5 Ways Brands, Businesses, and Creators can Earn Money on YouTube
You don’t need a massive audience on YouTube to make money on the platform! But you do have to give people a reason to watch your videos, engage, and even subscribe to your channel if you want to monetize your content. In this article, we’ll look at the different ways your brand can use YouTube to monetize your channel’s content and boost your revenue.
Top Ways to Monetize Your Brand’s YouTube Content
These are the best ways to make money on YouTube, whether you are a small business hoping to generate leads, a new brand wanting to increase brand awareness, or a creator/thought leader who wants to build an audience.
1 | Where to Start: Join the YouTube Partner Program
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators, brands, and businesses
The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) is the platform’s ultimate monetization solution and has been highly successful in generating revenue for creators, brands, and businesses. With this tactic, you’ll have access to multiple income streams on the platform, including video ads, premium subscription fees, and other features that tap your loyal fans’ wallet directly, such as Super Chat, channel memberships, and the merchandise shelf.
There are 2 levels to this partnership program. The first level allows you access to memberships, super chat, and YouTube shopping.
In order to be eligible for this first level, your channel must meet a few requirements:
- Have at least 500 subscribers to apply, plus have 3 video uploads in the last 90 days
- Have 3K public watch hours in the last 12 months or have 3M public Shorts views in the last 90 days
The second level allows you to make revenue from watch page ads and shorts feed ads.
In order to be eligible for the second level, your channel must meet these requirements:
- Have at least 1,000 subscribers
- Have 4,000 valid public watch hours or 10M valid public Shorts views
Now let’s dive into these partner income streams a bit more.
2 | Channel Memberships
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators, brands, and businesses
Subscribing to your channel is always free, but you can tap into your loyal fans with channel memberships. This is the ability to let viewers pay you to become members of your channel. It’s very similar to Patreon. It even allows you to have several tiers of memberships, if you want.
In exchange for supporting your channel, members get custom emojis and badges. It also allows you to share content that is exclusive to members only or to members only first. Plus, you can also give them access to members-only perks like live chats with you.
For this to be successful, you’ll need a promotional strategy to convince people to become members.
3 | YouTube Shopping
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators, brands, and businesses
If you have your own online store, you can promote your products through YouTube Shopping. It’s a great way to display branded merch or creator-owned ecommerce business.
If you set this feature up once meeting the eligibility requirements for the partnership program, viewers can shop from your Shop page through a shopping button that is displayed during your videos, Shorts and live streams, or on a merchandise shelf, which is displayed below or next to your videos and live streams.
4 | Run Ads with AdSense
If you want to make money as soon as possible without needing to meet YouTube’s eligibility requirements for their partnership program, you can secure advertising revenue through Google AdSense.
To earn revenue, you need to be at least 18 years old and create content that is advertiser-friendly. YouTube does have a list of topics that aren’t advertiser-friendly, so be sure to review it first. But essentially, the less controversial your videos are, the more advertisers will be comfortable running ads on them–and the more money you make!
To set up an AdSense account, follow YouTube’s official guide to AdSense accounts. (We’ll note that you can monetize multiple YouTube channels with one AdSense account.)
5 | Affiliate Marketing and Sponsored Videos
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators
Affiliate marketing involves directly partnering with businesses through their affiliate program and promoting those businesses to your audience. You can use your YouTube videos and Shorts to promote this business to your audience and encourage them to visit the brand’s online store or specific product pages using affiliate links that are unique to you. If a qualifying purchase is made from visiting one of your links, you get a percentage of the sale. Affiliate links can be added to your video or Short’s description or in comments on videos. Don’t forget to mention visiting those links in your video to maximize click throughs! YouTube does not make money from your affiliate earnings.
Sponsored content involves directly partnering with a brand who sponsors one of your videos. Often creators have a portion of their video where they talk up the brand they are sponsored by, usually with an approved script. With this option, you need to negotiate directly with the sponsor and they pay you directly. And like affiliate marketing, you also do not have to give YouTube a cut of your earnings.
Tips to Make the Most of Monetization
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of monetization on YouTube:
- Share rich content that is educational, entertaining, or helpful to help you generate leads that turn into subscribers.
- Leverage YouTube shorts to push people to your long-form videos on your channel to boost lead generation. Remember, focus on engaging hooks that grab viewers’ attention!
- Optimize your videos for searches on YouTube and Google, as well as to hit the YouTube algorithm right. Use keywords in your video titles, description, and your channel bio. Use eye-catching thumbnails that utilize emotion to hook viewers.
- Focus on building trust with your audience. You can do this with a focus on audience-first content before hitting them with the sell, sell, sell.
- Don’t forget evergreen content by sharing videos around topics that remain popular for a long time. Trendy is great, but a good evergreen strategy continues to draw views, helping boost your channel in the algorithm.
Let’s Create a YouTube Monetization Strategy Together!
Need help crafting a YouTube marketing and monetization strategy? Tintero Creative is here to help you with all the details, from crafting messaging to assisting with the technical aspects of YouTube SEO. Connect with us today to learn more about how we can help your brand stand out and tell your story.
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators, brands, and businesses
Subscribing to your channel is always free, but you can tap into your loyal fans with channel memberships. This is the ability to let viewers pay you to become members of your channel. It’s very similar to Patreon. It even allows you to have several tiers of memberships, if you want.
In exchange for supporting your channel, members get custom emojis and badges. It also allows you to share content that is exclusive to members only or to members only first. Plus, you can also give them access to members-only perks like live chats with you.
For this to be successful, you’ll need a promotional strategy to convince people to become members.
3 | YouTube Shopping
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators, brands, and businesses
If you have your own online store, you can promote your products through YouTube Shopping. It’s a great way to display branded merch or creator-owned ecommerce business.
If you set this feature up once meeting the eligibility requirements for the partnership program, viewers can shop from your Shop page through a shopping button that is displayed during your videos, Shorts and live streams, or on a merchandise shelf, which is displayed below or next to your videos and live streams.
4 | Run Ads with AdSense
If you want to make money as soon as possible without needing to meet YouTube’s eligibility requirements for their partnership program, you can secure advertising revenue through Google AdSense.
To earn revenue, you need to be at least 18 years old and create content that is advertiser-friendly. YouTube does have a list of topics that aren’t advertiser-friendly, so be sure to review it first. But essentially, the less controversial your videos are, the more advertisers will be comfortable running ads on them–and the more money you make!
To set up an AdSense account, follow YouTube’s official guide to AdSense accounts. (We’ll note that you can monetize multiple YouTube channels with one AdSense account.)
5 | Affiliate Marketing and Sponsored Videos
➤ Who Earns Money from this Tactic: creators
Affiliate marketing involves directly partnering with businesses through their affiliate program and promoting those businesses to your audience. You can use your YouTube videos and Shorts to promote this business to your audience and encourage them to visit the brand’s online store or specific product pages using affiliate links that are unique to you. If a qualifying purchase is made from visiting one of your links, you get a percentage of the sale. Affiliate links can be added to your video or Short’s description or in comments on videos. Don’t forget to mention visiting those links in your video to maximize click throughs! YouTube does not make money from your affiliate earnings.
Sponsored content involves directly partnering with a brand who sponsors one of your videos. Often creators have a portion of their video where they talk up the brand they are sponsored by, usually with an approved script. With this option, you need to negotiate directly with the sponsor and they pay you directly. And like affiliate marketing, you also do not have to give YouTube a cut of your earnings.
Tips to Make the Most of Monetization
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of monetization on YouTube:
- Share rich content that is educational, entertaining, or helpful to help you generate leads that turn into subscribers.
- Leverage YouTube shorts to push people to your long-form videos on your channel to boost lead generation. Remember, focus on engaging hooks that grab viewers’ attention!
- Optimize your videos for searches on YouTube and Google, as well as to hit the YouTube algorithm right. Use keywords in your video titles, description, and your channel bio. Use eye-catching thumbnails that utilize emotion to hook viewers.
- Focus on building trust with your audience. You can do this with a focus on audience-first content before hitting them with the sell, sell, sell.
- Don’t forget evergreen content by sharing videos around topics that remain popular for a long time. Trendy is great, but a good evergreen strategy continues to draw views, helping boost your channel in the algorithm.
Let’s Create a YouTube Monetization Strategy Together!
Need help crafting a YouTube marketing and monetization strategy? Tintero Creative is here to help you with all the details, from crafting messaging to assisting with the technical aspects of YouTube SEO. Connect with us today to learn more about how we can help your brand stand out and tell your story.