Youtube Sucks

[SWP's back]

@RobMCFC I'm guessing that the £££ per 1,000 views reduces when the views go up?
Say, if you get 1,000,000 views is there a sliding scale or is it a straight £6 per 1,000?
A million would give you £6,000?
Assuming minimum subscriptions etc.

No mate. It’s around £3-6 per 1,000 we views. The amount will vary only dependent on the time of year and demographic of the audience.

It doesn’t reduce with more views. So yeah, 1m ad views on a video will mean somewhere in the region of £3k to £6k for an English language YouTube channel.

 

[SWP's back]

You may not know but do you see a breakdown in income from YT to see which income comes from veiwers seeing the ads and those paying the subscription to go ad free?

Yes and no. We get an overall breakdown that shows how much of the monthly revenue comes from different sources. I get 84.1% of revenue from ad views, 12.1% from YT Premium and 3.8% from memberships (nothings gate kept for the members but the option is there for those that want to support the channel for £2 a month and then get a badge).

For that video, the revenue breakdown is just shown as this:





So advertisers actually pay £9.17 per 1000 ad views on the video but the actual revenue on it is £3.94 per 1,000 video views (I presume because lots watched it without ads).

In terms of the £9.17 per 1,000 ad views. That’s actually on the very high end for YT but it’s helped that my niche is 99.9% men aged 25-55 that live in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany and France with a large amount of disposable income (and average sim racing rig and setup is upwards of £3-5k)

 

[JASR]

They do yeah but the man thing is the percentage of the video that’s viewed. It’s why I don’t really share my videos with anyone that’s just going to subscribe “to be helpful” or ask people to watch the first ten seconds and give it a like.

I don’t bother saying “like and subscribe” any more either. People will do so if they find the content to be worthwhile and I got bored of saying it.

Does the data provided by YT to you, show the length of engagement by the 45+k viewers of the vid? Ie how many watched each time sliced part?
Do you get any metrics on viewers who blocked ads?

 

[RobMCFC]

@RobMCFC I'm guessing that the £££ per 1,000 views reduces when the views go up?
Say, if you get 1,000,000 views is there a sliding scale or is it a straight £6 per 1,000?
A million would give you £6,000?
Assuming minimum subscriptions etc.

I don't think that the payment per 1000 views reduces when the views go up. That's where there are so many millionaires based solely on their YouTube channel.

 

[SWP's back]

Does the data provided by YT to you, show the length of engagement by the 45+k viewers of the vid? Ie how many watched each time sliced part?
Do you get any metrics on viewers who blocked ads?

Yeah we can see the average view duration and drop off over time but it doesn’t show how many watched with ads or through an ad blocker.

And also mate, I can’t stress how difficult it is to start a YouTube channel these days that gets any modicum of success. There are well over 100 million channels on the platform now, and the vast majority never go anywhere. Something like 85–90% of channels never even reach 1,000 subscribers, which is the first real milestone and the minimum needed to apply for monetisation (along with the watch hour requirement).

Even getting there usually takes years of consistent uploads. When you look further up the ladder it gets even more extreme. Roughly 95% or more of channels never reach 10,000 subscribers, and only a tiny fraction ever become large enough to generate meaningful income. The reality is that millions of people upload videos, but only a small percentage ever break through the algorithm and build a real audience.

So when you see someone with a channel that’s actually growing, it’s easy to underestimate how much work and persistence went into it. Behind the scenes it usually means hundreds of videos, years of consistency, and a lot of trial and error before anything starts gaining traction, which is why I say that turning on ad blocker and expecting everything for free is a selfish cunts trick. Or use premium and not worry about it. That’s what I do to avoid ads as I watch hundreds of hours of videos a year.

 

[stonerblue]

Yeah I hit auto on all of mine for ad placement. Most of my videos are 7-12 minutes, the longest ads are 30 seconds mid video and one beforehand.

Videos under 8 mins only get one ad I believe. The second ad doubles the revenue.

For anyone wondering, typical revenue on a video is around £3-6 per thousand views where ads are seen (very much dependent on the demographic of the audience - US/UK viewers are worth 10x that of Indian subcontinent etc).

I receive around 200k views a month from just under 18k subscribers but spend about 15-20 hours a week making videos. I’d have stopped long ago if it wasn’t for corporate sponsors (though I don’t have to plug them, just use their gear - which isn’t the end of the world), but my main revenue from it is a business which is very much related to the content (where YT acts as a sales/marketing funnel) and brings in 5-6x the revenue I receive from being a YT Partner. Unfortunately it adds another 10-15 hours a week of work but it’s mine so I enjoy it.

Interested to know what stuff you post?

 

[JASR]

And also mate, I can’t stress how difficult it is to start a YouTube channel these days that gets any modicum of success. There are well over 100 million channels on the platform now, and the vast majority never go anywhere. Something like 85–90% of channels never even reach 1,000 subscribers, which is the first real milestone and the minimum needed to apply for monetisation (along with the watch hour requirement).

Yeah, I wasn't going to start one!
Though I have an idea for a niche nonprofit website/portal, which I might progress when I finally retire... hopefully a year and counting.

 

[RobMCFC]

And also mate, I can’t stress how difficult it is to start a YouTube channel these days that gets any modicum of success. There are well over 100 million channels on the platform now, and the vast majority never go anywhere. Something like 85–90% of channels never even reach 1,000 subscribers, which is the first real milestone and the minimum needed to apply for monetisation (along with the watch hour requirement).

Took us over 4.5 years of regularly posting videos to reach 1000 subscribers. Some people seem to be able to do it quickly but for most people, there's no substitute for putting the hours in and making videos over a sustained period.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

there's no substitute for putting the hours in and making videos over a sustained period.

Apart from a good pair of milky pillows in a flimsy top.

 

[Blue Since 76]

Took us over 4.5 years of regularly posting videos to reach 1000 subscribers. Some people seem to be able to do it quickly but for most people, there's no substitute for putting the hours in and making videos over a sustained period.

You need to look more shocked on your thumbnails whilst also mentioning Tesla, Crypto and how to make viewers a millionaire without them putting any effort in.

I always wonder why the clickbait ones attract more people, whilst also being tempted to click on the image of the shocked American...

Ultimately, quality will shine through and remain but can imagine the frustration in the first few years

 

[RobMCFC]

You need to look more shocked on your thumbnails whilst also mentioning Tesla, Crypto and how to make viewers a millionaire without them putting any effort in.

I always wonder why the clickbait ones attract more people, whilst also being tempted to click on the image of the shocked American...

Ultimately, quality will shine through and remain but can imagine the frustration in the first few years

Embarrassingly, we tried the shocked-face approach for a few thumbnails but it didn't seem to make a difference. The "Cordoba in 2 Days" video, which you've probably seen, is a good bad example.

 

[JASR]

Apart from a good pair of milky pillows in a flimsy top.

Ah so you are a subscriber to @SWP's back channel then?

 

[SamTheGuru]

I was a big advocate of Youtube in the early days as their USP was no ads. Then they released something along the lines which was a sob story that they need to do 5 seconds of the ads at the beginning of a video but told you how to skip it. Then Google bought them out.

Genuine question, I watch a hell of a lot of Youtube but refuse to pay the subscription. Is there anyone that pays it?

I have noticed it is also becoming overrun with AI videos now too which makes even less sense to subcribe.

 

[SWP's back]

I was a big advocate of Youtube in the early days as their USP was no ads. Then they released something along the lines which was a sob story that they need to do 5 seconds of the ads at the beginning of a video but told you how to skip it. Then Google bought them out.

Genuine question, I watch a hell of a lot of Youtube but refuse to pay the subscription. Is there anyone that pays it?

I have noticed it is also becoming overrun with AI videos now too which makes even less sense to subcribe.

Yeah millions pay for it. I do. I don’t get the AI slop these days as I always clicking block and not interested. Mine’s all old school house and science videos in my feed.

 

[RobMCFC]

I was a big advocate of Youtube in the early days as their USP was no ads. Then they released something along the lines which was a sob story that they need to do 5 seconds of the ads at the beginning of a video but told you how to skip it. Then Google bought them out.

Genuine question, I watch a hell of a lot of Youtube but refuse to pay the subscription. Is there anyone that pays it?

I have noticed it is also becoming overrun with AI videos now too which makes even less sense to subcribe.

There are certainly a lot of crap videos, but I think people who watch YouTube regularly know the channels they like and trust. or at least the type of video they trust.

For example, we make videos in the holiday/city break sector, and when we are looking for videos of which hotel to stay at, there are certain channels where the maker has clearly never been there: photos just ripped off from a website and an uninformed commentary. Whilst people can make good videos without appearing in them, I'm generally suspicious of a video that is just a load of clips without context.