are these $2-$3.50 CPMs from adsense clicks, or, is youtube paying "partners" some random, varying amount dependant on the amount of views/subscribers?
The CPM is because we are partners. We make additional money from the adsense, but the CPM is paid because you have pre-roll videos.
The CPM is generally based on the demographic. Certain gender/age group combos are worth more to advertisers than demographics. We have a fairly profitable demographic (14-25 males) so we are usually on the higher end of that with our videos.
are these $2-3.50 CPMs available to everyone, or only certain premium partners? i understand that the partner program is open to everybody, but some only some channels get certain advantages, like being able to brand the channel and having the ability to link out to other videos at end of a video, why is this? does youtube have to contact you to be take part in this and is it something that happens after you get a certain number of subscribers?
I don't know what the application is like now because we became partners when the program was exclusive and harder to get into. I didn't even know they had opened it up to everyone. News to me.
How it used to work, is you would get contacted by YouTube and they said "Apply to be a partner!" but that didn't guarantee you would get in. If you applied and weren't accepted you had to wait 3 months to apply again.
Once accepted, you would be allowed to personalize your channel page, link out to other stuff, etc.
I think anyone can link out to other videos at the end. That's called a traffic loop. We get someone watching one of our videos, then we simply use annotations overlaid on part of the video specifically for that purpose. They keep watching more and more of our videos.
i notice that a lot of the popular channels have images that get people to click, i assume this is so their videos get more clicks/views?
If you are a partner you can edit your video thumbnail to be whatever you want. I did a post on here previously where I broke it down some. The basic idea is that you want people to click and watch the video, so you need your thumbnail to be enticing. That's why a lot of guys put bright colors, girls with cleavage, etc.
do you think $2-$3.50 CPMs are achievable for comedic videos that aren't selling anything as long as the quality/subscribers are high? i guess one could make more profitable videos by somehow incorporating brand names and high-paying CPC adsense terms like "mesotheleoma" into the headline...
The CPM depends on your demographic. If you focus your content on a valuable demographic then you will get good CPMs. If you want to focus on the Adsense money then sure, go after terms like that. However, you won't build a following or brand if your videos are boring and not focused on anything.
You kind of have the option of building a brand (what we did) or going after search traffic. To an extent you can do both, but not really. We have found having a rabid fan base helps us get consistent views on every video. Plus it helps to make videos actually go viral because we can fire up the troops on videos we spent a lot of time on and think have a lot of potential.
what genre of content are you producing for your channel? are you doing this solely as a moneymaking venture? if so, do you think it's a worthwhile pursuit (meaning it's profitable enough to be happy about for the effort required) if i feel like i can create videos that will get views?
We produce videos based around video games/fantasy etc. We target the young male demographic.
This is a money making venture, but it's more that my friends who run the day to day of this are very passionate about making films. They just have no idea about how to market and make money from it.
I came on board and helped them blow it up to where they could support the three of them on their YouTube money. They barely make enough right now to support the three of them and they supplement by doing corporate videos and getting companies to sponsor videos.
If you get popular there are other ways to make money than just the CPM and Adsense on the videos. Someone like devinsupertramp, who we are friends with, charges $15k+ to a company if they want him to make a video. On top of that, he gets the CPM money from his videos so he can do pretty well for himself. But he has a large following.
Do you think it's a worthwhile pursuit (meaning it's profitable enough to be happy about for the effort required) if i feel like i can create videos that will get views?
I'm not here to tell you how to make money. Try it or don't. Take responsibility for your own actions. Try it at a small scale, see if it is profitable then scale up if it is.
imp: :smokin: . Multiple new mansion houses, new cars, etc. Set for life and never has to work again 