What factors effect earnings?

Jungle Explorer

Jungle Explorer

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I am trying to figure out what factors effect earnings. I don't know exactly how to explain what I am asking here. There seems to be no rym or reason to why one videos earns more and another video earns less.

Let me use two videos as examples of why I am confused. I have two videos that are almost identical. One is product review of the DBpower EX5000 sports action cam. The other is a product review of the Lightdow LD4000 Sports action cam. Both videos were made at the same time. I did the review of one and then the other, side by side. Both videos are about the same length and cover all the same points. Both were uploaded to youtube on the same day. Both have similar titles, descriptions, and tags. The only difference between them is that one is way more popular then the other.

The EX5000 has had 66,000 views in the last three months, and the LD4000 has had 1,690 only views. Which one do you think has the highest CPM? The EX5000 right? Nope. In fact, out of my 85 videos on my channel, these two videos represent my highest and almost my lowest CPM videos. The LD4000 video is my highest CPM video with an earning of $2.70 per 1000 views over the last three months. The EX5000 is close to my lowest with a CPM of $1.10.

So the question is, WHY? Logic would dictate that because the EX5000 is way more popular, and gets more views, that it should have a higher CPM. And yet it earns only 30% of what the video about the LD4000 earns which is one of my least popular videos. It makes no sense.

My highest earning video based on total revenue earned is a video I made years ago with a smart phone. Honestly, it is a horribly made video. I am basically walking around talking off the top of my head. It is shaky, poor quality, and full of inaccuracies. At the time I made it, I had no intention of building my youtube channel or monetizing or anything like that. I just got the urge, whipped out my cell phone and started filming and then uploaded it. Truthfully, I would now love to remove that video form my channel. But, that video alone makes 34% of my total youtube earnings, 31% of my total youtube watched minutes, and 21% of my total views (out of 85 videos). It is my second highest earning video with a CPM of $2.37, second only to the LD4000 video. It got 357,000 views last year.

Now one might assume that it earns so much because it is so popular, but my second most popular video, which is the EX5000 video, is one of my lowest earners.

So you see, nothing make sense. Popularity does not seem to matter. Format does not seem to matter. Quality does not seem to matter. The question is; WHAT DOES MATTER?

It seems the harder I work to make my videos more professional looking, the less they earn. It is all very confusing.
 
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Jungle Explorer said:
It seems the harder I work to make my videos more professional looking, the less they earn. It is all very confusing.
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I feel ya there. It seems like with every milestone I hit, I take another hi in Revenue. I'm trying to get more creative on my tags and rework descriptions as bes I can for SEO. That seemed o really help a lot.
 
Yeah, I have really worked hard to bump up my tags and I hope it helps get me better placement, but I doubt it effects the actually earnings. My second highest CPM video that earns a third of my total revenue has no tags at all and a very poor description. That is what confuses me. I can't seem to find a single factor that I can point to as something that effects the CPM of a video. Well, that is not entirely true. Short videos under 2 minutes do not earn well, that much I do know. I have a really popular video that has my third highest views count and it has a CPM of $031. It is only 1:47 minutes long though. But it is my only video under 2 minutes long.

I doubt anyone really knows the answer on here. A lot of people have theories, but I don't think anyone really knows.
 
What about demographics? For example, 1,000 views from US will be worth more than 10,000 views from Philippines.
 
What are the viewer retention times for the videos? That could make a very big difference.

Otherwise, demographics and location of the viewers, tags and descriptions all change the ads and amount earned.
 
Two answer both of the last two questions. Over 55% of my traffic comes from the USA. 90% male ages 18 to 64. Average retention is 30%. Average view time is 3.20 minutes.

How do those numbers sound?
 
I think demographics is one of the most effective factors on CPM. also the average retention.
 
Jungle Explorer said:
Yes, but what is good demographics and retention? How do you determine if you are doing good or bad? That is what I would like to know.
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the good retention is from 30% and up, the good demographics is countries like US, UK, Europe and some other rich countries.
 
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