Influencer Marketing in Asia: An Interview with Aaron Brooks
Aaron Brooks
April 21, 2017
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As an influencer, you may be looking at becoming a YouTuber to increase your offering, engage a larger audience, and grow your revenue. You’d be right to do so.
Video is one of the most engaging content formats and 73% of consumers prefer video over other types of content when learning about a product or a service. Not to mention that YouTube has 2 billion logged-in users each month and people watch over a billion hours of content every single day.
That said, if you’re already investing a lot of your time on other platforms, you may be wondering if YouTube is worth it. Can you really make money from the platform and build an audience today, when there are already so many other creators to compete with?
Here we look at the latest data on how much money per view YouTube creators make, some of the most successful accounts on the platform, and crucially, how creators can make more money.
Most YouTubers earn their money through adverts. There are two different ways creators get paid from ads. One is cost per thousand views (CPM) and the other is cost per click (CPC).
The majority of the ads are CPC ads, which means that a viewer must click on the ad in order for the creator to get paid. Google pays creators 68% of their AdSense revenue.
This means that if a brand pays Google $100 for ads, $68 will go to you. The actual rate per ad view can vary between $0.10 and $0.30, but the average YouTuber receives $0.18 per ad view.
Ad views and video views are not the same (unfortunately). Not all video views will turn into ad views. While ads average out at $0.18 per view, video views can net you between $0.01 and $0.05.
In 2022, 37% of users used some type of ad blocker, which means creators don’t generate any ad revenue from those views. Likewise, a big portion of viewers click away from the ad which, again, doesn’t count towards your revenue.
Because of this, 1,000 video views means you’ll make, on average, between $3 and $5.
In order to start making money on YouTube, you first need to get accepted into the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which requires you to:
Now, subscribers don’t necessarily equate to a lot of views. You’d need to post content consistently in order to build rapport with your viewers and get subscribers to engage with your content.
As mentioned earlier, how much you make per video will highly depend on the number of views, but also how many of those viewers clicked or watched your ads. You can expect to make about $3-$5 per 1,000 views once you’re in the YPP.
You can make more if you look at other monetisation routes like affiliate marketing and sponsorships.
Just like any business venture, making money on YouTube takes time. While there are thousands of channels that make nothing or very little, YouTube stars like MrBeast and PewDiePie have shown that people can make millions from the platform if they’re consistent and original.
For example, MrBeast recently became the most popular creator channel with over 116 million subscribers. Even though there are other accounts like T-Series that have more subscribers, MrBeast gets tens of millions of views per video, which is far more than the 5,000 to half a million views that T-Series gets.
In 2021 alone, MrBeast was reported to have earned $54 million. And his channel is still growing. That said, how much money you make depends on your niche as well.
For example, some of the most in-demand content includes music, entertainment, and how-to tutorials, so if you create content in these areas, you can get discovered more easily and start making money.
There are several ways you can make money on YouTube. We already discussed the YouTube Partner Program and revenue you can make from ads. However, YouTubers have other ways to monetise their content.
Affiliate marketing allows you to make money from promoting a product or service on your channel. If there are brands that you really like and are within your niche, then you can reach out to them for an affiliate link to add to your videos. This means that every time a person buys through your link, you make money.
You can further monetise your channel by selling branded merchandise and digital products. For example, you can sell printed on-demand t-shirts or coffee mugs, which requires very little input from you once you set it up.
You can also create your own digital products, like courses, books or gated content. Digital products are a great way to scale your business as there’s no limit to how many you can sell.
If you build enough of a fan base, you can ask viewers to donate to your channel via fan funding. YouTube itself is doing a lot in this space to help creators earn through their Shorts videos as well as Super Thanks, Super Chat, Super Stickers, and Channel Memberships, and updates are in the pipeline for 2023.
You’re also free to use external donations websites, like Buy Me a Coffee, Ko-fi or Patreon. Of course, in order to make a sizeable income from these platforms, you need to have an established audience.
How much does a YouTuber make, at the end of the day? We’ve covered the ad revenue that creators can get once they join YPP, and that they need to have an AdSense account in order to start receiving money.
However, this isn’t the only way creators make money. YouTube as a platform offers premium subscriptions to its audience who may not want to watch ads.
The good news is that YouTube shares the revenue from these subscriptions with its creators. How much you earn from premium subscriptions will depend on how your content performs.
Your earnings from YouTube will depend on many factors, primarily how long you’ve been posting content, how consistent you are with your posting schedule, and of course, how good your content is.
Looking directly at earnings from your platform itself, you can make anywhere from a few cents to millions of dollars. The earning potential is truly limitless. For example, the top 10 YouTube channels in 2021 made more than $300 million combined.
Of course, these are exceptions to the rule. If you’re just starting out, you probably won’t be able to make any money until you’ve gained your first 1,000 subscribers and have been posting consistently for at least a year.
On average, 1,000 views can net you about $3 to $5 provided you have ads enabled.
Following the same rate as above, 10,000 views could net you between $30 and $50 dollars depending on how much your audience engages with the ads in the video.
As a single view earns you about $0.003 to $0.005 per view, you can make up to $5,000 for a million views. The exact figure will vary though, and you may only make around $1,000.
A billion views means that you either have a very popular channel already or that your content has gone viral. In most cases, it means both.
In that case, you can make as much money, if not more, from other monetisation activities like affiliate links and brand sponsorships. That said, if we look purely at the ad revenue from one billion views, this can range from $100,000 to $500,000 depending on how well your ads perform.
YouTube makes money from two main sources: advertising and premium subscriptions. In 2021, the platform made $28.84 billion in revenue from advertising. This is a 46% jump from the previous year when it made $19.7 billion.
In terms of its premium subscriptions, in 2022 YouTube topped 80 million subscribers for YouTube Music and YouTube Premiums subscriptions, which add another $800+ million in revenue.
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram each offer distinct revenue models for creators, impacting their potential earnings.
YouTube primarily generates revenue through ad placements on videos. Creators can earn from ads displayed before, during, or after their videos. Additional income streams include channel memberships, Super Chats during live streams, and the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which shares a portion of ad revenue with creators based on watch time and viewer engagement. YouTube also allows creators to sell branded merchandise directly through their channels (Ghost) (Buzzincontent).
TikTok offers earnings through its Creator Fund, brand partnerships, and live streaming gifts. The Creator Fund pays based on the number of views and engagement a video receives, while brand deals often provide significant revenue for popular influencers. Live streaming gifts from fans can be converted into real money, providing another income source (Ghost) (HubSpot Blog).
Instagram enables creators to monetize through sponsored posts, IGTV ads, and its affiliate program. Instagram Reels, a short-form video feature, has been integrated into the platform to compete with TikTok. Sponsored content remains a major income source, where influencers are paid to promote brands within their posts and stories. Reels also support shopping features and direct product tagging, adding to the potential revenue streams (House of Marketers) (Buzzincontent).
In summary, while YouTube offers robust long-term earning potential through ads and diversified revenue streams, TikTok provides rapid engagement and brand partnerships, and Instagram excels in visually appealing sponsored content and integrated shopping features.
New YouTubers can employ several strategies to grow their subscriber base and meet the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) requirements, which include having at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past 12 months.
Content Consistency: Regularly posting high-quality content helps build an audience. Consistency keeps subscribers engaged and encourages new viewers to subscribe.
SEO Optimization: Using relevant keywords in video titles, descriptions, and tags helps improve visibility in YouTube search results. Engaging thumbnails and compelling titles also attract clicks.
Engagement: Actively engaging with viewers through comments, community posts, and live streams fosters a loyal community. Encouraging viewers to like, comment, and subscribe can also boost engagement metrics.
Collaborations: Partnering with other YouTubers can expose content to a broader audience. Collaborations can bring in new subscribers from other channels.
Social Media Promotion: Sharing videos on social media platforms can drive traffic to the YouTube channel. Utilizing multiple platforms maximizes reach and visibility (MoneyTransfers) (Ghost) (Buzzincontent).
Certain niches on YouTube attract higher-paying ads due to their target demographics and advertiser interest.
Finance and Investment: Content related to personal finance, investing, and cryptocurrency tends to attract high CPM (Cost Per Mille) rates because financial institutions are willing to pay more for ad placements.
Technology: Tech reviews, tutorials, and unboxings draw high-paying ads from tech companies eager to reach a tech-savvy audience.
Health and Fitness: Videos focusing on health, wellness, and fitness often secure higher ad rates as these topics attract brands in the health and lifestyle sectors.
Education: Educational content, including tutorials, how-to guides, and language learning, typically has higher CPMs due to the value placed on informative content by advertisers.
Luxury and Lifestyle: Content centered around luxury goods, travel, and lifestyle can attract premium ads from high-end brands looking to reach affluent audiences (MoneyTransfers) (Buzzincontent).
In conclusion, niches that attract audiences with higher spending potential or specialized interests tend to secure higher ad revenue. Creators in these niches benefit from more lucrative advertising opportunities.
We hope this has given you enough inspiration to get started on your YouTube journey. And while you’re at it, why not use VAMP to launch your first YouTube campaign today and see those views grow?
