YouTube star Shelby Church breaks down how much money a video with 4 million views made her

Advertisement
YouTube star Shelby Church breaks down how much money a video with 4 million views made her

Shelby Church

Advertisement
  • YouTube allows creators who are a part of its Partner Program to earn money on their channel by placing ads within a video.
  • These ads are filtered by Google and earn a certain amount of money depending on factors like a video's watch time, length, and viewer demographic.
  • YouTube creator Shelby Church, who has 1.3 million subscribers, broke down how much she earned in Google AdSense from a video with four million views.
  • She told Business Insider she's earned about $15,000 from the video so far, which was uploaded in June, and shared the strategy she uses for making the most money possible from YouTube video ads.
  • Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Talking about how much money you earn on YouTube can make you even more money.

YouTube star Shelby Church, who has 1.3 million subscribers, told Business Insider that she recently earned $15,000 from a YouTube video with 4.1 million views - the most she's ever made from a single video in nine years as a creator.

Complimentary Tech Event
Transform talent with learning that works
Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

And in a strange twist, the video's subject is how much YouTube paid her for a previous video with one million views.

"For a long time, I just thought you weren't allowed to say how much you made, so I didn't want to," Church said. "Once I realized you could make two or three times as much money if you made a video longer, I thought it would be helpful if other people knew that because it's such a simple change."

Advertisement

The impact of a viral video and how many ad breaks she uses.

Church said this single video also helped the overall growth of her channel. Looking at the analytics, she said she gained 58,000 new subscribers from the video and saw a spike in views across her recently uploaded videos.

But the video didn't gain traction overnight. Church said most of the views came weeks after she originally posted it, and said the video only had 68,000 views after the first day.

"I really thought the video would get 100,000 views, not four million," she said. "Once I saw that it hit a million, it honestly scared me." Church said the video hit about a million views a week after posting it. And overall, the response has been positive, she said.

"I was a little nervous people would be bitter about how much YouTubers make," she said. "But, I think it shows that YouTubers don't always make a ton of money and it really depends on what kind of videos you're making."

Read more: YouTube star Shelby Church breaks down how much money a video with 1 million views makes her

Advertisement

YouTube creators can earn money through YouTube's Partner Program if they have at least 1,000 subscribers and at least 4,000 watch hours on their channel in the past year. This program allows them to monetize their channels with video ads placed by Google, and also through subscriptions and channel memberships. These ads make a certain amount of money depending on factors like a video's watch time, length, and viewer demographic.

Generally, Church said she makes her videos over 10 minutes long so that she can include more ads. Her video with 4.1 million views had four ads: one pre-roll ad before the video starts, two ads in the middle, and one at the end of the video.

Church said typically she earns more of her revenue from sponsored posts than from AdSense on YouTube. But August was the first month for her when she earned more from AdSense because of the amount of views she gained from the video.


For more on how to become a successful influencer, according to YouTube and Instagram stars, check out these Business Insider Prime posts:

A 5-step guide to making the most money possible from YouTube video ads, with advice from top creators

Advertisement

YouTube creator Natalie Barbu breaks down how much money she earns from a video with 100,000 views

A YouTube creator explains how he made nearly $50,000 in ad revenue from one video, without millions of subscribers

{{}}