting 6.5 million views per month. If we do the math, they would be making about $20,000 per month, assuming their RPM is around $3 per thousand views.
Example of a High RPM Channel: New Money
This channel called New Money uploads videos in the investing niche, related to finance. They’re getting 1.9 million views per month. Based on the same calculation and an RPM of around $20 per thousand views, this channel would be making $309,000 per month from ad revenue alone, not counting any digital product sales.
Example of a High RPM Channel: Tech Zone
This channel, Tech Zone, uploads technology videos and pulls in 46 million views per month. With an RPM of $10 per thousand views, this channel would be making almost half a million dollars per month.
Understanding RPM and CPM
In this video, I used RPM and CPM kind of interchangeably, but RPM is how much you actually make per thousand views, and when I say CPM, I really mean RPM.
Final Thoughts and Recommended Video
Check out this video next to me right here to see some of the best niches to do YouTube in, in my personal opinion, and why they’re the absolute best for making money on YouTube. If you want to make money on YouTube, check out this video right here, and I will see you there.