Tag Archives: advertising

Why There are So Many Ads on YouTube

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It’s a money grab, plain and simple, and YouTube encourages creators to maximize the number of ads per video.

I’ve been a YouTube content creator for about 15 years now, starting my channels as a way to share videos of things going on in my not-quite-average life. I had the good fortune to create a video that went viral — 12.5 million views so far — and has not only earned me thousands of dollars since I put it on YouTube, but was the driving force to get my subscriber count on the FlyingMAir YouTube channel up to nearly 80,000.

My History as a Content Creator

It’s nice to earn money on content you create or, technically, intellectual property (IP). From 1990, when I left my last full-time job to become a freelance writer and computer consultant, to around 2012, I earned the vast majority of my income as what I insist on calling a content creator. (For some reason, many creators are opposed to that term. I’m not sure why.) I wrote books and articles and made videos for various publishers. I even did a little self publishing of books. I created the content that people wanted to consume. What else would you call that?

During that time, I was able to not only fund the training and asset acquisition for my next career as a helicopter pilot, but I also socked away enough money to retire* at age 62.

My YouTube channels — including the one for Flying M Air which I no longer create videos for — continue to earn me money with a direct deposit into my checking account every month. How is that money earned? Through advertising.

YouTube Ad Revenue

Love YouTube but don’t like ads?

Do what I did: become a YouTube Premium subscriber. (Sign up on the Web and not through your Apple device and you can save $5/month.) Although I was skeptical until I got a free trial, I’m now convinced that it’s worth every single penny. You’ll still have to fast-forward through the sponsorship crap, though.

If you watch YouTube, you know how annoying the ads can be. There are pre-roll ads and post-roll ads and mid-roll ads. You can skip some of them after a few seconds but are forced to sit through others. Most of them are short, but when you have three or four in a row, they take up (too much) time.

For a new channel that cannot be monetized by its creator, the creator has absolutely no control over the ads and doesn’t make a single penny from them. So if you’re watching videos on a channel with 567 subscribers, remember that 100% of the revenue for the ads you see go right to Google. (If that channel creator has a tip jar of any sort and you like the videos, consider sending a few dollars their way to motivate/reward them for hard work.)

Once a channel can be monetized through a share of advertising revenue, creators get a tiny portion — literally just pennies sometimes — on every thousand views. So yeah: unless a video has a lot of views and a lot of ads, you’re not going to make very much. I could go on and on about how some creators game the system to fool people into clicking on their content with misleading titles and thumbnails, but I’ll save that for another day. This post is about the ad revenue.

If you can’t control the number of views a video gets — and new channels usually have a steep hill to climb to get regular viewers — you can still control the number of ads that appear with your content. Again, there are three types: pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll. Google isn’t shy about letting you know that the more kinds of ads you allow in your content, the more likely they are to push your content out on viewer Home pages.

Mid-Roll Ad Idea
Google does what it can to get you to maximize shared revenue.

And that brings me to what triggered today’s posts: the “idea” that appeared on my YouTube Studio dashboard for my MariaLanger channel, which just reached the point where I can monetize ads. When I set up ads for my existing videos, I specified pre-roll and post-roll ads, but turned off mid-roll ads. Why? Well, the main reason is that I hate them and I don’t want to torture my viewers by forcing them to watch them. I try to make my content smooth and continuous and breaking it up with tacky, annoying ads in the middle of it is, well, tacky and annoying. I respect my viewers.

(That’s not to say I might not change my mind in the future. On very long videos, I can specify exactly where a mid-roll ad can appear, so I can place it in a way to make it less obnoxious. I’d rather not, but I’m also not creating video for charity. I want revenue from my work and the tip jar isn’t working yet for me. Want to support my content creation efforts? Buy me a coffee.)

The reason so many people allow mid-roll ads is because they see “ideas” like this in their Studio dashboard. They want to make money and they are seduced by the possibilities. It’s the same reason they set up memberships or Patreon accounts. Even if they started their YouTube channel for fun, once they get to the point where they’re making money, they want to make more.

The Trap for Creators

YouTube Content Creation as a Job

Please don’t think I’m discouraging content creators from making YouTube content creation their full time jobs. There are many creators on YouTube who do just that. They have teams of writers — many of whom lean too heavily on Wikipedia — and video editors and they appear as talking heads reading off a teleprompter with a script while stock images that vaguely apply to what they’re saying appear onscreen. They have multiple channels and they come out with new content every day. These folks are making shit-tons of money while they pay a staff to do much of the work. It’s a business for them.

There are a folks with more modest setups that do much of their own research, writing, and video work. Some of them are really good; I subscribe to more than a few. But the ones who are most successful have YouTube content creation as a full-time job. You see, once you stop feeding the beast, the beast looks elsewhere for its next meal.

So unless you’re lucky enough to have a viral video after you’ve already become part of the Partner Program with a share of advertising revenue, you can expect to do a lot of work to build a YouTube channel to the point where it actually makes real money for you. Good luck.

I definitely get it. My FlyingMAir YouTube channel was earning, for a while, $500+ per month. One month, I took in $1200. That’s some real, bill-paying money!

Of course I had mid-roll ads and of course I set up a membership program and even a Patreon account. Do you know what that did for me? It turned content creation back into a job, something I had to do all the time to keep members and patrons and Google happy. I woke up to this realization when I was spending more time editing video than actually flying and watched revenues drop as the Google algorithm favored other creators more than me. I had fallen into a trap and I needed to get out.

Eventually, I sold the helicopter and could no longer create new content for the channel. I killed the membership and Patreon programs so I wouldn’t owe anyone anything. It was a huge weight off my chest.

A New Channel

So here I am, facing a new trap with my MariaLanger channel. This channel is older than FlyingMAir and actually still has a bunch of the helicopter videos I created before I spun off the helicopter channel. But it never had a good subscriber base until recently. I have just 1852 subscribers as I type this and am getting new subscribers at the modest rate of about 90 per month. I qualified for the partner program back in August and just qualified for advertising revenue in October. I’ve earned a whopping $9.03 so far this month.

I should mention here why I suddenly picked up so many new subscribers. It’s the boating videos I was creating while I traveled the Great Loop. And I have at least 40 more to come over the next year or so. The video has been shot; it’s just a matter of editing it into something worth watching. And yes, I’ll be getting back to that, probably this week. Editing video is no fun on a laptop, but I suspect the 27″ monitor I just bought will make it less tedious. That $9.03 will go toward the purchase. (Did I mention how much camera and lighting and audio and computer hardware you’ll need to buy to succeed as a YouTube content creator? That’s something no one tells you.)

And That’s Why

So that’s why there are so many ads on YouTube. Creators want to make money and Google does everything in its power to convince creators to include as many ads as possible in their channel content.

—
*My retirement is not a “stop working” retirement. I could never stop working and I don’t think anyone else should, either. Now I do the work I want to do when I want to do it — and take a shit-ton of time off.

My Thoughts on YouTube’s Mid-Roll Ads

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I think I respect my viewers a lot more than other creators respect theirs.

I’m officially what’s referred to as a YouTube Creator. That’s someone who regularly creates content for publication on YouTube, a platform that gets thousands, if not millions, of new videos a day. Much of that is junk but a lot is actually good, valuable content. And some is really high quality, useful/entertaining material. I like to think that my content falls into that middle category — better than junk but not as good as the really high quality stuff. I do what I can with the materials and skills I have. And unlike other Creators there, this isn’t my full-time job and I don’t have a bunch of corporate sponsors feeding me cash. I set priorities in my life and YouTube content creation isn’t at the top of that list.

And now for a shameless plug…

If you like helicopters and/or flying and want to watch videos about helicopters/flying without a lot of hype, I hope you’ll try my channel, FlyingMAir. Many of the videos put you in the cockpit with me as I fly around and talk about what I’m seeing and doing. If you like it, subscribe and tell your friends.

That said, I am fortunate enough to be allowed to monetize my channel. I have 63,000+ subscribers (as I type this), a number that has been climbing steadily for the past few years. I’m not sure if the requirement is 1,000 subscribers or 10,000 subscribers for monetization, but I’ve met it. That means that I get a teeny tiny cut of whatever YouTube gets for placing ads before, after, and possibly during my content.

How teeny? It’s currently hovering around $3 per 1,000 views. So yeah — when 1,000 people watch one of my videos, I currently get about $3. Not exactly a wealth building opportunity for me. Sunday’s video, which has been out for 48 hours as I’ve typed this, has earned me about $5. (Thanks, viewers!)

Of course, one of the reasons this number is so low is because I only allow three kinds of advertising on my content and I allow them in only two places. Yes! Creators can specify what kinds of ads appear and when they appear! There are five kinds and three locations and this image from one of my video’s settings pretty much explains them:

YouTube Ad Types and Locations
This is how I normally set options for my videos.

YouTube’s advice — which apparently lots of Creators heed — is to turn on all ad options. YouTube wants the opportunity to sell ads everywhere, even though it does not display ads on all videos. (It’s about 60% for mine and I only make money on my videos when ads are displayed on them.)

My school of thought is this: I need ads on my videos to monetize them. (Yes, I know I’ve got Memberships and Patreon set up for my channel but not everyone can or wants to chip in with real money. Honestly, without monetization, I would not be motivated to create content regularly.) But I don’t want ads to ruin the viewing experience. So where can I put them to be the least obnoxious? The answer is before and after the video using ads that don’t obstruct or interrupt the content. That’s the settings you see above.

Some of my older videos might have Overlay ads and Sponsored cards selected, so don’t be surprised if you see some of those for content published before mid 2019. I don’t think I have During video turned on for any videos. And that’s what this post is about: mid-roll ads that appear during the video.

I’m a big YouTube viewer. I don’t have regular TV in my home. No cable or satellite, no antenna to pick up local broadcasts. I have whatever my smart TV or laptop can pick up through a wicked fast fiber Internet connection: Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and a variety of other channels I subscribe to or get for free like PBS, Lynda.com, and the Great Courses. I use YouTube to learn new things — even things I don’t need to know — and get ideas. To keep my brain going.

And, as a YouTube viewer, there is one thing I absolutely cannot stand: mid-roll ads. You know what I’m talking about. The ads that appear suddenly and without notice, sometimes in the middle of an onscreen sentence, disrupting the video with something you absolutely do not care about.

Mid-roll ad announcement
This “card” appeared in my YouTube Studio dashboard about a month ago and is still there.

Until recently, mid-roll ads were only available on videos 10 minutes long or longer. But recently, YouTube announced to creators that the ads were now available to videos 8 minutes long or longer. And oh, by the way, this feature will be turned on by default for all your new videos unless you change it by a certain date. (I immediately changed it for my channel.)

I need to point out something important here. Creators who enable mid-roll ads have the ability to specify points where the ads may appear. So say a Creator has made a video that shows a 4-step process with cuts between each step. Logically, a good place to put a mid-roll ad would be at one of those cuts. This is less intrusive in the content. But what I’ve seen lately as the number of mid-roll ads grows on YouTube is that Creators aren’t bothering to set up ad locations. They’re just letting them appear wherever YouTube puts them. The ultimate in annoying for viewers.

To me, allowing mid-roll ads to interrupt your content in such an annoying way is the ultimate way to tell your viewers that you don’t give a damn about their viewing experience. The only thing that matters to you is the fractions of pennies of ad revenue you’ll get by allowing that ad to appear.

And I think there’s something seriously wrong with that attitude.

I’ll admit it here: I’ve begun leaving comments on videos with disruptive ads asking the Creator to turn off mid-roll ads. And I think you should, too.

Of course, there is a way to get rid of all ads on YouTube — and it doesn’t necessarily hurt Creators. You can sign up for YouTube Premium. My understanding is that for $11.99/month, in addition to adding features to YouTube, it also removes ads from content. If you watch enough YouTube, you might find it worthwhile. I don’t watch that much YouTube and I’d rather see my money go directly to a Creator via Membership or Patreon support.

The only thing I’m really left wondering about is this: because I have disabled some YouTube ad options — rather than turning them all on as YouTube recommends — am I triggering some sort of penalty that keeps my videos out of search results? Is there some under-the-hood activity in the bowels of YouTube that will punish me for not flooding my videos with ads by simply limiting the number of potential new viewers? That’s something I’ll likely never know.

How YouTube Ad Revenue Works for Monetized Channels

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A behind-the scenes look at how YouTube creators can make money on advertising.

A while back, I blogged about an unexpected windfall from my YouTube videos and how that had motivated me to create new content and keep my channel growing as a real source of income. Since then, I’ve learned a few things.

The most important thing I learned was how YouTube advertising revenue works, and I thought I’d share it with the folks who think that they can become rich quick as YouTube content creators. As you’ll see, it isn’t that easy.

Yes, once your channel is monetized — a step that requires the channel to have at least 10,000 subscribers, which is a challenge in itself — you can get a small part of the revenue that YouTube collects on the ads that appear before, on, after, and sometimes during your video.

As a creator, you get some control over what kind of ads appear and when they appear. You can do this on a video-by-video basis or set default options that apply to all new videos you publish. Here’s what the Video Monetization screen looks like for one of my longer videos:

Video Monetization Options
Here’s the Video Monetization settings for one of my upcoming videos.

Of course, all this is moot for a video if you turn monetization off. That doesn’t turn ads off — it just turns off your ability to collect ad revenue on the video. Why would you do that? Well, perhaps the video has a paid promotion in it; if so, YouTube requires you to turn off monetization. Failure to do so is a violation of the terms of service which is a serious no-no in YouTubeland.

If Monetization is turned on, you can select what kind of ads you’ll allow on the video and when they will appear. YouTube recommends that you turn all of them on and it’s pretty obvious that a lot of creators do. But because I hate seeing ads in the middle of a video, I keep the During Video option (at the bottom) turned off. (I wish everyone did.) Other than that, I keep them set as you see here, with most turned on. Skippable ads run for about 5 seconds before you can click to skip them and I think that’s a small price to pay for free content. (To my knowledge, skipping an ad does not reduce my revenue.) Non-skippable ads are a little more frustrating but they’re always short. Overlay ads and sponsored cards both appear over content and I have one turned on and the other turned off; I think my logic was that one is more obtrusive than the other.

Now you might think that turning these on results in ads appearing on every single view. That’s simply not the case. Surely you’ve seen YouTube videos without ads?

There’s actually a sitewide estimate of how often ads appear on YouTube content: 40% of the time. So if one of my videos is viewed 10,000 times, only 4,000 of those views were likely to include ads. This becomes an important number, as we’ll see in a moment.

I should mention here that you can actually calculate your current ad percentage manually by consulting two different analytics screens. The Channel Analytics Overview screen tells you the number of views for a specific period — 28 days by default. The Channel Analytics Revenue screen tells you the number of monetized playbacks. Divide monetized playbacks by total views to get the percentage:

For example, as of today, for the past 28 days my numbers are as follows:
Monetized Playbacks: 62.7 ÷ Total Views: 124.3K = Percent of Videos Monetized: 50.4%

So right now I’m having a higher percentage of monetized playbacks than average. That could be because one of my recent videos has become very popular and may be more attractive for advertisers so I’m getting more ad buys.

Ad Types
Here are the kinds of ads sold on my channel in the past 28 days.

Of course, I don’t see all the details of every single ad sale. All I see is a breakdown of the kinds of ads sold for videos on my channel and the all-important CPM. The breakdown is on the Channel Analytics Revenue screen and clicking a SEE MORE link brings up a full screen of detail.

The CPM, which also appears on that Revenue screen, is an average of what I’ll be paid per 1,000 monetized views. This number changes regularly — it’s $6.79 this morning, but was down to $4+ the other day. (Again, I suspect a popular video has made space on my channel more valuable.) I’ve seen it as high as $11+. I would not be surprised if I checked in this evening and it was different. (In a way, it’s kind of like a stock market per share valuation for my channel or a specific video. It rises and falls depending on the market for ads on my channel or specific video.) They say that $4 is an average CPM for YouTube creators, so I’ll stick to that for illustrative purposes.

But no, this doesn’t mean you get $4 per view or even $4 per monetized view. It means you get $4 per 1,000 monetized views.

So going back to my previous example, if a video got 10,000 views and 40% of them were monetized and you were getting $4 per monetized view, that’s

10,000 x 40% /1000 X 4 = $16.00

My channel is doing pretty well this month, mostly because of my 737 MAX video‘s popularity. I published it 8 days ago and it has almost 50,000 views as I type this. I can get analytics for just this video and the numbers are very nice: almost 50% monetized playbacks and an $8.38 CPM. That video has earned me $104.54 in ad revenue in just 8 days. Sounds great, right?

Well, let’s look at the video that came out right before it, the Autumn Cockpit POV flight. Although it has a higher percentage of monetized playbacks, it’s only been viewed 2,800 times in two weeks. Its CPM is just $5.91. In two weeks, it’s earned me a whopping $11.99. (That’s not per day, by the way. It’s for the entire two weeks. That’s less than $1 per day.)

And please do remember that a video will not earn the same amount per day/week/month/etc. throughout its whole life. Sometimes they start like duds and pick up steam, like the 737 MAX video — it wasn’t doing well at all for the first two days. And then sometimes they’re going like gangbusters and interest suddenly disappears. You never know what to expect and can only hope for a pleasant surprise.

Views
Here are the view analytics for my most popular video ever. It had hardly any views for the first year it was published and then took off like a rocket, with periodic surges. The current live analytic for the past 48 hours shows 4,466 views — three years after it was released! This is a YouTube content creator’s dream; I wish I had a dozen like this.

When I started writing this, I didn’t mean to get into the complex details of revenue calculations for specific videos. I just wanted to explain how ad revenue works for monetized channels on YouTube. To take some of the mystery out of it.

The takeaway on all this is that in order to make YouTube a full-time business — as some creators have — you need a strategy that combines ad revenue from wildly popular videos and other sources. This is why so many content creators on YouTube also sell merchandise and offer memberships or Patreon patron benefits.

I’ll be frank here: creating content for my YouTube channel is crazy expensive. Not only do I have to fly an aircraft that costs hundreds of dollars an hour to fly, but I have to have the cameras, camera mounts, and video editing equipment to record and edit the resulting footage. And the time I spend doing all this is time I’m not spending doing something that could earn money elsewhere so there’s a definite value to my time. I could easily drop $300 to $600 to make a video that will never earn more than what it cost to make.

I’m not complaining here — I’m just telling it like it is. I love flying and having an excuse to fly. I enjoy making the videos. I like most of the very positive feedback I get. But a girl has to make a living so I hope folks don’t mind me pushing Flying M Air hats and T-shirts or asking for Patreon patrons. If my video creation efforts wind up costing me more than I take in over the long term, I simply won’t be able to continue making them.

And every once in a while, I publish one that actually makes the ad revenue work for me. My Home to Airport by Helicopter video, which has over 9.5 million views, is one of them.

Now if only I could come up with about a dozen more like that.