Monetizing your YouTube channel is easy. We’ll walk you through how the program works and how to set-up your account to begin earning revenue from your YouTube videos.
Understanding How YouTube Monetization Works
YouTube places ads inside or near videos. After you’ve enabled monetization on your YouTube channel, your videos can be submitted and approved for monetization. In order to earn the revenue that is generated from these ads, you will need to associate an AdSense account with your YouTube account.
For a video to be eligible, you must own worldwide commercial rights to everything in the video. For example, a video that features a song that you do not own the copyright for (e.g. a song you purchased on iTunes) would not be eligible. For more information about copyright and fair use, visit YouTube’s Copyright Center. In addition to complying with YouTube’s copyright policies, videos must abide by YouTube’s Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
The two key factors for earnings are the type of ads and the pricing of the ads appearing with your videos. Pre-roll ads, which lead into the beginning of a video, make more money per 1 thousand views than less obtrusive banners. You will make money per ad click and a smaller amount per view.
How Ads Are Displayed
Ads that are displayed with your videos are determined automatically based on a number of factors, including how you categorize your video and video meta data. Make sure that video titles, tags and descriptions are SEO friendly for best results. It is important to note that you cannot control all of the ads that may appear on your channel. However, you are able to block ads by general categories and exclude sensitive categories via your AdSense account.
Getting Started: Step-By-Step
- To begin, log-in to your YouTube channel account.
- In the Channel Settings tab, select “Enable monetization.”
- Follow the steps to accept the YouTube monetization agreement.
- In the Uploads tab, you will see a green box with a dollar sign next to the videos that are immediately eligible for monetization. Videos that are not eligible to be monetized due to copyright will be appear under the Copyright Notices tab.
- Next, you’ll need to associate an AdSense account to your YouTube channel. It is free to set up a new AdSense account. You will need either a PayPal or a bank account and a valid mailing address in order to have your account verified. AdSense will update you by mail once your account has been approved. You can also associate an existing, approved AdSense account to your channel. For instructions on how to associate your YouTube and AdSense accounts, visit the Google support page.
photo credit: Rego Korosi via Flickr