How Content Creators are Losing Money to Youtube Demonetization

Adpocalypse ended a long time ago but content creators are still struggling to make money due to video demonetization. If you're a creator yourself or even if you keep up with Youtube news in general you're probably aware of this and have probably heard some other Youtubers complaining about this issue.

Essentially what's happening is when you initially upload a video, it has a yellow monetization icon and says "this video may not be suitable to advertisers".

For anyone who doesn't know controversial content or content more adult in nature is often not monetized as brands and advertisers don't want to be associated with that type of content. That's really what the adpocalypse was all about.

Youtube has been working on making sure advertisers are happy, but at the cost to creators.

So here's how it works. Youtube will initially flag some videos as not being approved for ads. If the creator feels that the video was falsely flagged and isn't controversial they can appeal this decision, the problem is they are unable to do so until the video gets 1,000 views.

Here's the problem with this. Some videos may never get 1,000 views so the creator just loses out on the ad revenue. The other problem is that even if the video eventually is said to be okay and gets monetized, the creator lost out on that initial 1,000 views.

We often hear Youtube CPM is about $1 or $2. CPM refers to cost per 1,000 views. For example if I have a video with 1,000 views and I have a $10 CPM I would earn $10 for those thousand views.

While more generic types of content often have low CPM's of $1 or $2, channels on topics like health, wellness, relationships, making money, business, and investing can oftentimes get CPM's upwards of $15 or $20, sometimes even $25 or $30, so if a creator loses out on 1,000 views they are potentially losing out on $20. That may not seem like a lot but assume this happens on say 20 videos and now the creator has lost out on $400.

I recently had a video which was demonetized initially. Once the video his 1,000 views I appealed that decision and eventually the video was monetized, however by the time the appeal came through the video had over 12,000 views. At a $20 CPM assuming the video possibly would have had that, I lost out on $240 and that's only one single video, again multiply that across numberous videos and it starts adding up.

I also comment in this video on how some of the stuff that gets flagged is not even controversial in the slightest, in this video I show an example of a video I made titled "Amazon Merch Rolls out Hoodies and Noodies." I have no idea what could possibly be controversial about that but the video was demonetized.

I'm curious to hear from other content creators out there. Are you experiencing the same issues and if so how is it affecting you and your business?