Social Media: Here is how you can make the most money on YouTube
Lauren Beeching
Did you know that achieving a high amount of Youtube views is not the best way to make money on your video?
Youtube, Youtube, Youtube, what a fantastic platform it is as a viewer. Whether you're looking for a recipe from the '80s, how to fit a car-light or Adele's latest song, it has it all.
As a creator, you may see Youtube differently. By differently, we mean you must be frustrated regularly.
The confusing rules, which, if broken, can be detrimental to your channel or trying to feature on the trending page, which seems to feature anything but trending videos.
And the reason you clicked, the baffling experience of YouTube monetisation.
Luckily for you, we work with several content creators and brands who use Youtube. So we finally feel confident suggesting the best way to get paid well for your video.
First of all, views are not what you should worry about when it comes to making money. You can make the same amount of money whether you achieve 210,000 views or 1.2 million. Your focus should be on improving your CPM (the amount of money you make per 1,000 views).
So what does Youtube use to measure what your CPM is?
Age of your video audience: Age is a massive factor in your CPM, and this is down to advertisement. The highest CPM is for viewers in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, while the lowest is for viewers above 40.
The location of your video audience: If you are based in America, and the majority of your audience is in Asia, expect a low payday. American audience CPM averages around $4-5 while Asian audiences average $1-1.50. This is simply down to advertisement. Most brands producing Youtube advertisements in America will want to target an American audience. They won't be willing to pay high for the wrong target audience.
The content in your video: Family channels, lifestyle influencers and gaming channels generally achieve a low CPM of around $1.50-2, while a video is focusing on business (B2B) often has an excellent CPM of $7-13!! Brb, we're making a Youtube channel.
Sticking to the rules: An obvious one often missed. Your content needs to be child friendly to achieve a high CPM. If you swear, expect to lose a lot of money. If you play copyrighted music for longer than 5 seconds, say goodbye to any money on that video. Keep it clean, and you'll have a better payday!
The best way to make the most money on your Youtube videos is to make each video over 10 minutes long.
Making your videos over 10 minutes long allows you to include mid-roll advertisements, don't go crazy and add 15 in your video. Of course, this will stop anyone watching, and you won't get paid at all.
Stick to one or two mid-roll advertisements and make sure to give the viewers the option to click off after 5 seconds, or your viewership at the ad break will drop drastically.
Don't be cheeky and add a white page for the remaining six minutes of your four-minute-long video, again we repeat. People need to watch the entire video for you to benefit. So make sure your video is engaging and enjoyable for the whole ten minutes.
We experimented with this on one of our clients Youtube channels instead of making around $2700 for the month… It made $7139!!!
We didn't produce any extra videos, and the viewership was lower by 329,837 from the previous month.
The massive boost in money was down to the mid-roll ads and engaging 10+ minute long videos, which were interesting to a 25/35-year-old American market.
We also produced a video interviewing a business owner, which increased our clients average CPM from $2.10 to $9.39. With fewer views, we still made more money than a video that had over two million views.