How to Monetize on YouTube From Day 1

So monetizing your YouTube channel is one of the most frustrating things that a new creator has to go through. Getting 1,000 subscribers, getting 4,000 hours of watch time, it can be a painstaking thing, and I know this from experience. But what if I told you that you could actually monetize your channel the very first day that you start it? Most YouTubers are focusing on making money on YouTube the old way, waiting for the YouTube Partner Program requirements and then waiting for ad revenue to kick in. And even when that happens, I see it way too many times that the channel barely makes back enough money to even cover the initial investment that they put into the channel in the first place. Now at one point, I used to think that that was the only way to make money off of YouTube. Well, not anymore. I personally now run over 12 different YouTube channels. I have a community of over 11,000 people also running channels themselves. And after years in the YouTube space, I've discovered something insane. The creators that are making real money on YouTube are not waiting for YouTube's permission to monetize. And let me share some numbers that might shock you. According to recent YouTube industry data, the average CPM on YouTube is $15.34, and creators will keep 55% of that after YouTube's cut. This means that the average channel is making $8.43 per 1,000 views. From ad revenue. But here's where it gets interesting. Industry estimates say that creators will make anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000 per million views, also from ads, which sounds great until you realize the massive amount of views required to hit any meaningful amount of money. Now at this point you might be asking, "Matt, well, if ad revenue is so limited and you don't recommend relying on it, how are some of these creators that you're talking about making thousands of dollars potentially?" from just a few thousand views? Well, that's exactly what I'm about to explain to you. You see, most people don't even know that making thousands of dollars from a non-monetized channel is possible, and that's because they're focusing on the wrong metrics entirely. Let me break down the math, and this is kind of brutal, but I do think you should know it. If your video gets a million views, let's say, and let's say half of those are views that are actually monetized with ads on them, which is 500,000, with an average CPM of $10, you'd make $2,750 after YouTube takes their 45% cut. And I mean, it sounds decent, right? But here's the problem: getting a million views on YouTube is incredibly difficult, especially for new creators. Most successful videos get way fewer views. But with the method I'm about to show you, you can potentially make $100 to $1,000 per 1,000 views. That same 100,000 views might net you $800 from ads, that same video could potentially generate $10,000 to $100,000 potentially with this system. Now you might be saying, "Matt, that's impossible. Be real with me. How can someone make 10 times the amount of money with the same exact amount of views?" And yes, it might seem impossible, but it isn't. And while I can't guarantee that you're gonna 10x the amount of money that you make from your YouTube channel, I need to tell you about something that I'm calling the creator economy Revolution. So the global affiliate marketing industry is worth over $17 billion and it's projected to reach $36.9 billion by 2030. Even more impressive, affiliate marketing now influences 16% of all US e-commerce transactions. And so here's what's really happening. While everybody's out there chasing the ad pennies, smart creators are positioning themselves in front of buyers, not just viewers. And so the Day One Monetization System is built on 3 core principles that I'm about to show you. First, you sell before you scale. Second, you solve problems and you don't chase vanity metrics like views. And third, you create a monetization funnel, not just posting random videos. And that brings me to the step-by-step method for implementing this system. And step number 1 is to choose a problem-rich niche using real data. And this is where most people go wrong. Most creators choose entertainment niches because they see that's what's getting the most amount of views on YouTube. And most people wrongly assume that more views equals more money. But based off of my own experience with entertainment channels, I personally have ran several entertainment channels that have crossed over a million subscribers, and I've communicated with people running thousands of different channels. Here's what the data actually shows. The 3 most profitable affiliate marketing niches where you can sell something from your channel are education/e-learning, travel, and beauty/skincare. And compare those against lower-paying niches where you're literally just relying on ad revenue. You want to choose what I like to call a problem-rich niche. These are niches where people have expensive problems that they're willing to pay to solve. And the best ones fall into 5 different categories: money, health, relationships, technology, and travel. And don't just choose one of these broad categories. Instead, choose something a bit more specific. For example, instead of just doing money, do business investing or something like personal finance. And for health, you could do fitness, weight loss, or wellness. For relationships, you could do dating, marriage advice, how to get an ex back, social skills. For technology, you could do software tutorials, or show different productivity tools. And for travels, you could do guides, destinations, or travel tips. And here's some proof that this works. Take the faceless channel called Practical Wisdom. And if we look at their video of the 10 ways to make passive income, this video over the years has gotten 10 million views and it generates revenue from YouTube ads, of course. But where the real money is potentially made is with affiliate partnerships, which they also do. And this is with them promoting investment platforms as an affiliate 'cause they talk about investing. And financial course promotions. And the reason these work is because people in these niches are spending money on solutions to problems that they have. Major brands get anywhere from 5% to 25% of their overall online sales from affiliate marketing, which proves that there's real money being spent in these sectors. And you just have to think about this logically. When you are in the mode of just watching a general entertainment video, are you in the mood to pay for a solution to a problem if you're just watching a cat video on YouTube? Absolutely not. However, if you're watching a hyper-targeted video on a problem that you really want to solve, are you more likely to invest in a potential solution to the problem that you have? Absolutely yes. And there's hundreds of examples of channels doing this exact same thing. And I've made an entire separate video on some popular niches that are blowing up. And you can check out this video at this link right here. So that's the first step. So once you've picked your niche, the next step is to create what I like to call your money video. and this is the secret that most YouTubers completely miss. So your money video is basically a longer video, usually like 15 to 30 minutes long, that provides massive value, and then it leads into a paid solution. And this paid solution could be anything. It could be an affiliate product you recommend, which is typically what I recommend people if they don't want to go ahead and do all the work that goes into creating a product, just partner with someone who's already got one. Or it could be a digital course or a product you create. It could be a coaching service you offer, or a software that you promote with recurring commissions. So let's say for example, you partner with a software and let's say that software charges $99 a month and you get 30% recurring commissions on that for life as long as people stay subscribed. So that's about $30 per month for every person that signs up. If you get 100 people to sign up, which is really not that hard to do if you make valuable videos, that's $3K a month in passive income. Let me give you a real example. One of my friends who's a YouTuber, he runs the channel AI Guy, has built a massive following in a very short period of time showing AI YouTube automation systems. And his video about YouTube automation, "The Complete Guide," got 1.7 million views, and he monetized that video through ads, affiliate programs, and his own YouTube automation community. That's a 10-hour-long video, so he racked up insane amounts of watch time. He put together a bunch of his own videos into that video to create this hyper-long video, and he's got all the tools he recommends, all the affiliate links that he recommends throughout the video, in his description. So that's the second step. And you can only imagine how much that's made him. He's told me before, I don't know if he talks about it publicly, but it's an insane amount. And I do have a word-for-word script that I usually use on these money videos. I can just give you that if we do work together ever in the future. But basically, you just want to think about it for moving people along while giving them a lot of value and then leading them into a paid solution. And that's the second step. But step 3 is where the real magic happens. This is where you have to build what I like to call your content funnel. Every other video that you create after your money video should funnel people back to that money video. And you do this through end screens, pinned comments with links in them, in your descriptions, and then also even just verbal callouts throughout your video. You can mention that you have a free training that people can attend and it's directly on YouTube. And this creates an organized system in your videos where people get value and then they get directed back to your money video. I like to call this system a symbiotic system because it all works together. Because if you have one video blow up, it helps all the other videos on your channel because your channel's within a single niche. Plus you can drive some of those viewers back to your money video. They'll buy a product from you, so you're making money off of that. Plus racking up a bunch of watch time and session time because people are staying on YouTube watching your videos and YouTube rewards this massively. And it's sort of like a flywheel. So like when one thing starts going good, it can snowball into a ginormous effect that benefits you financially and helps a lot of people in the process. Now I know all this just sounds great to hear, but I'm not just making claims out of thin air. I've got data to prove that this method does work. You see, affiliates on average that use email marketing, which you can build into your funnel as well, which is an incredibly important thing, earn 66.4% more than those who don't. That could be an insane amount of money that you potentially could be missing out on if you're doing affiliate marketing. So to add to this flywheel even more, you can incorporate email marketing. So you collect people's emails in return for something free, usually like a free video or a free resource, like a PDF that they can use. And then you've got their email to send people new videos every time you upload one, just further giving more and more value. And then occasionally you sell something from your emails and you can just absolutely crush it. Now, at this point you might be saying, Matt, what exactly should I be selling? Here's where the real opportunity is, in my opinion, because 82% of websites earning 6 figures annually monetize both with display ads and affiliate products. They're not just relying on one income stream. And the best platforms for finding affiliate products to promote are ClickBank, Digistore24, and individual company affiliate programs. You can even go on ChatGPT and ask for the best affiliate programs in your niche. But here's the secret. The average affiliate marketing commission rate is between 5% and 30%, but software-based products pay 20% to 70%, and they often provide recurring income as well. So that's why I recommend software so much, because you can get recurring commissions, plus You're providing a service that gives a lot of value to people as well, if it's a tool that they can actually use to help them with whatever you're teaching. And why are software companies able to give such big commissions? Well, it's because these companies are digital. They're entirely fulfilled digitally. So software is great. Also, courses can be really good as well because it's provided digitally, meaning the profit margins are higher and you can keep a bigger percentage of those sales. And that brings me to step number 5. Which is optimizing for conversion and not just for views. Here's what most people don't understand. Websites that earn over $10K a month generate 3.5 times more revenue per visitor than the average affiliate site. And what this means practically for YouTube is you wanna go the extra mile. And that extra mile means incorporating email marketing, making sure to have a clear call to action in every video to send people back to your money video, creating a custom landing page that you can do with something like Kajabi so it doesn't seem like it's just a random tool that you're promoting. 23% of affiliates affiliates built an email list and used email marketing last year, and on average, these affiliates earned significantly more than those who didn't. Now you might be saying, Matt, this all sounds great, but how do I actually get people to buy? And that's the tricky part, but it's not impossible. In fact, the key to selling something, whether it's a service or a product or a software, is to make sure you've mastered the art to identifying pain points. Your viewers wanna learn more about the solution to their problem and then solve it even if it means paying for it. And instead of sending viewers directly to an affiliate product, what you wanna do is send them to a simple landing page where they get a free resource, and in exchange, they give you their email. And then in these emails, you talk to their pain points. So you see the biggest problems that they have and you solve those problems, ideally through more YouTube videos. And then through more YouTube videos, you'll gather up more watch time, you get more people on the list, and the whole system works together. But let me tell you what not to do. Because the statistics show some very common problems that cause people to fail. Do not wait until you have an audience to start monetizing. So many people fall into this. They say, oh, when I get 1,000 subscribers, I'll sell something. When I get 10,000, a million. And let me just tell you that you could potentially be losing out on tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of revenue if you wait to monetize. The second problem, what not to do, is do not rely just on ad revenue. Also, do not think that you need to be some huge expert in order to sell stuff from your channel. You don't. I always like to say, think of yourself as an information DJ. You're taking information that's already out there, putting it in an easier way for people to understand and giving value that way. And so here's an action plan of exactly what to do. In the next week, I recommend choosing your problem-rich niche if you don't have one already based off of the high-paying categories I recommended. On week 2, spend that whole week making your money video. Make it as good as you possibly can. On week 3, set up your affiliate accounts and focus on ideally promoting either a course or a software. And then on week 4, start creating the rest of your funnel. And by funnel, what I mean are videos that are gonna funnel people back to your money video. Now I know this might seem overwhelming if you're just starting out, so let me set some realistic expectations. Even with doing all of this, it does take some time and it does take a fair amount of work in order to implement all of these systems, and you're not gonna make $1 million overnight. But unlike so many of the other scammy methods out there, this is an actual real way of monetizing your YouTube channel from day one that actually works. Do not ever just buy a monetized channel like I see so many people talking about out there online. I could make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars selling monetized channels, but it, it'd be the morally wrong thing to do because these monetized channels are usually done so using fraudulent means. And if you buy one of them, you're just going to struggle for a lot longer because YouTube's gonna push your videos out to the wrong people. Plus you could face your channel getting banned and so many other bad things. So don't buy a monetized channel. Start from scratch. Always. YouTube's prioritizing new channels right now anyways. Plus it'll actually be a lot easier to grow. Plus you save a lot of money. You don't have to buy a channel. Plus you can monetize from day one. And the way that you're monetizing is going to be a much better way. And now I know this might sound like a lot of information, but just remember that every single successful YouTuber started with zero views and zero subscribers. And the difference between those that succeed versus those that don't is not talent, it's not luck. Maybe initial success is that way, but prolonged success on the platform is about having the right system and implementing it the right way. And if you wanna see exactly how I've helped over 11,000 creators grow successful YouTube channels and how you can potentially build a profitable YouTube channel yourself, then feel free to check out this video right here where I break down my exact system and my exact method with you. This is my up-to-date system that I'm using right now to do YouTube without ever showing my face in a new unique way that nobody talks about. I show it to you in this video right here. So check it out right there. My name is Matt Parr. Hope you got a ton of value throughout this video and I'll see you there.