Youtube+aff links, current: $300/mo, Goal:$1000/mo

Hi, this journey already started a couple months ago but I figured i would start a thread here now since I've reached an artificial peak. I started late last year around October but didn't seriously really begin until about the beginning of 2014.



Goal

To earn at least $1,000 per month from this method. But I will start being happy around $700 a month.



Method

It's a bit off the beaten path. I am posting videos to Youtube and watermarking them with a URL which directs to my sponsor (usually a dating sponsor). The monetization is when the surfer types in the url and spends moneyalthough I also get a small amount when the surfer joins as a free join. I do not currently use any artificial views, likes, subscribers, or backlinks. It is all 100% natural organic.


Where I am at now

I'm currently at about $300 a month from the method.

Details

1. Either clip or create video myself or download existing video. (But I never use anyone's personal videos, maybe only fair use content)
2. Convert video to h264 mp4 format using handbrake (usually)
3. Use ffmpeg to watermark the video
4. Add in a call to action at the end of the video (have not been doing this as much lately)
5. Create gmail account (always using different IP addresses from local major ISP) *No PVA required*
6. Go to Youtube, click on a few videos and then upload videos usually 3-6 at a time using multi-upload feature.
7. Change title+description+tags for maximum SEO and targeting. Sometimes change the file name as well.

Almost everything is currently done by hand currently. From Jan - May 1 I have been doing about 1 account every two days with an average of about 15 videos per day. Lately in the last week I have been averaging about 2 or 3 accounts per day and about 65 videos per day. Maximum realistic ability is about 100 videos a day. However in theory I have done up to 30 videos per hour if highly focused.

Each account is usually between 15-50 video depending on how risky I feel the content is for getting strikes or TOS removals.

Some of the uniques in the early months include some very low quality traffic from other projects. Since about April that other traffic has been almost meaningless/non-existent. It shows a unique to free average for 2014 of 43 uniques per free but my last two months average is currently 38 uniques per FREE signup.

I have two main niches most of the revenue has come from. One averages about 30 uniques per free and this is the one where most of the revenue has historically came from. Another niche which I started in April currently averages about 15 uniques per free and has made little revenue yet but I have only sent about 70 free joins to this campaign. I also did other niches in the past but the results have been very low and I do not focus on these.

Altogether I have somewhere between 5,000-10,000 videos up on about 100 youtube accounts only two of which are PVA.

My sponsor is AFF (adu1t fri3nd f1nd3r) and currently I am only promoting one site with this method on revshare.

Up till now I have focused on low risk long term actions. IOW I want these videos to stay up and earn me money for years and am not just going for the quick buck.

Niches

Cannot disclose. I will probably more willing to say more once I comfortably hit my goal.


Problems/bottlenecks

As you can see above from the screenshot I have been stuck at about $300 a month for some time. You will also notice the uniques falling a bit along with the frees. This is despite uploading about 500 videos a month prior to May. At first I suspected that my sponsor (an adu1t fri3nd f1nder site) might be skimming me but investigation found that the uniques appear to about match my server stats although the raws are way high. (although I am using a cache solution so I need to verify that is not messing up my counts).

I also did an analysis on $$$ per unique:

07/2013 1.62 cents /unique
08/2013 0.75 cents /unique
09/2013 2.67/unique
10/2013 1.74/unique
11/2013 2.77/unique
12/2013 1.68/unique

01/2014 2.27 cents /unique
02/2014 2.28 cents /unique
03/2014 2.42/unique
04/2014 2.94/unique
05/2014 3.17/unique (to 05/19)

So I no longer suspect skimming as much since as you can see my revenue per unique has been rising.

What has happened is that over time some of my better videos have been flagged by competition or removed for TOS violations. Also over time I suspect there is some saturation as everyone sees the videos. I have also noticed "niche saturation" where after I get a couple videos on page 1 for the main niche terms any extra work in that niche seems to bring very little benefit.

I've calculated overall using the water mark method my CTR (per view) is approximately 0.5% (0.005) - 0.75% (0.0075). That is extremely low. However anyone who types in the url is highly motivated. I feel I need to find ways to increase the CTR as well as scale out to other profitable niches.

On average each video gets about 30-50 views per day (some get 1000+ others get 10 views a day)

What I am trying to improve currently

1. Identify sooner niche saturation and maximization and then spread out to another niche.
2. Raise CTR by exploring url (linkable or not) in the description, more call to actions, etc.
3. Identify more profitable niches.
4. Automate better to increase videos per day (realistic max. now is about 100 videos per day, average currently is about 60 vids/day)
5. Possibly explore other sponsors and split test $/unique


My current immediate focus is on working with the new niche performing 1 free per 15 uniques as well as to increase CTR as above. I am also trying to always hit my goal of 90-100 videos per day and 3 accounts.


Will update this with progress. Please feel free to help or offer suggestions.

Hmmm. Added some calls to actions with domain name in the description on half the videos I put up last night. So far no videos have been deleted and they rank well. I think I will continue going back and doing this for old videos splitting between how I type out the domain name and just telling people to visit the site in the watermark. I may or may not try a few with a direct and proper link.

If it boosts existing CTR that should make for an immediate earnings increase. If it somehow doubles or triples it I will be very happy.

You seem to have a very organised plan! Hope you will succeed in no time.

One suggestion, try to add in the description a cloaked link that redirects to your site ( 1 every 5-6 videos, no more than that) and see of this helps with conversion.

Good luck!

sirmattheww said:

You seem to have a very organised plan! Hope you will succeed in now time.

One suggestion, try to add in the description a cloaked link that redirects to your site ( 1 every 5-6 videos, no more than that) and see of this helps with conversion.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks! You mean like bit.ly or such?

Bit.ly or whatever floats your boat. Viewers are more likely to click on the link than type the website themselves.

Good luck with your journey..

Great to hear that you are making money.. Why cant you forcefully push the vedios to rank by adding some likes, comments etc.

I am sure this would increase your revenue to some extent.

coolingheater said:

Good luck with your journey..

Great to hear that you are making money.. Why cant you forcefully push the vedios to rank by adding some likes, comments etc.

I am sure this would increase your revenue to some extent.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm hesitant to rock the boat too much and risk it. I favor long term strategies and want the videos to last years if possible earning me passive revenue. It seems decent usually already without those tricks. I put up 31 videos on one channel last night and it's already at 1500 views and 10 subscribers. Usually they don't do quite that well but this one did.

Well, it means that the keywords that you are targeting with this videos are really good and maybe you should try to create a backup account with similar videos/tags just in case something goes bad.

SirM

I went ahead and bought another $2 domain name from GoDaddy. I'm going to target a very high volume general niche with it using the method and see how it goes. I can also use the domain name for other niches since it's very general.

I changed some old descriptions around to add links in the descriptions or call to actions to type in the domain but I kind of have a bad feeling in my gut about it. I'm stopping for now and will see what happens with what I've already done.

sirmattheww said:

Well, it means that the keywords that you are targeting with this videos are really good and maybe you should try to create a backup account with similar videos/tags just in case something goes bad.

SirM

Click to expand...

That's a very good idea. Also I might put up some of the old videos that got deleted too under additional accounts. I have some which got 500,000 views but got flagged by competition I suspect. They may stick this time. The problem is I tend to run into "niche saturation" though where after getting a few videos on page one for the main niche the returns are low for adding additional videos. I guess I could be more aggressive with these.

Continuing on. The new niche seems to be extremely competitive. With my SEO work on it I'm only getting maybe 20 views a day average whereas usually I get 30+ per video. But I made some improvements I think to my watermarking technique which should in theory pay off. We'll see.

I may start going for three accounts per day, one from each niche to divide things up. With this method income growth tends to be very slow unless you get very lucky.

Currently up to $227 for the month.

Up to $241 for the month so far.

One thing about this I did not realize is that it looks like the key is also finding a halfway decent niche. The niches I tried all pretty much got views right away so I sort of took this for granted. The general niche I recently tried really isn't working out very well (lack of video views) so I'm going to go back to the new niche which is working and try some new ones. I'm also going to double back and report some videos which were taken down by modifying them a bit.

Up to $334 for the month so that will be the most yet assuming no refunds. I'm hoping to end at $400+.

Keep it up I have seen good results with Adult + Twitter, might jump into this method after reading your results.

Scoobeigh said:

Keep it up I have seen good results with Adult + Twitter, might jump into this method after reading your results.

Click to expand...

Thanks I heard good things about twitter too. If I top out at this I'll probably give that a shot too.

I got extremely lucky (assuming it doesn't refund) and got a big sale. I'm halfway to my goal now and for this month am at $512! Hopefully I can crank it up over the next few weeks. I'm going back and hitting one of the old niches and doubling up on some of the videos and reposting modified versions of some good videos which were deleted.