While the advertisers sulk youtube after their ads were on non friendly content, the revenues of the platform are decreasing since a couple of weeks. Let's summarize all the stakes and opportunities of this "advertisers crisis".

Some partners were recently worried about this decrease of revenues on their channels. What is even more surprising is that the videos concerned are not less performant than the others.

First of all , it is important to remember that the first trimester is one of the least remunerative on youtube. Indeed, big sums of money were spent during end of year parties, and budgets were consequently less important in the next following months.

However, the backlashes will be more important this year. What is the cause? The current fight between youtube and some advertisers. Recently, some companies noticed that their ads were broadcasted on "offensive" videos, and therefore, they decided to remove these ads from the google platform.

Poorly monetized videos 

During our researches aimed to draw up a summary of the current monetization of your contents on Youtube, we noticed that many of you had some issues with monetisating of your creations. Some videos with a lot of views, were not so rewarding in terms of money. Whereas, other videos with less audience could earn a lot. the common cause?  the video's theme, and more precisely, its metadata.  

In order to ensure high quality, google strive to avoid random placement of ads. Therefore, any content that may be interpreted as offensive, will immediately be tagged as such on Youtube. Making it more difficult to have ads on this type of videos.

 To understand by yourself of the impact of this kind of videos on your monetization, go on Youtube Analytics:

• There, define the time period, starting from end of march until current day.
• Then click on duration of viewing, sort the graphic by "views", then "compare values" with the estimated revenues of the partner.
• Scroll down under the graphic that appears, and sort the summary table by "views"
• You will maybe then notice a big difference between the number of views and the amount of money given to you for these videos.
• The indicated percentage in brackets (in the column "estimated revenues of the partner" in the table) indicates the share of income generated by this video on the selected period of time.

A paradigm that is changing on Youtube. Because even though, the platform could turn a blind eye on more mature content published on its webspace, the fact that advertisers are impacted by it, were sufficient enough for Youtube in wanting to improve its image. Thus, creators, for who this type of content were their main type of videos on their channel, have to be more aware of one thing: thumbnails, titles, tags and description of these videos, impact directly the remunerative potential of them.

In concrete terms, any provocative metadata will contribute to the video buzz, but will warn Youtube, and it can allow it to tag your video. On the contrary, thinking of a softer strategy for your contents will allow you to stay in the good will of Youtube, and still perceive incomes as reward of your work.

Views, playbacks and CPM

Many metrics can be impacted during this period. However, it is important to understand that a decrease in playbacks does not always mean a decrease of revenues. The cost per mille (CPM) varies a lot. It varies to the extent that many playbacks on one video can bring less money than another video with less playbacks, but with a higher CPM.

Similarly, we didn t notice any decreases regarding views on our partner's channels. The content earns a lot and some channels are even growing.

Decreases of revenues during this period don t only come from our partner's videos, but from the add supply, that decrease because of the advertisers crisis. Many advertisers decided to boycott Youtube until the platform hear their grievances. Hence, many ads spaces on Youtube are left vacant. It should be noted that monetising a video does not inherently mean that an add will be included.

A new level to reach in order to monetize

In order to calm down advertisers's angers regarding the type of content on where their ads were shown, Google has recently added a new measure. Henceforth, creating a channel will not be enough in order to monetise its content.

Indeed, the Mountain View company decided to set up a level of 10 000 views before being allowed to activate the monetization of its channel content. Caution however, you do need 10 000 total views on the channel, and not 10 000 views per video.

With this new measure, Google aspires to filter at least the channels that may earn money with its video sheltering platform. Therefore, it creates a barrier against channels publishing offensive aimed content, and hopes to reattract advertisers that fear the wrong placement of their ads.