Monetize YouTube Video | The Ultimate Guide to Ad Revenue

Monetize YouTube Videos | The Ultimate Guide to Ad Revenue

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to make money on YouTube? There are qualifications you have to meet before you can monetize your videos with ads, but you don’t have to have a huge channel.

Here’s everything you need to know to join the YouTube Partner Program and start earning ad revenue:

1. Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program
2. How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube
3. What is Ad Friendly Content?
4. How to Get Paid Through AdSense
5. Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?
6. Useful Terminology (CPM, CPV, CPC)

What is the YouTube Partner Program

YouTube’s Partner Program, or YPP, allows creators to monetize their YouTube videos through ads. If you are a YouTube Partner, that means you are earning revenue from the ads being shown before and during your videos.

Before you dive into the below guide, you may need a video editor to start your monetizing on Youtube. Filmora video editor will be the best choice.

Becoming a skilled video editor takes years of practice, but with Wondershare Filmora video editor, you can produce YouTube videos that have a professional look and feel, even if you are new to the world of video editing. This YouTube Video Creator has big icons and an intuitive interface, so those YouTubers who edit videos for the first time can quickly make a video.

Free Download

Free Download

Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program

In order to qualify for YPP, you need to prove that you’re creating consistent, original, content and that people are watching your content. YouTube believes that has been proven when you reach these qualifications:

1. 1000 Subscribers
2. 4000 Hours of Watch Time (over the past 12 months)

Not quite there yet? Here’s a list of actionable tips that can help you grow your channel.

If you meet these requirements and are approved for monetization, but then drop below them, your channel will not be automatically demonetized. YouTube may review your content and demonetize you if you seem to have stopped posting videos, but this will not be automatic.

Remember: meeting these milestones does not grant you automatic monetization.

You can apply for YPP when you reach the milestones above, but your channel will still need to be reviewed by a human working for YouTube. Reviewers will be watching for:

1. Nudity or sexual content
2. Harmful, dangerous, threatening, or hateful content
3. Violent or graphic content
4. Harassment or cyberbullying
5. Spam, scams, and misleading metadata
6. Copyright infringement or impersonation
7. Privacy violations
8. Fake subscribers
9. Other guidelines violations

If your content violates any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines you may be denied monetization. Learn more about YouTube’s Community Guidelines here.

How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube

Once you qualify for YPP, applying for monetization is easy.

1. In the Creator Studio, select Channel > Status and features.
2. Under ‘Monetization’, click Enable and follow the steps that appear to accept YouTube’s terms.
3. Wait to be approved.

If you’re approved, you can start earning money as soon as your AdSense account is set up!

If you’re not approved, you can apply again in 30 days.

To make sure you’re approved the next time you apply, review all of YouTube’s related policies (Partner Program policies , Terms of Service , spam policies , and Community Guidelines ) and remove the content that might be holding you back.

In order to start monetizing, you’ll need to link your channel with an AdSense account. You must be over 18 to create an AdSense account. YouTube creators under 18 can link to the AdSense accounts of their parents or guardians.

Here’s how to sign up for AdSense through YouTube:

1. Under Channel > Status and features in your Creator Studio, look for Paid content. Click where it says ‘active AdSense account’.
2. On the following ‘Monetization’ screen, click Next to go to AdSense.
3. You will be asked whether you want to use the Google account you’re already signed in to for AdSense, or if you want to use a different account.
4. The next step is ‘Your Website’. This will automatically be filled in with your channel. Click Accept association if it’s right.

Note: you can only have one AdSense account. Do not make a second one if you already have one. Duplicate accounts may be banned, which will stop you from monetizing your videos.

What is Ad Friendly content?

Not all content that meets YouTube’s Community Guidelines will be considered ‘advertiser-friendly’. Companies don’t want to run ads alongside content that doesn’t match the values of their brands.

YouTube may disable ads on any video it doesn’t think is ad-friendly. Videos which may be flagged as inappropriate for ads include (but are not limited to):

1. Videos that cover controversial or sensitive subjects.
2. Videos depicting the use of drugs or dangerous products.
3. Videos may encourage harmful or dangerous behavior.
4. Videos with swearing (but not ALL videos with swearing – quantity and context are factors).
5. Videos which contain hate speech.
6. Videos that depict family entertainment characters (i.e. Disney princesses) engaged in inappropriate behavior (even if you’re being satirical).

If you want to make sure all of your content is advertiser-friendly, here are some best practices suggested by YouTube:

1. Be respectful of your viewers and any people or groups you may include or mention in your video.
2. Extend this respectful tone to your thumbnails and video titles, and make sure your thumbnails and metadata accurately depict your video’s content.
3. Don’t try to monetize videos that already contain ads (i.e. paid product placement ).

How to Get Paid Through AdSense

In order to receive a payment from AdSense, you need to earn at least $100.

For example, if you only earn $10 in a month, you will not receive a payment that month. You will not lose that $10 – you will receive it when your total earnings reach or exceed $100.

You will also need to provide AdSense with tax information and verify your identity and address in order to start being paid.

The most popular way to get paid through AdSense is via an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). To receive your payments this way, you’ll need to link your bank account to your AdSense account.

Here’s how:

1. Log in to AdSense.
2. Click Settings in the menu on the left, and then select Payments.
3. On the Payments page, click Manage payment options.
4. Click the Add payment method.
5. You’ll be prompted to add your bank account details.
6. Make sure the name on your AdSense account matches the name on your bank account (if you’re under 18 and cannot make your own AdSense account, this may mean you’re using your parent or guardian’s bank account).

Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?

Not all ads pay the same, and not all videos will be able to attract the ads that pay the most.

How much money your video has the potential to earn depends on:

1. The size of your channel
2. Your niche on YouTube
3. The specific topic of the video

That the size of your channel matters probably isn’t a surprise. The biggest brands want to run their ads beside videos that are getting more views.

Whether or not your YouTube niche has a high potential for profit will depend on a couple things:

1. How many other channels are in your niche?

The more people there are making similar videos to you, the thinner the available ads are spread.

1. How many cheap or expensive products are being advertised in your niche?

If the products are free or inexpensive (i.e. free online games) then that limits your earning ability. In large niches like gaming, the few higher paying ads will go to the most popular channels and the low-paying ads will be spread amongst everyone else.

If you have a very specific niche, i.e. luxury cars, then you will have less competition and the ads available will likely be for more expensive products (and thus the ads themselves will be higher paying).

Even if you are in a large niche, you can still make videos on specific topics designed to attract higher-paying ads and more revenue. Pay attention to the analytics in your Creator Studio to learn which of your videos earn the most. Then, make more videos on similar topics to boost your earnings.

Another factor that can affect what ads appear alongside your videos is the viewing habits of individual viewers. People are shown ads that YouTube believes are more relevant to their interests.

Useful Terminology (CPM, CPC, CPV)

A lot of people think your ad revenue is determined by your view count. This isn’t true – it’s determined by ad impressions.

How much revenue you earn from the ads running around your videos depends on these three things:

CPC: ‘cost per click’. Most of the ads on YouTube are CPC, meaning that an ad impression is only recorded when an ad is clicked on.

CPV: ‘cost per view’. Skippable pre-roll ads are the only ads on YouTube which record ad impressions without clicks. These ads record ad impressions when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad instead of skipping it.

CPM: ‘cost per mille’ or ‘cost per thousand’. This refers to how much money gets paid out for 1000 ad impressions.

Your CPM will be affected by a multitude of things including the ads themselves and the size of your channel. AdSense has made it a rule that you cannot disclose your CPM to anyone, which makes it difficult to determine what you should expect.

Note: never click on ads near your own videos or instruct your viewers/friends to do so. If your clicks are higher than what AdSense considers normal they may ban you.

Sites like Social Blade provide estimated earnings for any channel you want to look up. Looking up channels that are where you plan to be in the near future could help you set your own expectations.

Are you able to monetize your videos? How many more subscribers or hours of watch time do you need?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Essential Quick Steps for Effective Double Take Filming

The world of video-making owes much of its magic to small leaps of innovation. One of these leaps is the use of the chroma key background, which most people know by the more colloquial term—green screen.

Chroma key, also known as green screen or blue screen, is a cool hack for seamless visual storytelling, allowing content creators to replace backgrounds with any image or video they want. This technique is widely embraced in film, television, and online content, and has opened the door to limitless creative possibilities. Aside from its ability to maximize creativity, it is also cheap to employ and convenient to set up, which has made it a staple for everyone who works with visuals.

In this simple guide, we’ll delve into the fundamentals of the chroma key effect, how it is used for video making, and how to leverage that as you perfect your visual content.

YouTube Video Background Creating realistic video scenes at your will is easy to complete with Filmora green screen removal.

Create Video Backgrounds Create Video Backgrounds Learn Green Screen

How Does Chroma Key Work?

Chroma Keying is done by singling out a specific color (usually green or blue) from the foreground, removing it, and replacing it with a different background (for example, a sunset). This process typically follows a series of steps:

• Background Selection:

A solid, single-color background, often green or blue, that contrasts well with the subject must be used. The color chosen should not be present in the subject or any props in the camera field to avoid unintentional transparency.

• Color Keying:

This requires the use of specialized visual effects software to key out the chosen color. The green or blue background is designated as transparent, making everything of that color see-through. The software distinguishes between the keyed color and the subject, creating a mask for the transparent areas.

• Foreground Filming:

This involves filming the subject against the live chroma key background. During filming, the chosen background color (green or blue) won’t appear in the final result due to its transparency. The subject is captured as if separately from the isolated background.

• Post-Processing:

In post-production processing, the editor takes the keyed-out color and replaces it with the new background of their choice. This step creates the illusion that the subject is in a different setting or environment. The transparent areas become filled with the chosen background which, if done right, results in a cohesive and visually appealing composition.

Why Green?

Theoretically, the chroma key background can be any solid color. However, the most commonly used colors are studio blue and bright green, with the latter far more common.

The choice of background color depends on the specific requirements of the production and the colors present in the scenes being filmed.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

Contrast

The less similar your chosen background color is to natural skin tones, the easier to isolate and replace in your footage. Bright green provides a strong contrast to most human skin tones and is less likely to be present in costumes or natural surroundings, making it easier to isolate subjects during the color separation.

Luminance

The color green emits light with greater intensity than blue, allowing for far more effective isolation by cameras during filming. This also means that blue screens demand increased lighting for proper exposure compared to green. This situation may be less than ideal if you lack powerful lighting or you don’t have the big bucks for them.

Digital Sensors

Many digital cameras and sensors are more sensitive to green wavelengths, resulting in cleaner and more accurate color keying during post-processing. Modern technology has also evolved to optimize for a green background, making it a more practical choice for the chroma key effect.

Wardrobe and Set Design

Bright green occurs less naturally in costumes and set designs than other colors, making green the optimal choice for reducing the likelihood of color spill and keying issues. However, if you know your scene will have lots of green, it is probably best to film with a blue screen, so there’s less risk of color spill and less post-production work.

Setting up Your Own Chroma Key Studio

Setting up your chroma key is convenient and straightforward, but there are some key factors to consider while setting up to ensure maximal performance.

Choosing the Right Background Color

The first step in the chroma key setup is selecting the right background color to be keyed out. This choice determines your effective color separation and ensures a smooth keying process during editing. Choosing a chroma-key background color that contrasts distinctly with the subject’s colors is essential for effective color separation. This prevents unintentional transparency, color spill, and ensures a polished final result.

Lighting Considerations

Lighting is an important part of the chroma-keying process. Bold, uniform, and consistent lighting on both the subject and the background makes it easy to delineate one from the other fully. This minimizes shadows and variations in color, creating a smooth and seamless keying process. Multiple diffuse lights from different angles are often used to illuminate the green screen evenly.

Positioning/Camera

Proper subject and camera placement are necessary to ensure an even color-keying process during post-production. To prevent shadow interference, the green screen should be smooth, tense, and without wrinkles or shadows.

High-quality cameras are essential every time, especially for chroma keying. Images with better definition are easier to key, so camera quality significantly affects the outcome. Even if your camera isn’t the best, merely shooting well can ensure a clean color-keying process during editing, resulting in professional-looking visuals.

Recording Tips for Chroma Key

• Proper Lighting

Maintaining uniform and well-defined lighting during recording is essential for a successful chroma-keying process. This consistency ensures a seamless keying process during post-production.

• Keep Distance from the Green Screen

The optimal distance between the subject and the green screen minimizes color spill and allows for natural movements. Proper distance between subject and background allows for easier isolation of the background and much smoother post-editing. A recommended starting point for the issue is around 6 to 10 feet from the background.

• Subjects and Clothing

As mentioned before, the choice of costume for Selecting appropriate clothing that doesn’t match the chroma key color prevents transparency issues. Subjects also have to be positioned in such a way that there is minimal light interference and reflection. These contribute to a flawless chroma key outcome.

3 Basic Troubleshooting Strategies

• Color Spill

Sometimes, reflected light from your green background can be cast on your subject and may remain so when the background light is keyed out. This phenomenon is known as a color spill. It is usually because of uneven lighting or shooting around reflecting surfaces. Avoiding spill can differentiate between good and lousy chroma key aftereffects.

Human hair is one area where color spill can show up unsuspectingly. Due to the translucency of hair, it is common for some unintended light to seep through. This allows some background visibility, which you do not want with a chroma key. This is especially notable with lighter hair colors like blond hair.

There are ways to account for this. Many video-editing software have features such as spill suppression and screen matte adjustments that can enhance the final footage. Specialized plugins also go a long way in ensuring minimizing spill. Addressing spill correction tackles unwanted green artifacts and ensures a clean keying process.

• Poor Lighting

Suboptimal green screen lighting can lead to inconsistencies in keying and editing, undermining your product. One way to avoid this is to light the screen and subject separately. Another tip, although expensive, is using multiple diffuse light sources and trying to maintain even lighting across every square foot of your scene. Super bright or dark spots can ruin your output, so it’s worth the extra effort if you don’t want to deal with problematic post-production.

• Poorly Refined Edges

Chroma keying should leave your videos with crisp, defined, natural-looking edges. But post-production editing can make all the difference if it doesn’t come out to your taste. Softening and refining edges make a smoother transition between the foreground object and the new background. Light adjustments to edge thickness and screen matte settings can also help enhance overall visual quality and add finesse to your work.

Click here

## Conclusion

Green screen photography produces excellent results, and its ease of use makes it indispensable for videographers of all levels. In this guide, we’ve discussed chroma key technology, its role in the industry, and how to apply it to your craft to elevate visual content.

Chroma key, also known as green screen or blue screen, is a cool hack for seamless visual storytelling, allowing content creators to replace backgrounds with any image or video they want. This technique is widely embraced in film, television, and online content, and has opened the door to limitless creative possibilities. Aside from its ability to maximize creativity, it is also cheap to employ and convenient to set up, which has made it a staple for everyone who works with visuals.

In this simple guide, we’ll delve into the fundamentals of the chroma key effect, how it is used for video making, and how to leverage that as you perfect your visual content.

YouTube Video Background Creating realistic video scenes at your will is easy to complete with Filmora green screen removal.

Create Video Backgrounds Create Video Backgrounds Learn Green Screen

Click here

## **How Does Chroma Key Work?**

Chroma Keying is done by singling out a specific color (usually green or blue) from the foreground, removing it, and replacing it with a different background (for example, a sunset). This process typically follows a series of steps:

• Background Selection:

A solid, single-color background, often green or blue, that contrasts well with the subject must be used. The color chosen should not be present in the subject or any props in the camera field to avoid unintentional transparency.

• Color Keying:

This requires the use of specialized visual effects software to key out the chosen color. The green or blue background is designated as transparent, making everything of that color see-through. The software distinguishes between the keyed color and the subject, creating a mask for the transparent areas.

• Foreground Filming:

This involves filming the subject against the live chroma key background. During filming, the chosen background color (green or blue) won’t appear in the final result due to its transparency. The subject is captured as if separately from the isolated background.

• Post-Processing:

In post-production processing, the editor takes the keyed-out color and replaces it with the new background of their choice. This step creates the illusion that the subject is in a different setting or environment. The transparent areas become filled with the chosen background which, if done right, results in a cohesive and visually appealing composition.

Why Green?

Theoretically, the chroma key background can be any solid color. However, the most commonly used colors are studio blue and bright green, with the latter far more common.

The choice of background color depends on the specific requirements of the production and the colors present in the scenes being filmed.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

Contrast

The less similar your chosen background color is to natural skin tones, the easier to isolate and replace in your footage. Bright green provides a strong contrast to most human skin tones and is less likely to be present in costumes or natural surroundings, making it easier to isolate subjects during the color separation.

Luminance

The color green emits light with greater intensity than blue, allowing for far more effective isolation by cameras during filming. This also means that blue screens demand increased lighting for proper exposure compared to green. This situation may be less than ideal if you lack powerful lighting or you don’t have the big bucks for them.

Digital Sensors

Many digital cameras and sensors are more sensitive to green wavelengths, resulting in cleaner and more accurate color keying during post-processing. Modern technology has also evolved to optimize for a green background, making it a more practical choice for the chroma key effect.

Wardrobe and Set Design

Bright green occurs less naturally in costumes and set designs than other colors, making green the optimal choice for reducing the likelihood of color spill and keying issues. However, if you know your scene will have lots of green, it is probably best to film with a blue screen, so there’s less risk of color spill and less post-production work.

Setting up Your Own Chroma Key Studio

Setting up your chroma key is convenient and straightforward, but there are some key factors to consider while setting up to ensure maximal performance.

Choosing the Right Background Color

The first step in the chroma key setup is selecting the right background color to be keyed out. This choice determines your effective color separation and ensures a smooth keying process during editing. Choosing a chroma-key background color that contrasts distinctly with the subject’s colors is essential for effective color separation. This prevents unintentional transparency, color spill, and ensures a polished final result.

Lighting Considerations

Lighting is an important part of the chroma-keying process. Bold, uniform, and consistent lighting on both the subject and the background makes it easy to delineate one from the other fully. This minimizes shadows and variations in color, creating a smooth and seamless keying process. Multiple diffuse lights from different angles are often used to illuminate the green screen evenly.

Positioning/Camera

Proper subject and camera placement are necessary to ensure an even color-keying process during post-production. To prevent shadow interference, the green screen should be smooth, tense, and without wrinkles or shadows.

High-quality cameras are essential every time, especially for chroma keying. Images with better definition are easier to key, so camera quality significantly affects the outcome. Even if your camera isn’t the best, merely shooting well can ensure a clean color-keying process during editing, resulting in professional-looking visuals.

Recording Tips for Chroma Key

• Proper Lighting

Maintaining uniform and well-defined lighting during recording is essential for a successful chroma-keying process. This consistency ensures a seamless keying process during post-production.

• Keep Distance from the Green Screen

The optimal distance between the subject and the green screen minimizes color spill and allows for natural movements. Proper distance between subject and background allows for easier isolation of the background and much smoother post-editing. A recommended starting point for the issue is around 6 to 10 feet from the background.

• Subjects and Clothing

As mentioned before, the choice of costume for Selecting appropriate clothing that doesn’t match the chroma key color prevents transparency issues. Subjects also have to be positioned in such a way that there is minimal light interference and reflection. These contribute to a flawless chroma key outcome.

3 Basic Troubleshooting Strategies

• Color Spill

Sometimes, reflected light from your green background can be cast on your subject and may remain so when the background light is keyed out. This phenomenon is known as a color spill. It is usually because of uneven lighting or shooting around reflecting surfaces. Avoiding spill can differentiate between good and lousy chroma key aftereffects.

Human hair is one area where color spill can show up unsuspectingly. Due to the translucency of hair, it is common for some unintended light to seep through. This allows some background visibility, which you do not want with a chroma key. This is especially notable with lighter hair colors like blond hair.

There are ways to account for this. Many video-editing software have features such as spill suppression and screen matte adjustments that can enhance the final footage. Specialized plugins also go a long way in ensuring minimizing spill. Addressing spill correction tackles unwanted green artifacts and ensures a clean keying process.

• Poor Lighting

Suboptimal green screen lighting can lead to inconsistencies in keying and editing, undermining your product. One way to avoid this is to light the screen and subject separately. Another tip, although expensive, is using multiple diffuse light sources and trying to maintain even lighting across every square foot of your scene. Super bright or dark spots can ruin your output, so it’s worth the extra effort if you don’t want to deal with problematic post-production.

• Poorly Refined Edges

Chroma keying should leave your videos with crisp, defined, natural-looking edges. But post-production editing can make all the difference if it doesn’t come out to your taste. Softening and refining edges make a smoother transition between the foreground object and the new background. Light adjustments to edge thickness and screen matte settings can also help enhance overall visual quality and add finesse to your work.

Conclusion

Green screen photography produces excellent results, and its ease of use makes it indispensable for videographers of all levels. In this guide, we’ve discussed chroma key technology, its role in the industry, and how to apply it to your craft to elevate visual content.