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  • What Is The Minimum Video Length On YouTube For Ads / Monetization?

    Are you planning on publishing a short video on YouTube, and wonder if it will still be eligible for monetization?

    It’s common to wonder if very short videos can even monetized at all – especially when the video would be even shorter than the ads that may appear before it!

    So, what is the minimum video length? In this article I’ll be answering that question, along with whether or not you should publish the video as a YouTube Short instead.

    Table of Contents

    What Is The Minimum Required Video Length For Ads To Play On YouTube?

    YouTube Website

    Currently, there is no required length for a video to be eligible for monetization on YouTube.

    This means that even videos under 30 seconds can have pre-roll ads run before the video starts, despite the fact that they can be longer than the content of the video itself!

    That being said, shorter videos do tend to earn less, which I’ll explain in just a moment.

    However, as long as the video is published as a normal YouTube video, and you’ve hit the requirements necessary to be able to monetize your videos, then even your shortest videos are eligible to run ads.

    Why YouTube Creators Opt For Longer Videos

    Just because you can create very short videos however, does not always mean that you should.

    This is because the less time your audience spends watching a video, the less money it tends to make. And with very short videos under a few minutes long, your opportunities for extended watch time aren’t really there.

    When you think about it, earnings on a video comes down to a simple equation:

    Viewers X earnings per ad, X number of ads watched.

    The problem with short videos is that you will only be able to show the pre-roll ads, and perhaps an ad that plays after the video ends.

    You will not be able to run any ads in the middle of the video, since the video will be too short to support these.

    That being said, video length is not the only factor that determines how much you’ll earn. While it does factor into the ‘number of ads watched’ part of the equation earlier, there is another big factor that’s just as important – earnings per ad.

    Generally speaking, the more money your audience has – and the more they’re willing to part with it, the more advertisers will pay to reach that audience.

    So, if your viewers are based in the United States, you’ll earn a lot more than if they’re based in India, for example, since disposable income in the U.S. is a lot higher.

    Likewise, if your videos are about say, finance, you’ll earn a lot more than videos about gaming or art.

    Since earnings can vary so wildly, it’s a good idea to avoid comparing yourself to others when it comes to YouTube revenue!

    Be Careful Not To Publish As A Short!

    If your goal is to make money from ads, it’s very important that you publish the video as a regular YouTube video, and not as a YouTube Short.

    YouTube Shorts offer a number of key benefits – namely, the fact that YouTube will push it out to at least a small audience.

    However, when it comes to monetization, YouTube Shorts are handled a lot differently.

    The fact of the matter is, in its current state it is very difficult to make meaningful income from YouTube Shorts – even on videos with hundreds of thousands of views.

    So, even if your video is under 60 seconds (and is eligible to be published as a Short), carefully consider whether or not it’s actually the right option for you.

    Again, if you want to run ads on it, than probably not!

    Conclusion

    Currently, there is no minimum video length required in order to monetize your videos on YouTube.

    So, you are free to publish videos as short as you’d like, and still have them be eligible for monetization. However, they must be published as normal YouTube videos, and not YouTube Shorts.

    I hope that this article has answered all of your questions. If you have any other questions about monetizing on YouTube – or when you should publish videos as a Short, please ask them below and I’ll be happy to help.

    Wishing you the best,

    – James McAllister

  • Do Dislikes Matter On YouTube? Here’s The Effect They Have…

    Have you ever wondered about the effects that dislikes have on YouTube creators, and their video’s performance?

    The truth is, YouTube dislikes are factored into the algorithm, but not in the way that you’d think.

    So, in this article, I’ll be explaining exactly how dislikes are used by YouTube, both for creators, as well as for viewers.

    It’s actually quite interesting!

    Table of Contents

    Do Dislikes Matter On YouTube?

    YouTube Website

    Contrary to popular belief, dislikes do not have a negative effect on a video’s performance – at least not directly.

    In fact, the opposite may be true.

    YouTube uses engagement signals to assess the quality of a video, and dislikes are considered one of these engagement signals.

    This means that disliking a video can actually help it perform better, as it’s treated near-equally to a like, a comment, or any other sort of engagement.

    Remember, YouTube’s goal is to keep people on the platform as long as possible. This means rewarding videos that are engaging and aid with this goal, even if people have a negative reaction to them.

    That being said, there are instances where dislikes can hurt creators as well.

    Therefore, it’s important to keep the following context in mind, so you can assess whether a dislike is likely to help a creator, or hurt them.

    Here’s When Dislikes Can Hurt Creators

    In addition to keeping you on the platform for as long as possible, YouTube’s other goal is to collect as much data and information about you as possible.

    This is because YouTube (and Google, the owner of YouTube) make most of their money through serving advertisements.

    The more they know about you, the better they can target you for advertisements, and the more money they make.

    In fact, your entire value to YouTube can be summed up by this equation:

    Number of ads viewed X money made per ad.

    So, what does this have to do with dislikes?

    Well, a video’s performance is hurt most when dislikes show up along with low watch time.

    If you watch only a few moments of a video before disliking it and leaving, this sends a very bad signal to YouTube, and indicates that they shouldn’t waste valuable slots suggesting this video to others.

    If people are watching the video all the way through however, this aligns with YouTube’s goal. Therefore, the video will still benefit, even if it’s disliked afterwards.

    The other way dislikes can affect the video’s performance is based around your interests, and what YouTube knows about you.

    YouTube divides people up into groups, based on everything they know about you. Your demographics, location, interests, previously watched videos, etc are all compared with other users, to predict what sort of content you’re likely to be interested in. This is what makes YouTube’s suggestion algorithm so great!

    If you (and a lot of people similar to you) all dislike a video, this indicates to YouTube that this specific type of person isn’t interested in it, or didn’t enjoy it.

    Therefore, YouTube may be less likely to show it to people who are similar to you in the future.

    Dislikes Are Useful For The Viewer, Too

    As we’ve already discussed, dislikes can either act as a positive engagement signal, or hurt a video’s performance if combined with a low watch time.

    Additionally, dislikes show creators whether or a video is being well received, and can help guide the future direction of the channel.

    However, if you think about it, dislikes are very useful for the user too! At least they used to be, before YouTube removed them from appearing publicly.

    In the past, you were able to view how many likes and dislikes a video had received.

    If a video had a lot of dislikes, you could know before watching it whether or not it was any good, or a complete waste of time.

    This was particularly important for things like tech tutorials or DIY projects that you’d need to follow along with as you actually do something. If the video ended up not actually helping, you’d want to know that before you invested a ton of time into it.

    So, the decision to remove dislikes from YouTube was strange, and hurts the overall experience.

    We can only hope that YouTube brings them back someday, as they were incredibly useful for viewers.

    Because some videos will get watched for a longer period of time before people realize that they’re low quality, these bad videos may be getting rewarded more than they were in the past.

    Conclusion

    Dislikes are a great way for creators to know how their audience feels about a particular video, which can help shape the direction they go with their channel in the future.

    While dislikes are ironically seen as a positive engagement signal to YouTube, they can help dissuade YouTube from showing videos to different groups of people, especially if the video has a low average watch time.

    I hope that this article has answered your questions, and that you understand the role dislikes play a little more.

    If you have any other questions about YouTube, ask them below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

    Wishing you the best,

    – James McAllister

  • Do YouTubers Get Paid For Likes? (Answered + Details)

    Have you ever thought about how YouTubers get paid – and what actually helps creators grow on the platform?

    It’s common for YouTubers to ask for likes at the end of their videos, but does this actually help them make money? In fact, what do likes actually do?

    These are great questions, and the answer is actually pretty interesting.

    So, in this article I’ll be answering these questions, as well as talking about the other factors that help creators make money on YouTube. If you’re a creator yourself or you simply want to help your favorite YouTubers out, you’ll certainly learn how! (more…)

  • Passive Income Does Not Triumph Total Return

    Take a look at any big internet marketing website, and I’ll bet you’ll see something huge about ‘earning passive income.’

    People are crazy over it. Everybody’s talking about it.

    “Earn money while you sleep!”

    “Work 4 hours a week!”

    “Build it once, earn money from it forever!”

    That’s great. Passive income is actually pretty wonderful. Passive income is the reason I’ve published over 150 Kindle books and continue to put out more every week. Having money come in while no longer doing any work truly is an amazing feeling.

    However, it’s extremely easy to get lost in the idea of passive income and forget what’s really important – how much money you’re getting in total for the amount of time you’ve invested in something. 

    Table of Contents

    A Hypothetical Scenario

    Let’s say you’re a great writer, and you want to capitalize on your skill in a way that can make you money. For the sake of this example, let’s say you have two options:

    1. You could create a Kindle book that earns you a solid $20 a month, every month for the next 100 years.
    2. You could write the book for somebody else, who would then pay you $5000.

    If you do the math, it would take you 250 months, or ~21 years to earn the $5000 from the Kindle book.

    Now you may be thinking that the Kindle book would be the better choice in the long-term, because you begin making more than $5000 after 21 years. After 100 years, the book would have earned $24,000, a lot more than what you would have been paid by the freelancer.

    If you just spent the money when you got it, the Kindle book actually would be the better choice over the long run. The total return from the $20 a month adds up to more than what you’d earn from the freelancer.

    However, there is one huge flaw in this line of thinking:

    Opportunity cost.

    How Are You Using That Money?

    The problem with looking only at the face numbers is that it completely ignores the opportunity cost of having that lump sum right away. Again, I will demonstrate my point with an example.

    Let’s say you took that $5,000 and invested it into the stock market, which then goes on to earn an average of 10% a year before accounting for inflation. After 21 years (which it would have taken to earn $5000 from the Kindle book) your $5000 would have grown into $37,001.25. This is enough to generate $100 a month in passive dividend payments alone.

    After 100 years, which was how long our Kindle book would last in our example, the book would have earned a total of $24,000, and $5000 in the market would have grown into…

    $68,903,061.70

    Yes, that’s the power of compound interest. That’s why you need to take my financial independence course, so you can learn how to put your money to work for you and retire as soon as possible.

    Don’t Forget About This!

    Anyhow, another thing you’ve got to factor in when it comes to long-term passive income is inflation.

    Over time, the purchasing power of that $20 a month will fall. $20 will not be able to buy as many products or services as it does today.

    This means that although you are earning the same amount of money per month, every month your money becomes worth less and less, meaning the total purchasing power of your income is constantly decreasing.

    In the short-term this isn’t really an issue, but when it comes to comparing passive income and your total return, many people argue that passive income adds up to a lot of money in the long-term. This is when the effects of inflation really start to show.

    Here’s What I’m Getting At

    Passive income isn’t a bad thing. It deserves the praise it gets from virtually everyone, and making a good amount of passive income should be a goal of everybody, whether it’s from a product like a Kindle book or from a dividend paying stock.

    However, it’s important to be rational and look at the big picture before you choose to dedicate your time towards a specific income goal.

    Passive income can sound wonderful, but it’s not always the best choice. Sometimes, it’s better to take the lump sum, even if it means you are trading hours for dollars.

    Because in the end, the smart entrepreneur does whatever they can to earn the most amount of money possible for their time.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter!

  • How To Succeed In Business With Small Audiences

    When choosing a niche or simply measuring your business progress, it’s easy to focus on your total audience size.

    We all want to have as big of an audience as possible. We see websites with hundreds of thousands or even millions of visitors and think,

    “Why couldn’t that be me? What am I doing wrong? My content is a lot better then theirs, and look how successful they are!”

    This is a dangerous way to think, and can set you up for the wrong targets.

    The reality is, it is possible to make 10x the income with an audience a fraction of the size, and it’s dependent on several different factors.

    Let’s look over some of these now, and prove that audience size – for the most part, doesn’t matter when it comes to online business success. (more…)

  • Branding Isn’t Everything – Balancing Branding Vs. Direct Response Advertising

    We’re at an interesting time in entrepreneurship, particularly for small businesses.

    Things aren’t the same that they used to be. As a society, our lives are radically different than they were 10 years ago, and marketing has changed as well.

    So has the way we learn.

    New entrepreneurs aren’t getting their business advice from textbooks or college courses. They’re getting it from online gurus or major online personal brands, who may have an agenda of their own that they’re pushing on you.

    One piece of advice in particular that I’ve seen consume entrepreneurs is this:

    “Hard-selling is bad, just focus on branding!”

    I’m here to tell you why this often isn’t true, and help you find the balance between direct response marketing, and branding in your small business. (more…)

  • If You Want To Scale Quickly, You Need To Master Paid Systems

    Every action you take in business either costs you money, or it costs you time.

    As entrepreneurs, it goes without saying that we very well may be low on both of these. From the new business owner working a full-time job on top of running their business, to the cash-strapped company that can’t afford to make that extra hire, we are often spread extremely thin without much to show for it.

    Unfortunately, unless we change the way that we approach business, it is easy to stay stuck in this trap forever. (more…)

  • Affiliate Marketing Success After Google’s Product Reviews Update

    Google recently released an update targeting product review websites, which has sent Amazon Affiliates scrambling.

    It makes sense. Amazon affiliates have been hit hard this last year, with Amazon cutting commission rates and making it even more challenging to make money with the program.

    But is Google’s product review update the final nail in the coffin?

    No, and in this article I’ll show you why it can actually be a good thing. (more…)

  • How Many Email Subscribers Do You Need To Make Money?

    How many email subscribers do you need to make money? This is a question that I get asked quite frequently, and unfortunately it doesn’t always have a straightforward answer.

    While I won’t be able to give you an exact number to strive for, I’d like to point out some variables that can affect your earnings per subscriber, and try to help you come up with an accurate target for yourself. Because while it is certainly possible to make money even with a very small mailing list, it’s also possible to have thousands of subscribers and still not earn very much.

    Therefore, anybody that tells you that you need X amount of subscribers to make X amount of money, does not understand what they’re talking about.

    To gain a better estimate however, let’s look at a few variables: (more…)

  • 5 Lessons I Learned Spending $100,000 On Amazon PPC Ads

    Note: This article was written over 5 years ago, and may be outdated.

    Having spent over $100,000 in Amazon pay-per-click ads across of hundreds of campaigns, I’ve learned a lot of lessons that wouldn’t have been obvious at the beginning.

    Relatively speaking, Amazon PPC is still a relatively new platform, and it is constantly evolving. New tools and advertising strategies are coming out all the time, and there isn’t as much known about the platform vs something like Adwords or Facebook ads.

    Therefore, I wanted to release this post to share all of my key findings over the last year.

    Let’s look over some key Amazon pay-per-click strategies that have been helping me to reduce ACoS and make more sales on Amazon! (more…)