Video Synopsis: How Many YouTubers Actually Make a Living Doing This?
by Simon Whistler (and Danny) on Apr 8, 2020
Terminology
- CPM (Cost per thousand)
- A.K.A. Cost per Mille. The price of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one web page or video.
- “Half my money comes from Google AdSense, the rest comes from Sponsorships”
- Best guess: “27,493 Youtubers are making a living from the platform”. Actually, the estimate is 9,000 - 45,000.
- There are about 16,000 channels with more than 1M subscribers.
- There are about 160,00 channels with more than 100,000 subscribers.
- Simon’s super quick estimate on income: 10,000 views -> $30 ($3 CPM, for his type of content)
- Requirements for Youtube Parter Programm
- Over 1,000 subscribers,
- 4,000 hours of watch time over the past 12 months, and,
- channel needs to be reviewed and approved by Google.
- Best topics to cover (according to Simon and Danny)
- Food reviews
- How-to demonstrations
- Product unwrappings
- Animal world activities (i.e. “Husky life”, etc)
- Most important factor: Engagement. IOW, how long do people watch?
- The longer people watch, the more likely Youtube will recommend you.
- CPM estimates
- CPM varies from $0.25 - $6 (or higher)
- Advertisers will pay about an average of $0.18 per view.
- YT will pay out about 68% of add revenue to content creators.
- The most successful Youtube channel in the world
- 8-year old Ryan Kaji makes $26M (per year?) by posting videos of him unwrapping and playing with new toys.