Saturday 12 October 2024
Can I monetize my channel before my 4th anniversary back on YouTube?
Welcome to the first part of My Small Channel Monetization Journey! I’m Amber, and I typically create content about slow and simple homemaking/living. I’m an introverted writer, not an orator – and you might hear my children in the background – so, I don’t typically record talking heads. But, I’m going to try my best to share my monetization journey with you all using this format, because it just seems like the best one for this sort of content.
About a few months ago, I decided to finally focus on monetizing my small channel, after years of being primarily a hobby YouTube content creator. At first, I wasn’t planning to share my monetization journey publicly, but I slowly realized that doing so could hold me more accountable, and – more importantly – be a helpful encouragement to someone else struggling along the way. Creating content for YouTube has been a huge part of my life for almost a decade now, and I’ve been inspired by small creators’ YouTube monetization journeys, so why not share mine?
I know that being a content creator on YouTube can be incredibly frustrating to the point of burnout. Been there, done that. But, success is achievable, as evidenced by the thousands+ of YouTube content creators generating an income from AdSense revenue every month. Why can’t that be you and me?
My YouTube Background
I’ve been passionate about creating content for YouTube for nearly a decade. I began this journey in late 2014 as a young, stay-at-home mother of three small children, seeking inspiration and motivation amidst the chaos. Initially, creating “speed cleaning” content held me accountable and helped me to find motivation and structure. And, not quite two years after starting my YouTube channel, I monetized my channel due to financial need, back when the requirements for monetization were far more relaxed than they are today.
But, in early 2018, I lost monetization because I didn’t meet the brand new YouTube Partner Program requirements of 1,000 subscribers AND 4,000 hours of watch-time over the last 365 days. I never even received a paycheck due to failing the minimum payout amount of $100 before I was demonetized, with $61.70 that’s still in my AdSense account to this day.
Despite this setback, I rebranded to Amber’s Way and worked on improving my channel to the best of my ability. However, by September 2018, I realized and accepted the fact that YouTube wasn’t the best use of my monetizable skills at that time in my life. Financial struggles forced me to quit YouTube as a career option – but, I retained it as a hobby – in order to fully focus on a job search.
A couple of months later, in November 2018, I became employed as an aircraft mechanic, after eight years of being a stay-at-home mother. This full-time job caused me to take a year-long break from content creation, and I even permanently deleted my first channel at the end of the break; but, I officially returned to YouTube in November of 2020, just 6 months after losing my job due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Then, last year, when I was employed as a full-time remote data analyst and administrator for a software development company, I rebranded to Simply Amber Marie and pivoted my niche from “speed cleaning” to promoting a slow and simple lifestyle, aiming to encourage and inspire my viewers by sharing my journey as a homemaker pursuing that lifestyle.
Catalyst for Monetizing My Channel
At the end of March this year, I lost my [remote data analyst and administrator] job due to my department shutting down. Afterward, I dedicated a lot of my time to searching for another remote job, mainly out of respect for my husband and to receive unemployment benefits. Though I was open to it, becoming employed again was not what I wanted. My heart’s desire was to return permanently to being a full-time homemaker; it’s what I’ve known for most of my adulthood, and it’s what I’m the most passionate about in life.
But, my husband was uncomfortable with the change and wanted me to become employed again immediately. After all, my recent job did provide a substantial income for 13 months, and we became comfortable with the increase in lifestyle. But, of course, with high inflation nationwide, a restrictive budget, accumulating debt, and my unemployment benefits about to expire, I understood why he wanted me to return to work so desperately.
But, I found it incredibly overwhelming and stressful when I was simultaneously working full-time, homeschooling our three rambunctious children for the first time, and trying to efficiently manage our home. Though I enjoyed my job immensely, I felt like I was constantly juggling too many responsibilities, and I struggled to find a consistent balance. The hectic lifestyle took a toll on me – mentally and even physically – and I hesitated to return to that situation.
Exploring My Options and Inspiration from Silver and Solo
After a couple of months of a disappointing employment search for another remote position, I added freelance work to my job search. I stumbled across the Amazon Influencer Program, did some basic research, and applied with my YouTube channel. I was immediately rejected – probably because my engagement metrics were found wanting. A couple of weeks later, I decided to focus on improving my YouTube channel, just enough to get approved for the Amazon Influencer Program (and maybe even monetize my channel).
But, I fairly quickly decided that I wanted to focus solely on monetizing my channel to earn AdSense revenue instead. Initially, I was researching how to become a successful YouTube content creator, just so that I could get that Amazon Influencer Program approval using my YouTube channel. On June 27th, I stumbled across a YouTube video by Silver and Solo, “How I Monetized My Small Channel in Just 10 Weeks!” Her story was very encouraging, and I started watching her monetization journey playlist. That began to motivate me to monetize my own YouTube channel.
Four days later, on July 1st, vidIQ posted a video, “If I Want to Get Monetized in 2024, I’d Do This,” which was about Silver and Solo‘s YouTube monetization journey! That was the confirmation that I needed to fully commit to monetizing my channel – not for Amazon Influencer Program approval anymore, but to become a YouTube Partner again and re-monetize my channel.
Overall, I’ve been an active YouTube content creator for about 9 years in total, with no success in the monetization arena. It’s been a somewhat frustrating journey, but watching Silver and Solo‘s monetization journey and learning from her gave me hope and encouraged me to make the decision to finally do whatever it takes to monetize my channel. If I can monetize my channel soon, that will help our financial situation a bit and enable me to remain a full-time homemaker and passionate YouTube content creator.
My Monetization Journey Starting Point
Before I began my first week of trying to monetize my YouTube channel (which was after I watched that first video by Silver and Solo), I:
- installed the free vidIQ extension, with the intention of upgrading to Boost when we’re not so broke
- decided to review my channel analytics and create reports every Saturday morning
- created a page in Notion to track my progress
During these weekly reviews, I’ve been analyzing three items for my reports:
- progress made in the past week, including improvements
- basic analytics, including lifetime subscriber count and the last 365 days of watch-time hours, as well as the last 7 days’ overview of views, watch-time hours and subscribers.
- my vidIQ channel audit to create goals for the upcoming week
On June 29th, I created my preliminary report and started my monetization journey with 557 subscribers and a measly 234.5 watch time hours in the last 365 days (30 June 2023 – 28 June 2024). The week before, I gained 0 subscribers and had 7.4 watch-time hours with 332 views. My initial vidIQ channel audit also gave me some valuable insights into what I could do to improve.
Summary of Progress | Past 3+ Months
I’m now at the end of my 15th week and starting my 16th week of committing to monetize my channel. (But, like I mentioned in the very beginning, I wasn’t going to share my monetization journey publicly at first.) So, I’ll summarize these last few months, and then I’ll share this week’s report.
Over the last 15 weeks, I’ve made a lot of improvements to and progress on my channel, and it’s contributed to some minor success:
1) Post once a week, every week.
I immediately began posting a new video once a week, instead of once every other week. Consistency is essential, and it’s highly recommended by YouTube experts that you post at least one video per week, every week. Before I began my monetization journey, I was posting one video every other Tuesday (i.e. two videos per month). But, I immediately decided to post one video every Friday. I eventually added an additional video a week for about six or seven weeks, starting in August – either a Tea Time with Amber episode or a Live Simply Well episode, every Tuesday. But, I fairly recently (less than a month ago) decided to pause those two series indefinitely, mainly due to my own fastidiousness. I was just feeling dissatisfied with the quality of my content, especially within the two to three weeks before pausing, so I decided to step back from those series to reconsider logistics for a bit.
2) Improve thumbnails and other metadata.
I improved all nine of my videos since I pivoted my niche within the first few weeks of my monetization journey. I did this by:
- updating the thumbnails from auto-generated to customized,
- shortening titles as needed (20-60 characters recommended),
- reviewing and editing descriptions as needed,
- changing my channel category from People & Blogs to How To & Style,
- and adding tags of what I want to be known for (i.e. slow and simple lifestyle), even though tags are redundant and are mostly used for common misspellings.
From there, I made sure that my new videos were all set with this checklist when uploading to my channel and before publishing. What made the biggest impact was definitely updating the thumbnails. I did trial the new thumbnail Test and Compare feature on YouTube, which helped me to discover what style of thumbnail most resonated with my audience.
3) Adhere to personal niche.
I adhered to my slow and simple homemaker lifestyle niche, taking into consideration what content was most successful for me.
4) Learn from experts and other creators to stay motivated.
I’m always learning about YouTube by watching YouTube experts and trying to apply that knowledge to my own channel, as well as staying motivated by watching other creators’ monetization journeys.
5) Generate reports every week for accountability.
I’ve been mostly intentional about creating a detailed progress report every weekend, because creating them holds me accountable. There were some weeks when I only quickly viewed my analytics and channel audit, and took some screenshots; but, the weeks that I actually took the time to create a full report were extremely helpful and encouraging, whether or not I did well that week.
6) Quit comparing.
I quit comparing myself to other content creators. By my second week of trying to monetize my channel, I realized that at least part of the reason for my lack of success in growing my channel has been comparison. Over the years, I’ve compared myself to other content creators, instead of focusing on my own progress. I saw others, especially newcomers in my previous niche, experiencing rapid growth within months. Meanwhile, I struggled to gain just one more subscriber, despite having a substantial head-start. When my growth didn’t match or exceed others’, I became discouraged, causing me to not put in the necessary effort while expecting unintentional content to bring success, and believing it was impossible for me to monetize my channel. It was a vicious cycle. But, YouTube requires a lot of work and dedication; it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You have to first believe you can succeed and put in the effort. Comparison is the thief of joy and success; intentionality is key.
Current Progress Report
Now, let’s get into my latest progress report, which is my 16th one if you include my preliminary report. As mentioned, I take note of the progress I made and what I did to improve my channel over the past week, look at some basic analytics, and check out my vidIQ channel audit to see an overview of how I did and what I should be doing this week. (The channel audits are definitely my favorite part of the vidIQ extension!)
Progress Made Last Week
Besides creating my weekly report a week ago, all I did was publish one video yesterday, which was Friday. (It was a Victorian-influenced afternoon and evening routine in my slow and simple life.) I also made a couple of important decisions that I’ll discuss in a minute, after I discuss my analytics.
Analytics
Today, I have 631 subscribers with 362.7 watch-time hours in the last 365 days. In the three months that I’ve dedicated to monetizing my channel, I’ve gained 74 subscribers and 128.2 watch-time hours in the last year, which is actually good progress in my case. (But, my deadline to monetize my YouTube channel before I have to start searching for a job again is rapidly approaching in less than a month, and if I want to monetize my channel by then, then I have to do significantly better.) As for the last 7 days’ analytics overview, I had 866 views, 25.4 watch-time hours, and grew by 13 subscribers. Nice.
Channel Audit and Improvements to Make This Week
According to my vidIQ channel audit – which is an overview of my channel over the last 30 days – I’ve decided to start doubling down on particular content this week. In addition to my narrated slow and simple homemaking video every Friday, I’m going to reboot the two series that I had paused, especially the Tea Time with Amber episodes, AND start this new series about trying to monetize my small channel. So, I’ll be posting three videos per week indefinitely. Other than that, I’ll keep on doing what I’m doing.
Conclusion | Let’s Keep Growing Together!
The journey to monetization is definitely not easy, especially for small creators. But, it’s possible, and I’m fully committed to making it happen. To be honest, I don’t think I’m going to make my personal deadline, but I’m going to keep at it until then and we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.
If you’re also working toward YouTube monetization, I hope that my story has given you some encouragement. We all start somewhere, and with perseverance, we can reach our goals… no matter how long it might take. Thanks for joining me on this journey, and please stay tuned every Sunday morning for more, much shorter updates!
Simply Amber Marie 