Youtube Partner Question

My cousin asked me a question that I didn't have an answer to, maybe someone here will know?
He makes wannabe John Woo-style shootout short films, think a shittier, lower budget freddiew
He has 5,000 subs and 20 million total views, all natural, Whitehat
He is a full Youtube Partner with branding and everything and he makes about $20 a day from Adsense, give or take, which isn't bad but he puts a lot of time and work into his videos and hires many actors, so this isn't really enough, he wants to expand more. He needs more views and subscribers. There are programs like http://www.makerstudios.com/faq/ I'm not sure how they work though.
If he joined something like that it says "You would work with our CMS manager to move your channel over to Maker "
Would he make more money if he did this or is he better off just keeping things how they are? I have no idea and I couldn't find any answers searching. What do you guys think?

A bit secret, but im with maker and I have a CPM of 3$ usually.

vincenth said:

A bit secret, but im with maker and I have a CPM of 3$ usually.

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He said that's about what he makes anyways, would there be any point to go with them then?
Do they provide you a larger audience and more views? Seems like he has been kind of stuck at the 5,000 subscriber count for the last year.

Before he joins a network do some math. What's 70% of 20$?? Because that's how much he will make, and even if he does get ad deals increase that to say 30$, but whats 70% of 30$? Still not enough to be worth joining a network.


That being said, with 5k subs and 20 million views, he's lacking promotion, tell him to go buy some subscribers, and if he really doesn't like black or grey hat then also go tell him to buy ads on other similar videos like freddiew, (from my experience buying ad spaces next to similar videos actually has a good ROI).

Youtube pays absolute shit. You need to go with an offsite network. For example, if gamers want to make money they will only make money by going with a network similar to to Machinima.

If your cousin already has all the branding, custom thumbnail, etc... options, I tend to think the only benefit to joining a Network might be a possible increase in CPM. Networks often have a team of sales people selling additional advertising spots, so through a network like Maker Studios you should be able to get $3 CPM or more. I know some people via Maker making over $5 CPM. There are probably some making even more. Remember to factor in that Maker is going to take 10%.

I wouldn't count on the network doing much for advertising or promoting your channel. I also wouldn't count on seeing any change in your subscriber rate. You'll be assigned a 'network specialist' person who will give you some tips and tricks but if you study youtube daily and keep up on the latest news, they probably won't know anything you don't already know. Maybe if it's a smaller network, they'll pay more attention to you and maybe try to help you out with collabs but you definitely won't receive that from the well known networks with only 5,000 subs.

On a side note, 20 million video views and only 5,000 subs. I consider that a major problem. They really ought to have 40,000 subs by now. Are their views coming from external sources like facebook? If the views are coming from YouTube view pages, they really ought to concentrate on increasing their view:subscriber ratio. They should be getting a bare minimum 1 subscriber for every 500 views if their making good content.

Zapdos said:

Youtube pays absolute shit. You need to go with an offsite network. For example, if gamers want to make money they will only make money by going with a network similar to to Machinima.

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That seems very valid indeed. Instead of just relying on youtube, other options must be sought.

AudioMacOSX said:

On a side note, 20 million video views and only 5,000 subs. I consider that a major problem. They really ought to have 40,000 subs by now. Are their views coming from external sources like facebook? If the views are coming from YouTube view pages, they really ought to concentrate on increasing their view:subscriber ratio. They should be getting a bare minimum 1 subscriber for every 500 views if their making good content.

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Shit, my mistake, it looks like he has just under 4,000 subscribers actually! And 22 million views. You're right, that is a problem! I don't get it though, his titles, descriptions and tags are really well done and enticing. He films in full 1080 HD, color corrected, great editing, cinematography and great pacing, his films are about 2 minutes and packed with action and blood and comedy and hot chicks ect. Really great looking quality videos and they are creative and very entertaining, they have won several film festivals. He puts a lot of time and work into them, so it seems like he is doing everything that people always tell you to do to get subscribers, but he barely has any. I don't get it?

DragonLord said:

Shit, my mistake, it looks like he has just under 4,000 subscribers actually! And 22 million views. You're right, that is a problem! I don't get it though, his titles, descriptions and tags are really well done and enticing. He films in full 1080 HD, color corrected, great editing, cinematography and great pacing, his films are about 2 minutes and packed with action and blood and comedy and hot chicks ect. Really great looking quality videos and they are creative and very entertaining, they have won several film festivals. He puts a lot of time and work into them, so it seems like he is doing everything that people always tell you to do to get subscribers, but he barely has any. I don't get it?

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This is a very odd situatuion to be honest. I've never seen such a low view/sub ratio. Has he tried using outros or annotations that remind people to subscribe? Does he have a banner on the video pages telling people to susbcribe? Even remind people at the end of a video.. I find simple things like that can actually drastically increase the number of subscribers you gain.

If you would like, PM me his channel link and I can take a look and suggest some improvements. I have 3 years experience of managing commercial youtube channels so I'm sure there is something I can suggest and I will be happy to help