I’m sharing everything I’ve learned about monetization and how to make money on YouTube as I grew my YouTube channel from 0 to 100,000 subscribers in under 2 years!
If you’re reading this, you either have a YouTube channel currently or are interested in starting one. And you’re wondering if it’s possible to be a successful YouTuber in 2024. The short answer is yes, absolutely. I’ve seen this firsthand over the last year and a half as I’ve grown my own channel from 0 to 100K without having to do anything salesy or compromise my message.
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. It’s owned by the largest search engine in the world (Google). It only makes sense that there would be great opportunities to earn an income for content creators who create valuable content on these search engines.
Before we get to our list of the best ways to make money on YouTube, I’ll just emphasize that last sentence in the previous paragraph about creating high-quality content. You need to create valuable content that people will want to watch and subscribe to if you want to earn an income on YouTube.
If you’re not interested in creating valuable YouTube videos, but more just looking to share bits of your life or day without any real strategy, other social media platforms like Instagram are a great platform for that! If you want to read more about creating the right kind of content to grow on YouTube, check out my post on How to Start a Successful YouTube Channel.
I may receive a small commission for items purchased through affiliate links in this post at no additional cost to you.
The Best YouTube Monetization Methods
- Running Ads with Google Adsense
- Affiliate Marketing
- Online Courses and Digital Products
- Brand Partnerships/Paid Sponsorships
- Channel Memberships
- Driving Traffic to Your Blog
Which Revenue Stream is Right for Your Channel?
Now, let’s dive into our list. But first I want to be sure to share that I personally do not utilize all of these avenues for monetization. The most important thing to me is to create valuable content and stay true to where I’m at in my journey and my values…Hoping in turn that my audience will view me as a trustworthy person, which I always aim to be. I highly recommend considering whether or not each monetization avenue is actually appropriate for your channel and brand rather than jumping at all of them every chance you get.
This means that memberships, for example, do not feel like a good avenue for me to pursue right at this moment. My channel is still pretty young and I feel like I am still getting to know my audience. This is an example of a judgment call on monetization that will vary from one creator to the next. For some, it could make sense to do memberships right away. Every content creator should think very seriously about the different ways they’d like to monetize, making sure each method aligns with their brand.
1. Running Ads with Google Adsense
Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program by meeting the monetization requirements is such a great way (and a really easy way!) to earn money on YouTube. The good news is that it’s fairly easy to do…Especially if you know how to optimize your videos to appear in search results and create content with the potential to become a viral video. Once you are approved for YouTube’s Partner Program, all of your past and present video content is eligible for monetization by simply clicking a button. It couldn’t get much easier than that! You get to earn on the work you are already doing simply by running YouTube ads.
To qualify for YouTube’s Partner Program and start running ads, you need to reach 1,000 subscribers with at least 4,000 public hours of watch time in the past 12 months OR 1,000 subscribers and 10 million public YouTube shorts views in the past 90 days.
When you very first reach the eligibility criteria for monetization with ads, you won’t make much, maybe a few dollars a month. But hang in there, as you grow your audience and as your watch time increases, this number will go up. Earnings vary wildly depending on number of views, view time, and how many ads you run in each video. So you can’t just judge a channel’s earnings based on subscribers. I’ve found from asking around that a good, conservative average earnings estimate is $10 per 1,000 views. So for example, if you publish a video that gets 25,000 video views, you will earn about $250. This number may be higher or lower depending on the variables mentioned.
If your goal is to earn an income for content creation on your YouTube account, it’s a good idea to have a Google Adsense account set up before you meet the eligibility requirements on YouTube. That way you are ready to apply ASAP once you have the numbers.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the easiest way and the most common way YouTubers earn additional income. It’s a great way to monetize your channel promoting things you love before you qualify for ads. And its beneficial to continue affiliate partnerships even after you start running ads. I’m a huge fan of affiliate programs because I tend to be a pretty loyal customer when I find something I like. So it comes very naturally to want to share about it with others.
Affiliate marketing is as easy as applying to programs you align with and then sharing your affiliate link in each relevant video description. I highly recommend being selective with your affiliates. Only promote products you actually use that resonate with your target audience.
You’re not going to make much money with affiliates if you promote every single product out there, just because. For many YouTube creators, affiliate marketing brings in more income than ads.
Another bonus with affiliate marketing is that affiliate links can be used across multiple platforms to promote brands you love. Since I’m very selective with my affiliates, I share the same brand and links on my blog, YouTube channel, and other social media platforms when relevant to the content.
3. Online Courses and Digital Products
Creating and selling your own products doesn’t have to mean stocking inventory, packaging, and shipping. Digital products can be very valuable and a significant stream of income for your YouTube channel and brand. I can attest to this personally because I’ve purchased online courses and digital products that have benefited me greatly – including the course I took before starting my YouTube channel.
The great thing about online courses and digital products is that you don’t have to share any of the income with another company – you get to keep what you earn. I don’t currently have any digital products and it’s not on my radar at the moment, but I’m sure I will at some point. The key here, just like with all of the other monetization methods, is making sure you’re creating and offering valuable, high-quality, original content that is actually meeting the needs of your potential customers.
Digital products, especially courses, should easily flow from an abundance of knowledge on any given subject. Too many novices out there are selling courses online. Its best to have mastered something before creating a course on how to do it.
If you’ve got an online store or course, you’ll want to link to it as much as possible in your video descriptions so your subscribers know what you offer – remember, not everyone reads descriptions. I get emails and comments constantly asking for information I regularly provide in my descriptions. It’s a great reminder that new subscribers come along all the time and it’s not annoying or redundant to include certain links in every video.
4. Brand Partnerships/Paid Sponsorships
Landing brand deals is one of the most exciting parts of influencer marketing. When a brand wants to sponsor your video or sign a long-term deal, it means they recognize all of your hard work in creating quality content and trust you to expand their brand awareness – it’s a big deal.
As always, do not just jump at every brand partnership that comes your way. I was getting 10+ offers a day from all kinds of brands and had over 90K subscribers before I accepted my first paid sponsorships. And even then, they were with companies I had been a customer with for a few years so I felt great about promoting their brand on my channel! Having said this, my channel leans more in the lifestyle direction. If someone had a channel focused on trying out different kitchen appliances, it may be totally appropriate to accept a brand deal with a company for creating a review video on their product.
You can reach out to brands, wait for brands to reach out to you, or work with an agent or agency who represents you and negotiates with brands on your behalf.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to a brand you really love and want to share with your audience, the worst thing that can happen is that they say no. No big deal! I’ve had it happen a few times and it doesn’t phase me.
If you’re at the point where brands are reaching out to you, but you feel overwhelmed by the back and forth and paperwork – working with an agent or agency may be a good fit. This is something I just recently started doing, because I want the bulk of my time to be spent creating videos and blog posts that are helpful to my audience, not working on paperwork. The agency I am working with takes care of all the details so I can focus on the creative parts of my business which I what I love doing!
5. Channel Memberships
Channel memberships where subscribers pay a monthly fee to get access to exclusive content, live streams, live chat, members-only community posts, etc. You have to be a part of the YouTube Partner Program to qualify for memberships. But even then, it’s best to consider channel memberships only once you have built an active community you regularly interact with.
Channel memberships are something that are best done out of need. For example, if you’re constantly getting tons of questions in your comments sections, a channel membership with a monthly, live Q&A could be a really great way for your audience to be able to ask you in person or just chat with a like-minded community. I actually pay to subscribe to a few content creators to get access to their exclusive content because it’s so valuable for the season of life I am in.
Just remember that it’s a big deal for someone to pay their hard-earned money to get access to your content, so be sure you can deliver on what you promise in your membership. It’s ok to just try to get to know your audience in your comments section if you’re not ready for memberships or don’t feel like its a good fit for your channel. Remember, these are all just options, not obligations.
6. Driving Traffic to Your Blog or Website
This is such a big one, and probably the most overlooked! While it’s totally possible to have a successful YouTube channel without a blog or website, it’s definitely a missed opportunity. Especially since it’s so easy to create blog content that flows directly from your YouTube videos. Some people just prefer reading to watching a video. And some things (like recipes, for example) work really well in written form on a blog.
I actually started my blog long before I started my YouTube channel, but I never did much with it. When my YouTube channel took off, my blog was just sitting there, forgotten about. I was sharing all of my recipes and info from the video in the description of my YouTube videos. This just wasn’t sufficient. I often ran out of room and had to leave out instructions. I was being asked regularly to post my recipes in blog format. So I did!
And I took it seriously, optimizing my posts for SEO and to be Pinterest friendly so they were not only more helpful to my audience but could reach more people. This paid off very quickly and I was able to monetize my site with Mediavine. So, not only was this beneficial for my business, it was meeting a regular need/request from my audience. Win-win!
You can use your YouTube channel and blog to drive traffic back and forth by embedding a relevant YouTube video in each post and linking blog posts in your YouTube descriptions. I don’t know about you, but when I look something up, I like options that have a video to go along with the post/article.
I just recently got my blog monetized and haven’t even received my first paycheck yet. But I’ve spoken with enough seasoned bloggers to know that this is a worthwhile venture that will create a steady stream of passive income long-term if taken seriously. So, I highly recommend driving traffic to your blog/website as your YouTube channel grows. You’ll be so glad you did even though it’s extra work!
Tips for Turning Your YouTube Channel into a Profitable Business
Now that we’ve gone over the most common ways to monetize your YouTube channel…Let’s go over some basic tips for turning your YouTube hobby into a profitable business.
Know your niche and stick to it
Choosing a specific niche is important for reaching your target audience. For example, my niche is Homesteading. Homemaking, home cooking, homeschooling, etc. are sub-niches for me that fall under that umbrella naturally. So they’re all things I cover regularly. But it all comes back to homesteading – building a life around the home and cultivating a productive home.
Believe it or not – homesteading is not my greatest passion in life. I’m much more passionate about other topics like religion, women’s health, children’s rights, politics, etc. However, I spend most of my days making my home and tending my farm and family. So homesteading is a much easier niche for me since it flows so naturally day-to-day.
I’m not being fake or hiding anything by not focusing on my other passions on this platform. I’m just choosing to focus on this one thing for a specific purpose, because I have so much to share in this one niche!
Make content creation your number-one priority
You can take all the courses in the world, spend a ton of time picking branding colors and fonts, and go to all the blogging or YouTube conferences, and never make a dime. I see this happen frequently in the YouTube groups I’m in on Facebook.
Content creation needs to be what you spend the bulk of your time on. I’ve been able to build a profitable business on YouTube with no logo, branding colors or fonts, or conferences. Plus, I’ve only taken one very affordable YouTube course before starting my channel.
Don’t be afraid to outsource if you can afford it
You can’t be in all the places at once and do it all well – at least not by yourself. When I first started focusing on YouTube, I stopped creating content on all of my other social media platforms. I just couldn’t manage it all at once.
But as soon as I had enough income, I hired someone to edit my YouTube videos into Instagram reels and YouTube shorts and post those for me. I did this even though it meant I wasn’t making much money. But it paid off by driving more traffic to my channel and videos.
I’ve continued to outsource every chance I get so I can focus on my part and enjoy what I do. Outsourcing makes content creation more sustainable long term. Many creators who try to do it all burn out eventually. I experienced this the first time I dove into YouTube, and ended up taking 6 months off. Lesson learned: either find a way to make it enjoyable and sustainable or it’s not right for me.
Happy YouTubing!
I hope this post was helpful to you wherever you are on your content creation journey. Or maybe you have no interest in creating YouTube videos but are just curious about how all of this works. I am very transparent and have no problem sharing the behind-the-scenes part of what I do. Especially because I want my audience (fellow homemakers) to know that I can not, and do not, do it all. I’ve just learned how to do something I enjoy and make it a profitable venture. This is something many a homemaker has done throughout history…
“She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night” Proverbs 31:18
More Posts Like This
How to Start a YouTube Channel in 2024
Most Common Mistakes New YouTubers Make