Why are your YouTube earnings decreasing?

By Ritvars Lauza read
04 Apr, 2024

YouTube seems like a great platform for monetizing video content. It attracts billions of users worldwide every month–and that’s just from the people who log in. With such a large viewership, it’s no wonder that content creators everywhere are taking their content to YouTube to make money.

Unfortunately, YouTube is a highly volatile platform. Between their new policy, which favors larger stars over smaller brands, and the controversy over their crackdown on duplicated content, it’s no surprise that a number of content creators have noticed their YouTube earnings are going down. Let’s take a look at some reasons why your earnings might be decreasing below.

1) Partner program changes

In January of 2018, YouTube decided to change the way eligibility works for their partner program. The minimum amount of watch time was increased to 4,000 hours on your channel over the previous 12 months, a minimum subscriber count of 1,000, and an open AdSense account.

If you’re experienced a decrease in your earnings, take a look at your channel and make sure that it meets all of the new requirements. If it doesn’t, that may be the reason your YouTube earnings are going down.

2) Changing your content material

Have you recently changed the subject of the content you’re posting? This can result in your YouTube earnings going down.

This is because you’ve built your fanbase up from a group of people interested in a certain niche. Once you change that niche, people may lose interest in your channel because it is no longer supplying the content that they originally subscribed for.

Even PewDiePie, YouTube’s largest star, has fallen victim to this mistake. Originally rising to fame for playing horror games, he changed the content of his videos and began to lose subscribers as a result!

3) Your content is out of season

Often, YouTube videos will go in and out of season. This could occur because certain topics are more popular during certain seasons or holidays, or simply because as content gets older, it tends to get buried under the ever-increasing amount of YouTube videos being posted.

If this is the reason your YouTube earnings are going down, simply tweak your content strategy. Make sure to produce content that is relevant during each season without expecting it to continue gathering views after that season has passed. Producing new content is key.

What should you do?

Now, don’t get me wrong. YouTube is still a great platform for connecting with other people and building a fanbase. However, there’s a better way to monetize your YouTube and it’s being used by more and more YouTubers around the globe. Can you guess what it is?

Hint: It’s not paid advertising…

It’s digital products

Digital products are products you can sell online that don’t have a tangible form. Take a look at Peter McKinnon, a YouTuber with over 2 million subscribers who teaches users about photography. Not only does Peter make money through his YouTube account, but he also makes money through photography presets packages he offers on his e-commerce store on Sellfy.

Why digital products?

Digital products are neat because they take almost no start-up capital to produce and can be used as a source of passive income, meaning that once it’s created, it’ll keep making money without any effort on your part.

Arthur Moore is another YouTuber who makes money through digital products. Arthur frequently blogs about travel and lifestyle and has racked up over 96,000 subscribers. His subscribers love the visual effects he uses on his videos, so he opened an e-commerce store that gives people access to the visual effects he uses on his page. Once he compiled his visual effect presets, all he had to do was sit back and let the money roll in!

How to create your own digital product

Digital products are hugely versatile passive sources of income that can help you make up for lost money when your YouTube earnings are going down. So, how do you get started?

Decide on your product: Think about your fans. Why do they follow you? What pain point do you solve for them? When creating a digital product, you want to offer something that will provide value to your audience and solve their problems. If you’re stumped, take a look at this guide on 101 digital product ideas with examples.
Create it: Creating a digital product can take some time. Go ahead and take a look at this guide on how to write an ebook. While it is focused on writing e-books, the steps are applicable to creating any type of digital product, whether it’s an e-book or digital photography package.
Choose a store: There are several e-commerce stores you can choose from such as Sellfy. Sellfy is great because it’s a platform designed for business owners rather than web designers, meaning that getting a shop set up is fairly easy. The stock storefront looks good without any additional design and you have access to unlimited bandwidth, meaning you don’t have to worry about hosting.

It also offers more affordable pricing as opposed to larger e-commerce sites like Shopify. You can check out Sellfy’s pricing guide here. They even offer a free 14-day trial!

The future of YouTube monetization

Between YouTube’s volatile algorithms and frequent policy changes, it’s understandable that YouTubers are getting nervous about their Youtube earnings going down.

As a general rule, it’s wise to have several different streams of revenue when running a business. Digital products are a great money-maker because they don’t rely on just one platform.

You can direct traffic to your e-commerce store through a number of different ways, including your website, Facebook page, Instagram, and other web pages. If one platform goes down, you can just increase your marketing efforts through another. All you need to do is create a store.

Do you have any questions about setting up an e-commerce store? Have digital products worked for you in the past? Leave a comment and let me know!