Many Views But Little Money

Eljay

Eljay

Liking YTtalk
Hi.

I have a channel with short animated cartoons that gets a good view count but I roughly only make like 2-3 $ per 10k views.
Is that normal? That would mean if I ever get a million views, I'd roughly only make about 200-300$.

I would just like to know if that seems about right or if I should check out better options.

thanx.
 
I know but does 2-3 $ per 10k views seem extremely low or is it still in an average acceptable range?

Btw, nice vids. :D
 
Eljay said:
I know but does 2-3 $ per 10k views seem extremely low or is it still in an average acceptable range?
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It's low, but also within the acceptable range- especially if your videos don't have that many views on them yet.

From my own experience, I've also found that videos don't earn much money until they pass a certain threshold...usually between 350-500k views. After that point, the CPM seems to jump. Perhaps it takes that long for YouTube to get a better lock down on the video's key demographics and can better advertise to them or maybe it's just an odd coincidence.


Eljay said:
Btw, nice vids. :D
Click to expand...

Many thanks!
 
Actually one of my vids has half a million views and gets around 15 - 20k views per month but only makes like 5-6$ on that.
My other videos are in the 100k range. I only have about 10 videos because animation is a lot of work and I have a regular job working for a professional animation studio that
takes up most of my time but I would like to spend about a year to mainly work on my channel. My videos are well received but in order to make enough money it seems like I'd have to crank out hundreds of videos.
That's what makes it a bit discouraging that even videos with half a million views only seem to make peanuts.
 
As you know from peeking at my channel, I certainly know the time sink that animation is. I started out doing cgi, dabbled in Flash, back to cgi, then, one day realized I simply wasn't happy staring at a screen for 8-16 hours a day and that I wanted to physically touch my artwork....which was the start of my stop motion.

Without knowing your channel or seeing your work, I'm stuck making assumptions- the first would be that your animations are relatively short (1-2 minutes)? If that's the case, and even more so depending on your retention, certain, higher paying ads aren't even offered.

Another unfortunate setback for animators is that YouTube prioritizes channels based on how often they upload. A channel who uploads daily or even weekly will be ranked far higher and promoted more than one who updates only sporadically.

It's unfortunate, but, for that reason, they definitely favor game channels who can put out a 10-30 minute video daily over an animation channel who only uploads a short every few months.

I've seen this plenty (and confirmed with my YouTube advisor) on my own channel- as soon as I stop posting, all of my video counts plummet quickly.

The last negative for animators are the actual advertisers and that animators, unlike game or review channels, don't have a specific target product market.

It may seem counterintuitive, but broadcasting to a wide market and demographic is a hindrance, not a positive. Gaming channels (I hate going back to them so much, but they're the easiest example) will have game, computer, game systems, peripherals, and so on advertising on their videos...in addition to the broad market film trailers and whatnot that we will get.
 
You got it right. My animation varies from 15 seconds to around 1 minute.

My intention is to now focus on my channel, do much more limited animation and try to upload at least one short per week.
I wasn't sure if I maybe needed to switch to a different form of monetization to earn more.
Right now I just have the basic monetization offered by YT.

Thanks for your further advice.
 
YouTube doesn't even run Analytics for any video under 10 seconds and barely shows pre-roll ads on anything under 30.

If you were to go to your Analytics page and click on 'Ad Rates,' how many 'Estimated monetized playbacks' are shown? If you were to change your time frame to 'Lifetime,' how many of your million views were monetized? I'd wager a very small number... and it's your short videos and sporadic upload times that are to blame.

Basic AdSense via YouTube is the best option you're going to get... networks may promise more, but, unless you're gaining millions of views a month, you'll get the same exact ads - and they'll take out their percentage.

If you're videos are well received and if your target audience is old enough, have you considered a Patreon account? With incentives, perhaps you could get enough people to pledge you $1 for each upload.
 
Shakycow said:
and it's your short videos and sporadic upload times that are to blame.
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I won't be making longer videos because my videos are supposed to be short but I will definitely start increasing my upload rate.
Shakycow said:
If you're videos are well received and if your target audience is old enough, have you considered a Patreon account? With incentives, perhaps you could get enough people to pledge you $1 for each upload.
Click to expand...

That's an option I might consider and look into. 65% of my viewers are women and the majority of my viewers are between 25 - 64. Viewers under 18 are only 2%.
That's something I'll look into as soon as I start having a regular upload rate.

You gave me the main infos I was looking for. Thanks a lot.:)
 
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