How many views does it take to make money on YouTube? This is a common question asked and it really depends on who you ask. You may have heard that you’ll make one dollar per thousand views or that it’s $1,000 per Million Views. Some say it’s $5 per thousand views. Well, we’re asking the wrong question. We should be asking, “How much ENGAGEMENT does it take to make money on YouTube?”
You don’t make money based on the amount of views you have. You make money based on people’s engagement with the ad. Engagement here means clicking or watching a ad for more than 30 seconds. YouTube Advertising is managed in the Adwords platform. Advertisers choose ads on a Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per View (CPV) model.
Types of Ads
Cost Per Click (CPC)
CPC is when an advertiser pays money based on clicks. So if a certain keyword has a CPC of $3 and someone clicks on that ad, it will charge that advertiser $3. These text ads pop up in the lower part of the screen during the video and can also show up as a square banner on the right side of your channel.
Cost Per View (CPV)
CPV is when an advertiser pays money based on views. A view for the advertiser means someone watches an Ad for at least 30 seconds or half of the ad; whichever comes first. That person could click that ad 50 times but it still wouldn’t charge the advertiser more because they’re not paying for the click, they’re paying for the view.
TrueView: Pre-Roll, In-Search & In-Display Ads
Pre-Roll Ads are the ads that act as a preview before the video starts and viewers can skip it after 5 seconds.
In-Search Ads show up in the search results and are surrounded by a light yellow box.
In-Display Ads show up on the right side of YouTube in the suggested video area
* There are also third party pre-roll ads that force users to watch for a certain amount of time. Since these forced don’t apply to the majority I’m leaving them out.
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Where Attentions Go, Ads Will Flow
Advertisers only pay when someone clicks an ad or watches for 30 seconds. This is why you can’t tie your channel views to dollars. If your video gets ten million views but nobody watches or click the ads, you don’t make any money. This is how I’m able to make $1 per 25 views. Advertisers pay big money to get their ad in front of specific and targeted audience.
One of my YouTube Channels happens to provide valuable video content for this specific audience. This channel teaches business owner how to organize their finances, track their expenses and save money on taxes. Any company who is trying to reach business owners would love to place their ads on my channel because we both share the same demographic. The people who view my channel are their potential customers.
How Can You Make More Money on Your YouTube Channel?
There are a couple of easy steps that you can implement right now that will make you more money per view. The first thing you need to do is…
1. Take a Sniper Approach
Advertisers want targeted YouTube channels with a defined demographic. They’d much rather place their ads on a specific type of person than a random user. Think of this as a narrow sniper approach vs the wide spray of a shotgun.
Make your videos with a specific type of person in mind. This is basic advertising 101; identifying your target demographic. Don’t tell me that your demographics are 21 – 55 year old women. This is the shotgun approach that’s too general and vague. Do you talk to a 21 year old girl the same way you’d talk to a 55 year old lady? Of course not. Define your audience and create videos that’s catered to them.
2. Target KeyWords with a High CPC
Understand this, Certain KeyWords Pay More than Others. Advertisers will pay more for the keyword, “home mortgage” (CPC $17.63) than “cheap phone cases” (CPC $1.38) because the end return is a lot higher. If someone ends up closing on a home loan that could make them upwards of $5,000+, whereas the end return on a cheap phone case would only be $15. Would you rather get paid from a phone case video that gets a million views with a CTR of 0.01% or a home mortgage video that only gets 10,000 views with a CTR of 0.08% ? Consider the scenarios below with the given keywords and their cost per clicks.
Scenario 1 You make a video reviewing the new iPhone that gets 1,000,000 views, of which your ad Click Through Rate (CTR) is 0.1%. Meaning 1,000 people clicked the ad. If the CPC is $1.38 the total advertising dollars made would be $1,380. Google keeps around 45% making your payout $759. This gives you $1 per 1,317 views
Scenario 2 You make a video teaching people about home loans that gets 10,000 views, of which your ad Click Through Rate (CTR) is 0.8%. Meaning 80 people clicked the ad. If the CPC is $17.63 the total advertising dollars the total advertising made would be $1,410. Google keeps around 45% leaving your payout $776. This gives you about $1 per 13 views.
These scenarios are exaggerated to show the point. The money you make on YouTube has more to do with what advertisers pay for than how many views you get.
This knowledge is essential is to make the most amount of money per view. If you have a very targeted niche that contains high CPC keywords, you don’t need millions of views to make money. Getting a couple hundred views a day could bring in a couple hundred bucks a month!
3. Massive Video Production Strategy
One of the biggest complaints I hear about video is that it’s so time consuming. It takes forever just to make one video. I’ve found a solution. I call it the, “Massive Video Production Strategy” This allows you to make the most amount of videos in the least amount of time and work. By using this strategy, I was able to shoot, edit, upload and optimize 30 videos in 9 hours.
There’s a very specific template to follow when creating a YouTube Channel for the purpose of maximizing engagement and making money. This template requires some creative thinking and a little bit of work. Luckily this process is easily repeatable and taught in this video course ebook. If you’re interested, check out our step-by-step Video Course How To Make Money On YouTube
4. Learn How to Make Money on YouTube
Once you’ve learned how to make your first dollar, what’s stopping you from making your next? This course contains simple instructions on monetizing your YouTube Channel. Inside the eBook are exclusive links to video walkthroughs, so you can see exactly how I do everything. You’re watching my screen as I do it. I’ve divided the actual course into 5 sections; Disruption, Research, Production, Optimization and Monetization. Each section contains step by step instructions, video walkthroughs and a checklist to help you know what needs to be done.
UPDATE (4/6/2017):
YouTube recently announced a change to their partner program so that creators won’t be eligible to allow ads on their Channel until it reaches 10,000 lifetime views. This might sound like a lot but if you think about it, it’s not too difficult to make 10 videos that get 1,000 views.
