My YouTube Income Report March 2020

COVID-19 has had an impact on everyone and the YouTube Community is no exception. Going forward information in these income reports will reflect some of the impact COVID-19 has had on the channel and its earnings.

Each Month I Publish a YouTube Income Report showing you how much money I made on YouTube as well as breaking down some lessons I learned that contributed to that success and outcome.

My goal is to give an honest and transparent look at how YouTubers make their money and I give you a common-sense approach to YouTube and being a content creator, what is possible, and more importantly what is practical.

*Combined totals are from YouTube Adsense Earnings, Combined Affiliate Marketing, Brand Deals, and Merchandise Sales. Please reference our Earning Disclaimer if you have questions or concerns.

Reference the February 2020 YouTube Income Report Here

MARCH 2020 YOUTUBE CHANNEL EARNINGS $14,010.30

In this YouTube Income Report, you will see a detailed breakdown of how the channel earned $14,010.30 in the month of March 2020, through a combination of Merchandise, YouTube Adsense Revenue, Affiliate Marketing, and Sponsorships. For the obvious reasons (NDAs) individual Sponsorship deals are not broken down in this report and what you will be seeing is the approx combined total rounded down.

Screenshots have been provided where I deem them necessary or appropriate.

Updates to the Channel in March 2020

March was a short month and I also had a lot of things going on with my membership coaching in Awesome Creator Academy, doing weekly training. It was hard to handle consistent video uploads but I think I did better than in January.

Here are the major changes in no particular order:

1. Tried a new thumbnail design strategy using more Blue and Violet
2. Creating NEW MERCHANDISE Designs in Teespring
3. Started Posting More Money Focused Topics
4. Started Prioritizing Segments of My Audience Like Small YouTubers
5. Changed Posting Schedule to MWF
6. Tried to post more consistently and not miss a week of uploads.

Because of COVID19 I had to focus on some real-life things and also give more support to my paying coaching clients and my students, but also support my friends. I had to also change some priorities in my real life and manage my own stress, which means even though I intended to make more content in March I was unable to.

Overall my CPM didn’t drastically decrease even though that affected other content creators. I covered that in a video for the community and how it impacts other things like Affiliate Marketing.

The other issue was psychologically it became hard to make certain content because with the sensitivity to the majority of the audience that may be out of work during this time, MONEY related topics, while I honestly believe were needed, may be taken the wrong way, so that weighed on me a lot.

BIGGEST LESSON LEARNED

My own emotional balance determines my ability to produce and edit content and if I don’t have that because of an external factor it becomes hard or impossible to become consistent in a real way. Bringing on an editor will eliminate the editing bottleneck since filming the content isn’t really the issue, its the editing and releasing of the content.

Using Tubebuddy and the new SEO Studio Feature I can hold myself more accountable by doing all the metadata and packaging for my produced (filmed) content, and be on the hook for editing and putting it out since everything else has already been done.

Also, the hesitation around when its appropriate to release content has been holding me back more than I realized and so I need to just commit to the content and trust that it will find the people it needs to,

Lastly it is time to start thinking about growing my other channels. I haven’t uploaded to the Real Talk with Roberto Blake channel in weeks and it’s long overdue and there is a dedicated audience there for more personality driven than topic driven content. My main channel will become focused more and more on the brand of Creative Entrepreneurship and The Creator Economy message over the next year.

As I shift I will need to expand my brand across platforms and channels to avoid abandoning other messages and audiences I’ve cultivated. I am also going to expand my tutorial content into Skillshare as well as some of my YouTube related topics as that is another source for awareness, traffic and revenue.

1. Increase Monthly Channel Views to At least 300K views/mo
2. Maintain Consistent Video Uploads 2-3 times per week
3. Focus on Topics that generate a combination of high earnings and higher overall traffic, where I can rank in search.
4. Produce evergreen topics with high YouTube Adsense CPM rates to balance a steady overall traffic source with search and recommendations from the YouTube Homepage
5. Create Evergreen Videos that tie to affiliate products the audience has proven to respond to like Tubebuddy.

NEW AFFILIATE MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES

With the current levels of uncertainty in the world I’ve been shifting to prioritizing PASSIVE revenue streams, with many of them being RECURRING AFFILIATE commissions.

For me, the strongest recurring affiliate commission programs are Tubebuddy, Kajabi and Teachable. Since Kajabi is not something I’ve covered as much on my channel the plan is to lean into this more in May as I attract people who want to start a membership website or they want they want to start a coaching business.

By focusing on people starting businesses (B2B) I can increase affiliate revenue significantly by introducing more of the tools that I use in my business ventures outside of YouTube to my audience.

With regard to the YouTube audience of my main channel itself, putting a focus on tools like Epidemic Sound, Adobe Software like Adobe Spark, and Camera Equipment is going to help increase affiliate opportunities. Recently I started using my Kit.co links more often and promoting them within social media as well as my Youtube channel and it has helped increase Amazon Affiliate revenue.

YouTube Income (Adsense) March 2020

At this point, my CPM has remained consistent at a general baseline of roughly $20 CPM on average. The big issues are maintaining the momentum, in terms of consistency, which has just been harder to do during the pandemic from an energy management and focus standpoint. I want to produce and release at least 3 videos a week and I know it will have a positive impact on everything I’m doing, it’s just very challenging to be consistent even when I film enough content in terms of the editing of the content.

Top 3 Highest Earning Videos

For top-earning videos in March, I’m not going to count my YouTube Live Streams. In fact, I won’t count those for top-earning videos going forward because since those are typical via Super Chat it is different.

As usual videos covering topics about money are the high performers both in views, driving new subscribers and in driving monetization. It is my intent in 2020 to actually start to really focus the channel in this direction more and more and in terms of YouTube Related Topics, corner the market on YouTube Monetization, YouTube Analytics and YouTube SEO as those are the areas I’m am strongest in and that I can dominate since they are still extremely important to specific groups of creators that tend to be more business minded.

Those creators will overlap more with content around entrepreneurship as well as invest in things that will improve their content. Creators who are aspiring will also likely watch videos related to Affiliate Marketing and Freelancing to earn extra income to help them go full time on YouTube.

YouTube Earnings Breakdown

Total YouTube Income Breakdown

MORE CONTEXT ABOUT BRAND DEALS…

Something I’m eventually planning to do more of is brand deals and I have some pending brand deals for the month of May that I believe will come through despite COVID19. For me, the emphasis will be on RECURRING brand deals. I believe this is the most practical approach especially for creators who have a buying audience.

Currently, I am in the process of setting up multiple recurring relationships that I think will be very lucrative and will dramatically increase the overall earning potential of the channel. Ideally $100,000 per year in brand deals and is not unreasonable even though it would represent triple what I earned from brand deals last year.

Being able to do a few recurring brand deals for $2000/month or more, through a long term (yearly renewal) relationship is something more content creators should consider once they have built their brand and a loyal audience.

GOALS FOR April 2020

For March 2020 my main goals around the YouTube channel are to continue to focus on consistency and make sure that I’m providing the right value to the audience while monetizing as many ways as possible and reinvesting in long term growth. Topics I will likely focus on both due to the data and the comments and viewer demand and what is driving subscribers will be: Affiliate Marketing, How to Make Digital Products and Courses, and YouTube Growth and Instagram.

This includes everything from updating my YouTube Channel Trailer to make the value of the channel clear to new potential viewers and possibly tapping into a trending topic at least once a month for relevancy.

1. Add the new designs to the YouTube Merch Shelf
2. Upload at least 10new videos in March
3. Increase Affiliate Earnings around Kajabi and Tubebuddy
4. Make a 2020 YouTube Channel Trailer (needs a refresh!)
5. Be More Active in YouTube Stories

VIDEO IDEAS PLANNED FOR MONTH OF APRIL

For the month of March, I have some specific videos planned that I think will do well overall but are designed to align with my overall goals of expanding new subscribership around topics of making money online and entrepreneurship, while still catering to content creators with videos that have predictable outcomes.

• Updated Video on Selling Online Courses and Membership Sites (Watch Time/Affiliate)
• Video Series Targeted at Small YouTubers with Brian G Johnson and Nick Nimmin (Views/Shares)
• Videos Targeting Freelancers (Views/ Search Engine Ranking)
• Video Editing Tutorials (Ranking/ Affiliate)

YOUTUBE CHANNEL EXPENSES FOR MARCH 2020

Updated: Many of you requested a breakdown of the expenses/cost associated with the YouTube channel. This is difficult because of the overlap with my other business ventures outside of YouTube and content creation. The way I decided to approach it, was to include the expenses I would ONLY have if I were just a content creator/influencer. And so that is how I determined the cost of being a YouTuber for myself and included it here. This will be present in the future income reports going forward. This amount is fairly consistent month to month unless I make a major purchase for the channel.