Interesting
So, as per my bucket list, after achieving some blogging milestones of being approved in the Google Adsense partnership and officially monetizing this blog thus have received my first blogging payout April last year, now I am about to talk about adding my YouTube earnings to this money-making funnel for the first time.
If you will be dropping a visit on my YouTube channel right now, the earliest video produced you will see there is our family's Japan trip which is like 3-4 years ago and was made using the old but gold "Movie Maker" program back then (haha!). The next one which had a big jump that was recorded last year was the start of my "serious" YouTube program covering some of my travel videos. My initial plan was to post travel videos only but when I thought of doing some video versions of my blog posts which really makes sense, "Why not, right?!", directing me on pursuing this informative vlogging career.
I can only share based on my personal experience so feel free to share yours (if you have) in the comment section below:
monetization metrics
As per the minimum requirements of having 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hour video views in 12 months' time, I achieved the 1k subscribers first before the 4k watch hours. I wrote about the things I did to get that and hopefully it can help you in any way it can like to give you ideas of some sort. Here are the ways I personally did to increase my subscribers and video views on YouTube.
And after a grueling 12 months time (every single day grind), yes, just in time before the 12 months period adjust, I reached the goal. It was a rollercoaster of a year for me as I did not stop finding creative ways to make it work and get here. Now I can tell the story with ease. Whew! What a relief, really! haha!
So upon achieving it, your monetization menu should appear something like this.
Channel under review
I was really surprised to get the confirmation in my email after just a single working day process. I won't forget that day since it was Feb. 14 (Valentine's day), when my channel got reviewed then on Feb. 16, this email below came.
confirmation email
Basing some experiences from others (and research too), getting this email is the most intricate part of passing the partnership program since YouTube will really validate and asses channels from here firsthand - like a real person from their headquarters. I got messages from friends that they did not reach this part and were waiting for this email too for a long time already even after hitting the requirements and having subscribers and video views which were exponentially bigger than what was initially required.
I guess producing unique content is really a key to this as many reuses, recycle, and reupload videos of others which is a complex thing to do here on YouTube. So I suggest you thoroughly check and fully read & understand all the rules & policies they implement especially if you are targeting your channel to be monetized in the future.
Moving along to the most intriguing part, what was my first earning from the YouTube partnership program? (drum roll please)
first cut-off
It is $7.95! If you'll see on the upper right corner of the photo, the date of coverage is the whole month of February. But since my monetization started from the 16th, it only covered around 14 days..
NOTE: YouTube earnings only show in Google Adsense accounts during the 15th of the following month and you can only withdraw once you reach the minimum threshold amount of $100.
Thus resulting in my account looking like this.
YouTube earnings in Google Adsense
If you want a bigger picture, then let me give it to you. Given below are my first 30 monetized days of YouTube channel performance and it earned the following amount.
First 30 monetized days of YouTube performance
I earned $15.07 for the first 30 days of being monetized on YouTube! Happy? Of course! I know for some people, $.50 a day on an average is like nothing. Come on, though there is a truth in it.. but you have to think further than that. It's a continuous investment that grows over time - that this is just the start of it. Unlike my first blogging payout story which I monetized after 6 years from the beginning and started kind of big (for me. personally), surely I can make something out of this too in the long run.. that when I look back to this post and say to myself, "hey, we started on this figure.. look where we are now.."
So this one goes for the people who think being monetized will earn you hundreds of dollars instantly.. It actually MAY happen if you have a great number of subscribers beforehand or a viral video is in progress. But if you are an ordinary citizen like me that just got all the minimum requirements to happen, I hope this gives light that this is just the beginning of everything.