YouTube Is Experimenting With A New Way For Creators To Sell Advertising To Brands

Photo: YouTube

YouTube has been quite busy this year when it comes to creator monetization and it doesn’t look it’s slowing down anytime soon.

In the latest video of its Creator Insider series, Tom Leung, who is YouTube’s director of product management, revealed that YouTube is “experimenting with a new way for creators to sell advertising to brands with whom they already have a relationship” and cited that this experiment is the result of many creators expressing interest in the opportunity to do so.

Additionally, he shared that the feature is currently being tested right now in “a very small pilot” and that YouTube will share more once it has information from the pilot.

Insights & Analysis:

At the beginning of February, Google revealed that it made 15 billion dollars from advertising on YouTube in 2019, highlighting how big the advertising business is on YouTube. If YouTube were to decide to go forward with a full rollout and give creators the ability to sell advertising to brands, the chances are that its 2019 advertising revenue would go up. Brands would be highly attracted to buying ad space on creators’ channels and videos since they would potentially be able to place ads with creators whom audiences fit their target audience.

Another exciting thing to look out for if this were to roll out, is what role does the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) play in this? When creators create content on behalf of brands (i.e., influencer marketing campaigns), they are required to include the proper disclosure. Still, it’s unclear whether there would be the need for a creator to include a disclosure when selling ad space to a brand that they previously have worked with.

Overall, this experiment aligns with YouTube’s increased commitment to creator monetization. In the last few months, it has launched new features and tools for creators to make money, including Super Stickers, which allow fans to support and connect with their favorite creators during live streams and Premieres by purchasing animated stickers. Also, it recently started to experiment with an Applause feature that enables fans to send a $2 donation to a creator by buying an “fun, animated applause.”

I really like the approach that YouTube has been taking with creator monetization especially considering some of the backlash that it received from some of its biggest creators, who said that monetization on the platform was not sustainable.

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SOURCE: YouTube