Alternative monetization for YouTube

[Potatoe]

Does anyone have experience with alternative monetization methods for YouTube videos? Outside of getting the channel monetized via Adsense, I'm looking for suggestions - broadly - without giving too much additional information about the channel.

I don't think the videos get enough views to get direct sponsorships yet (They average around 10k views), and they're relatively short like 1-5 minutes. I can apply for YouTube's monetization in a week or two, it's growing pretty quickly, but I think it's a coin toss as to whether or not I'll get approved on the first try. I think you can try again each month, and if it comes down to it I'll just temporarily tailor the content towards getting approved even if it hurts growth.

Started this a couple months ago just to fuck around and learn and I'm going to hit about 400k views per month (without Shorts). I don't know if that's even enough to care about any of this yet? But it's growing at a good clip, I think I'll hit 1m in the next few months.

The audience will click links in the description and will type in URL's that are called out in the videos. They're engaged, lots of comments on every video, hundreds of likes, 97-100% thumbs up, etc.

I've got all the obvious stuff covered I think but let me know if I'm missing anything...

• Linking to a blog post that's monetized,
• Selling merch/t-shirts/etc,
• Getting sponsors for videos,
• Affiliate offers/VPN's/etc,
• Amazon Associates,
• Raid: Shadow Legends partner lol

Other than those, any ideas? If there's anything real neat and special that you want to DM me, I'll give you a cut if it works out, I pinkie swear. Thanks in advance.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

You might want to try intellifluence - I'd imagine with 10,000 engaged viewers (as long as you also have some other active social media channels to also share on) you'd be able to get some cash from smaller advertisers through there.

The other thing to bear in mind is that some of the big advertisers are aware that you can spend $10k getting 100,000 views from one bigger channel or work with 10 smaller 10,000 view influencers for just $250 each... so reaching out to the obvious advertisers who are in spaces your audience would be a good fit for might get you a deal too.

We've done a couple of campaigns like that - it's not always an easy sell though - for some reason brands do lean towards spending the $10k... but I guess we don't mind as long as they pay us our fee for negotiating all the deals .

 

[Poplanu]

Started this a couple months ago just to fuck around and learn and I'm going to hit about 400k views per month (without Shorts).

No idea about monetization mate, but what's the process you used for this?

• Do you talk on camera, or is it stock footage?
• Reviews or entertainment content?
• Do you produce everything yourself, or did you outsource parts of it?
• Guessing you go for quantity, i.e. 10K/video & 400K/mo means you're doing about 40 vids per month?

I'm really curious about YouTube, so just wondering what's your process for this is. However much you feel comfortable sharing

 

[Potatoe]

@Poplanu I don't really want to get into too many details yet and I don't know how useful the answers would be, anyways. I'll rapid fire some answers/musings, but I don't want to elaborate beyond this yet for now.

• Entertainment videos relating to a hobby of mine.
• I'm deep in the algo, 99.9999% of my views don't come from my subscribers.
• I'm really good at titles + thumbnails, feels great to be using those skills again since I haven't done FB in ages.
• I don't outsource anything.
• I post about 15-20 videos per month, but I'm aiming for at least 1 per day moving forward.
• Some videos get less than 10k. Some get 100 views for the first month and then randomly pop and get 20k views (but pretty much anything I throw up now is guaranteed 2-5k views in the first day lately). My latest video is at 35k views in 12 hours and brought in 200 new subscribers so far.
• The "10k/video, 400k/mo = 40 vids per month" calculation doesn't really work since older videos still get views and it all snowballs.
• I'm not even at 1k subs yet, but should hit that in a few days at this rate.
• The best outcome would be applying for monetization and getting accepted right off the bat, otherwise I'm just going to keep growing the numbers and reaching out to potential sponsors as @Steve Brownlie suggested (thx king).

-==-
​

I was also thinking of finding someone with an entertainment site on MediaVine or AdThrive to offer them free content and some sort of revshare on the ads if I posted articles to their site and linked to those articles from relevant videos.

I just don't know if I could expect 1 in 1000 people to click the link in the description, 1 in 100 people, or what. I could do callouts in the video "Click the link in the description to find out why blah blah blah..."

In either case, it might just be worth it to use that traffic to build up a site of my own, however the call of premium RPM's right out of the gates and not having to build, run, and maintain another site is alluring.

Hmm, but starting an entertainment site and having some baked in traffic from each video I post to YT it tempting, too.

Going to think about this...

I think, if the channel can't get monetized via AdSense, it might be worthwhile to "launder" the traffic over to a website, if I can get those premium RPM's. I'll start by linking to a couple test articles on a site I already have. If it's like 1% or better that click, I'll pursuit this more. If it's closer to 0.1%, it's not really worthwhile yet imo.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

just keep doing it if it is a passion of yours and you can sell the channel to a brand in the vertical. Let’s say your passion is rock climbing. You have good user engagement and have a following. You can sell the channel to a rock climbing gear company and it’ll save them on sponsorship and community building.

 

[Potatoe]

Here's a late holiday gift for the folks who dislike me. Enjoy my L while it lasts, I don't want to be someone who only posts their wins and then goes silent when things are rocky (Like all these SEO guru bloggers who haven't posted any updates in months, for example...)

In case anyone's curious about an update on my YouTube channel project, my views fell off a fucking cliff.

New videos are getting hundreds of views instead of thousands. Whatever blessing I had from the algo initially has faded. Still a hugely positive reception from the people who do see the videos, at least.

• Maybe it takes YouTube a minute to re-evaluate a new channel and a few of my videos may have been a bit too spicy, so I got re-calculated? Not really sure how it works, but this is where we're at.
• The huge majority of my views came from my videos showing up on people's homepage, but even the older videos that were getting consistent views a month or two after posting them have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.
• My latest video, posted last night, is still under 100 views and my daily views on the channel are in the hundreds instead of the thousands / tens of thousands. 1k views used to happen within an hour or two of posting, now 12 hours gets me under 100.
• I upped the production quality with a new template and stuff yesterday afternoon, and after a bit of a hiatus I'm going to get back to posting daily or near-daily (The hiatus was after my views tanked, not before, just for the record).
• I'm close enough to being able to apply for monetization that I'm going to stick with it and see where it lands in another month or two, that should be more than enough time to get AdSense on my videos and hopefully to shake something loose and get the views coming in again. If not, I'll decide where to go from there.

I'm also starting a second channel that's more closely tied to my niche. The content is a lot less fun to make, but I can take some of the things I've learned from this initial project/experiment and apply them to pump out pretty decent-quality videos with minimal effort. The plan is to make videos to pair with all of my top-performing articles.

Enjoy the L for now, before I double it into LL and tilt each letter sideways until it kind of looks like a W.

 

[Zoro]

@Potatoe, I missed this post before, and I am on team potatoe's side!

A couple of years ago when I did Twitch and Youtube I put my soul into it, learning everything I could about it and I think I have some knowledge in the field.

My first thing to say to you is that if you got engaging audience, likes and comments and still get views, keep on grinding!! Remember that december is also really bad for youtubers in general because people focusing more on Christmas and stuff like that, so dont give up yet! And it takes time for Youtube to match you with the right auidence and to fit you in on the suggested video section.

As you said yourself, the snowball will keep rolling and the more videos you can publish the faster you will grow. This is always the case when you doing YT and you will regret it if you dont continue.
I belive in you!

 

[miketpowell]

Sorry to hear that - I wonder if it's kind of like the SEO sandbox new sites can go into. Would seem like it might be something similar to try to deter people.

Rooting for you, almost every large channel I've heard of spends a few years' of small time before they blow up.

 

[DanielS]

Not sure if you care, @Potatoe, but I figured I'd insert some possible ideas as to why some of these things might have happened:

Maybe it takes YouTube a minute to re-evaluate a new channel and a few of my videos may have been a bit too spicy, so I got re-calculated? Not really sure how it works, but this is where we're at.

Have any of your videos ever been age-restricted? I'm assuming when you use the word "spicy" you're describing the content featured in your videos? YouTube doesn't have a "sandbox" in the same way that Google does, so there wouldn't really be a re-evaluation period unless some alarms were triggered relating to the subject matter featured in your videos.

The huge majority of my views came from my videos showing up on people's homepage, but even the older videos that were getting consistent views a month or two after posting them have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

I'm assuming you've checked the analytics for these videos that have fallen off a cliff and have seen a huge drop in impressions coming from Browse Features? Videos do tend to tail-off as they get older, especially through every traffic source other than Search, but falling off a cliff is a different story.

My latest video, posted last night, is still under 100 views and my daily views on the channel are in the hundreds instead of the thousands / tens of thousands. 1k views used to happen within an hour or two of posting, now 12 hours gets me under 100.

The thing with YouTube is that the performance of a recently uploaded video can have a big impact on the performance of the next video to be uploaded. If you average 1,000 views in the first 12 hours, but a new upload only gets 100 views in the first 12 hours, YouTube will see this as a sign that your audience didn't enjoy the content. If the same thing happens for the next video, YouTube will limit the reach of the next newest upload. If this pattern continues, you'll enter into the "YouTube death spiral" that has caused thousands of successful channels to die. This is why it's important to follow-up a poor performance with a good performance.

 

[Potatoe]

@DanielS I was hoping you'd chime in! Thanks for your insights, I'll poke around the analytics some more and I'll make sure my next few videos are absolute bangers. The video from this afternoon has already done 5x more views than the one from the day before, so that's heading in the right direction, at least.

 

[Potatoe]

Last video did 15k views overnight, I'll make sure to follow it up with something great and maybe we'll have the momentum back. Also, +150 subs overnight, so I'm moments away from being able to apply for monetization via AdSense.

I'm not sure if I will apply right away and just YOLO it (I think you can apply again in 30 days if you're rejected), or if I should spend a day or two going through old titles and thumbnails and getting rid of any stink of anything that could possible make a content reviewer think twice.

None of my videos have any restrictions on them (except for one that got hit with a copyright claim for a couple seconds of background music and the visibility was "blocked", that I ended up just deleting anyways).

Having said that, I imagine the people checking the account for monetization will have a higher level of scrutiny in terms of what's advertiser friendly. Channels with similar content are monetized, so it's not like I'm out here posting anything too wild, but at the same time, it's probably not a bad idea to tidy it up as much as I can, nonetheless.

How quickly the tides can turn. I can see why so many YouTubers lose their goddamn minds.

I'll be exploring other monetization methods regardless of whether or not this goes through, but it sure would be nice to get approved.

 

[DanielS]

Last video did 15k views overnight, I'll make sure to follow it up with something great and maybe we'll have the momentum back.

Try creating another video with the same topic or a similar topic - it’ll get suggested more often alongside the video currently doing well.

I'm not sure if I will apply right away and just YOLO it (I think you can apply again in 30 days if you're rejected), or if I should spend a day or two going through old titles and thumbnails and getting rid of any stink of anything that could possible make a content reviewer think twice.

Yeah, you can re-apply, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Make sure you look through the metadata of your videos for any swear words, sensitive topics, etc. Also, if there is any swearing in the first minute of your videos, bleep out the word(s) in the closed captions.

Having said that, I imagine the people checking the account for monetization will have a higher level of scrutiny in terms of what's advertiser friendly. Channels with similar content are monetized, so it's not like I'm out here posting anything too wild, but at the same time, it's probably not a bad idea to tidy it up as much as I can, nonetheless.

I believe it’s all done by AI now, which is why there can be mess-ups sometimes. But, again, it’s always good to be safe.

How quickly the tides can turn. I can see why so many YouTubers lose their goddamn minds.

Yep, you’re experiencing a little bit of what the treadmill is like right now (which I why I went to blogging). Things collapse for a week or two, then they take off, and then you try to keep fueling the rocket until you start losing hair. The difference with you is, you already have a business-oriented mind and know the power of outsourcing, etc. unlike all these kids who just want to be the next “insert name here.”

 

[Potatoe]

@DanielS Oh neat, so I can add bleeps after the fact?

Yeah, I'll have my work cut out for me with that, but I'll take the time to do it before I apply. There are some swear words and potentially sensitive topics, but the sensitive topics are in a context that tends to be okay (pushing back against the type of sensitive stuff they tend to crackdown on, broadly speaking - but that could still get me got by a bot or mass reports or something), from my understanding. I'll still probably get caught by filters now and then, but I can also be more mindful of it moving forward.

Can you explain digging into the metadata to check for these things? Like exporting the transcripts and scanning the first minute of each video, then going into the editor and adding bleeps?

Another thought I had, maybe you can give some insights. It's my understanding that if you get hit with a content warning/ban or whatever its called, you aren't allowed to stream/upload to the channel for X amount of time, and that also includes any additional channels.

If I had a channel that was about "drama/entertainment" content which potentially pushes the envelope a little bit, and a totally unrelated channel about something like "cars" or "knitting", then an action taken against the drama/entertainment channel could actually punish any other channels I have, yeah? This is something I need to consider... Like if I have totally 100% wholesome channels that are growing, there might be a point where it's worthwhile to shut down the one that has a 10% chance of getting reported/banned over some little thing or a misunderstanding.

The canary in the coal mine for me is that the main figures in this niche are monetized, all good, growing rapidly and are probably about 25% as wild as other channels that are also all good.

Having said that, I want to exercise an abundance of caution and to give myself the greatest odds of getting monetized. Once I'm in, I'm okay with certain videos getting demonetized and whatnot, I see it as a "one for you" (where it's a better video but might get hit), "one for me" where it's a lot more careful, less bombastic, but monetized.

And with that in mind, if a ban against one channel applies to being able to upload to any additional channels, it seems like someone with 5 YouTube channels is putting themself at a much bigger risk and the risk grows exponentially with each new channel... Even if it's something like an organized mass-flagging that gets the channel banned until YouTube reviews it and reverts it, you're still SOL on all your other channels, right?

Like we've all heard about totally innocent, wholesome channels getting hit with a mass report or something, and someone with 10, 25, 50 channels (unrealistic, but just for illustratitive purposes) is going to be at such a higher risk for one of them getting hit, then not being able to use any of their channels?

 

[DanielS]

@DanielS Oh neat, so I can add bleeps after the fact?

I should clarify: By "bleep" I mean write something like "s***." You could even purposely write typos - suck, hit, lass, switch, etc. You won't be able to add audible sound effects, but you will be able to edit the auto-generated captions to at least give yourself a greater chance at safety. AI will be looking at the video captions - not humans.

Yeah, I'll have my work cut out for me with that, but I'll take the time to do it before I apply. There are some swear words and potentially sensitive topics, but the sensitive topics are in a context that tends to be okay (pushing back against the type of sensitive stuff they tend to crackdown on, broadly speaking - but that could still get me got by a bot or mass reports or something), from my understanding. I'll still probably get caught by filters now and then, but I can also be more mindful of it moving forward.

As long as the swear words are after the 60-second mark, you should be okay. Your channel will still probably get approved for monetization, but the videos with swearing in the first minute may automatically be demonetized. What YouTube is really concerned about is duplicate content (copyright issues) and extremely sensitive content. If the large channels in your niche are getting monetized, you should be fine.

Another thought I had, maybe you can give some insights. It's my understanding that if you get hit with a content warning/ban or whatever its called, you aren't allowed to stream/upload to the channel for X amount of time, and that also includes any additional channels.

If I had a channel that was about "drama/entertainment" content which potentially pushes the envelope a little bit, and a totally unrelated channel about something like "cars" or "knitting", then an action taken against the drama/entertainment channel could actually punish any other channels I have, yeah? This is something I need to consider... Like if I have totally 100% wholesome channels that are growing, there might be a point where it's worthwhile to shut down the one that has a 10% chance of getting reported/banned over some little thing or a misunderstanding.

This depends on the severity of the situation. Often, this is a result of copyright issues. Some copyright issues are "soft" such as using background music that is copywritten. In cases like this, the owner of the music will often allow people to use it in exchange for the earning of the video. On the other hand, some copyright issues are more serious, which is when you'd be hit with not being able to publish content.

Alternatively, there are occasions where a manual review is conducted for a channel and it is determined that the content that has been published has crossed the line. Sometimes, YouTube will remove the ability to publish content across multiple channels, but this is rarely a first offense occurrence.

At the very least, you could consider using separate Google accounts for the 100% wholesome channels and the more drama-based channel.

The canary in the coal mine for me is that the main figures in this niche are monetized, all good, growing rapidly and are probably about 25% as wild as other channels that are also all good.

Having said that, I want to exercise an abundance of caution and to give myself the greatest odds of getting monetized. Once I'm in, I'm okay with certain videos getting demonetized and whatnot, I see it as a "one for you" (where it's a better video but might get hit), "one for me" where it's a lot more careful, less bombastic, but monetized.

Yeah, if the big players in the niche are monetized, you'll be able to get monetized too. I would always try to position your videos to get monetized and not age-restricted, though. Either of these things will cause YouTube to limit the reach of videos, which can lead to a "death spiral" like you just witnessed.

And with that in mind, if a ban against one channel applies to being able to upload to any additional channels, it seems like someone with 5 YouTube channels is putting themself at a much bigger risk and the risk grows exponentially with each new channel... Even if it's something like an organized mass-flagging that gets the channel banned until YouTube reviews it and reverts it, you're still SOL on all your other channels, right?

Like we've all heard about totally innocent, wholesome channels getting hit with a mass report or something, and someone with 10, 25, 50 channels (unrealistic, but just for illustratitive purposes) is going to be at such a higher risk for one of them getting hit, then not being able to use any of their channels?

That is correct. You're at the mercy of YouTube, regardless of whether you're innocent or not. This is why it does help to get monetized, however, as YouTube will actually care about your issues because you earn them more revenue than a non-monetized channel.

Again, losing upload privileges is typically not a first offense punishment, and you'd have to be going way overboard or be a repeat offender for this to occur (unless you get an employee with a certain worldview reviewing things on a bad day).

 

[Potatoe]

I'm pleased to announce that you're reading the thread of a YouTube partner.

Thanks to everyone for the advice and encouragement. I'm still going to pursue some alternative monetization methods, but right now my main focus is on growing the audience.

Roadmap:
- Try uploading shorter content into vertical videos for YouTube Shorts,
- If a video is 5, 6, 7 minutes long then try to stretch it to 8mins+ for midrolls,
- See what my RPM looks like and decide how much to ramp up content production,
- Working on some stream content to go live with,
- More ambitious video ideas,
- Balancing what's working now with a more sustainable path forward,
- Networking with people creating similar content,
- Creating an archive of content and media that can be used for similar videos on side-channels...

The discoverability on YouTube is incredible. Being able to post a video and get instant traffic, feedback, dopamine... It reminds me of the FB page days (especialy with title + thumbnail playing such a huge role).

That's about it for this thread, I reckon, or I'll let it back on topic of alternative monetization methods for YouTube, at least. I may create a journal if there's any interest in more channel updates.)