6 Common Monetization Problems for Creators on YouTube

If you are a video creator looking for ways to make your videos work hard, you are not wrong in worrying about YouTube monetization issues. Read on to know the how-tos and what-nots of monetizing your videos.

The most evident way to make money from your videos is by placing ads before or after videos. Longer videos may also have ads in-stream. 

Another way is to enter into affiliate programs where links to the website of the affiliate are placed in the description of your video. Every click into the website is tallied and converts into money for the creator.

Sponsored videos for a product or service gets you paid by a sponsor for mentioning them in your video.

Getting into a YouTube Partner Program allows you to monetize your content by placing ads for other users. But it requires a minimum of 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 channel subscribers in the past 12 months to be part of the program.

Crowdfunding or fan-funding can convert a YouTube channel into an exclusive club with a paid membership. High-quality and reliable channels engage the viewers and fund future videos.

Now that we know the ways to get your videos make money, let us see what comes in your way to be a YouTube Mogul.

A YouTube partner gets to place ads, have membership-only content and even have a Super Chat account to crowdfund upcoming videos. But to be certified as a Partner, there is minimum requirement of watch hours and subscribers within a 12-month timeframe. With 400 hours of video being uploaded every minute, reaching out to your first 1,000 subscribers and attracting at least 4,000 watch hours within 12 months is a big hurdle for the new creator. 

When your videos do get to the mark, 45% of the revenue generated from the ads goes to YouTube.

Sponsorship for a product or service can be bagged through a review or an experiential video. The terms for sponsorship depend purely on the creator’s negotiation skills and quality content. Sponsors can be contacted directly or you could wait for them to reach out to you. However, they cannot be the only reliable source of revenue as they can pull out of the sponsorship program if the stats are not good enough for them.

If your videos relate to one or two niche areas, you could place a link to an affiliate in the description box. But before that, remember that the affiliates will need you to have quality content with a loyal subscriber base and high traffic. It is important that you can provide a value addition to your affiliate by the video you are creating. Product reviews and experiential videos are popular examples.

A minimum of 3-5 videos on a weekly basis will be good to begin with. Even though the length of the video is not the elephant in the room, YouTube considers a minimum of 30 seconds of watch time to count it as a ‘view’.

Nearly 400 hours of video are uploaded every minute and over one billion hours are watched every day. Investing in a good microphone and using an appeasing backdrop is important. Factors affecting competition can range from the niche and quality to demographics. With YouTube coming under heavy reviews for monetization policies, competition is slowly shifting to video on demand services.

Placing ads on your videos must be considered carefully. Pre-roll ads may or may not be skipped by viewers. If skipped, they do not convert into a view and hence earn the video creator no money. On the flip side, intrusive ads put off the viewer who may choose not to watch the video until the end. A shorter duration of the view means less ads and less revenue.

Video creators feel forgotten as YouTube actively changing their policy to determine the validity of the channel and favoring advertisers. If you’re a serious content creator, it is quite unwise to depend on YouTube for major income. Instead of putting so much effort on YouTube, utilize it to promote your video content and think about the alternative to YouTube monetization. Starting your own video monetization platform is the safest bet where no one can restrict you and that gives you absolute control over every aspect of your business.