When I was growing up, the common answer one of us would give when asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was something along the lines of becoming an astronaut, or a racecar driver, plumber, doctor, etc. The stereotypical answers which seem familiar to us all. However, this answer has been changing very quickly to “I want to be a YouTuber!” So….
How Do YouTubers Make Money?
As the career has come to fruition, this answer has changed, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t continue changing, which also means the answer I can give won’t be that way forever, and that’s honestly exciting. The income stream most are familiar with is through advertising, and this would be absolutely a right answer. YouTube, which is conveniently owned by Google, is connected to Google Ad Sense, where anyone can spend money on advertising and have Google automatically distribute their budget to applicable areas, and YouTube is one of these places. There is a lot that goes into how ads get served and what types of ads get served on what channels, but just know that as long as the video is monetizable, there will be plenty of ads to be served on it. Any ad that you see before the start of the video, whether you can skip it in 5 seconds or all 30 seconds, has a portion of money shared with the content creator.
Merchandising
Shopify (pictured above) is a common platform creators use to sell their custom merchandise and even sponsors large YouTubers, such as MrBeast.
Although sold at a much lower volume, selling pieces of clothing, gaming accessories, coffee mugs, and even screwdrivers will all have higher profits per item sold compared to how much one view on a video earns. Selling merch items at a consistent rate with good designs and occasionally a limited-time sale will steadily takeover to be a content creator’s main revenue stream, and this is actually the case for most YouTubers you probably watch. There are also aspects of merch that are harder to get a number for, like earned media from other people finding out who a creator is based on their friends buying and wearing new clothes, for example. Obviously, this won’t be a comparable number of new viewers, but they will also be more organically earned. Look at it like this: What would make you more likely to try out a local restaurant in a new city, a recommendation from a friend, or look up “best burger joints” on Google? Both will get you an option eventually, but hearing a suggestion from a friend can be the difference. This is why merch can be a great help for YouTubers, and how they can turn a hobby into a job.
“Burned-in Ads”
These are ads that the content creator specifically puts into the video, and are only skippable by fast-forwarding the video itself. These types of ads are chosen by the creator, usually through the brand contacting them first, negotiating a price, and signing a document to confirm everything. The video is now called a “deliverable” and the content creator is contractually obligated to include it in a video by a certain deadline, decided by both parties. Prices, among other things, are all decided on a case-by-case basis and will be different in effectively every video you see, even if it’s the same company advertising with different creators.
It Depends, And Always Will
Different styles of content are easier to monetize than others, and some genres, like finance, are more lucrative in terms of advertiser spend, than other genres such as gaming. So two different gaming YouTubers of similar size might make different amounts of money. How often they post is a big factor as well because that’s how new people find your channel and then stick around, generating more views. Old content also get’s recommended to a viewer to binge after they find a new favorite channel. So, if you don’t have a lot of other content for viewers to binge on, then they won’t stick around as often, and give you more views.
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