What Does the “Stop Ads” Feature Mean for YouTubers Who Want to Make Money off their Channel?

Advertisements on YouTube rank among the biggest sources of income not just for YouTube but also for the content creators active on the platform. While this is common knowledge, the fact is that for the average YouTube user, ads can prove to be annoying. This is why a minor percentage of YouTube users have decided to stop ads on YouTube through the use of ad blockers.

But what does this mean for you – the YouTuber who aims to earn money from the platform? If this question has been troubling you, you’re at the right place. In this article, we’ll take you through how ad blockers work, why they’re popular, how they affect YouTubers’ incomes, and what you can do to earn money from YouTube without worrying about them. So, without any further delay, let’s get started!

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How do ad blockers work?

Ad blockers, be it on YouTube or any other platform, work by interrupting server-user communication prior to ads being displayed. Due to this interruption, ads are detected and blocked before they can pop up and ruin a viewer’s experience.
Most modern-day ad blockers interfere with Google Analytics and AdWords data, which can deal a killer blow to marketers. Apart from not displaying ads at all to a YouTube viewer who chooses to use an ad blocker, this interference can lead to problems in tracking the success/failure of ad campaigns.

Why do people use ad blockers?

Imagine this – you’re a YouTube subscriber who is using the free version of YouTube and you tune into the latest video of your favorite content creator. As soon as you hit on the play button, you’re greeted with a 20-second advertisement that you can’t skip. After the ad is over, another ad starts to play, but thankfully this one has a ‘Skip Ad’ option. Finally, the video starts playing, but after a few minutes, another ad pops up. Think about it – wouldn’t this make for a frustrating experience?

Of course, YouTube has a Premium version as well, which works based on a subscription model. You pay a fixed monthly rate for some extra features that aren’t available to users of the free version. One of the features you’ll be paying for is no advertisements. However, the majority of YouTube users don’t use the Premium version but would like a viewing experience that involves fewer ads. This is why ad blockers have become so popular.

So, how do ad blockers affect content creators’ incomes?

Quite simply, ad blockers do affect content creators’ incomes adversely. If a viewer watches your videos with an active ad blocker, ads won’t show up on your videos, which would result in zero ad revenue. But before you get all worked up about it, let us tell you that the majority of YouTube users don’t use ad blockers – they’re only used by an insignificant minority.

Also, over the years, YouTube has made it more difficult for people to earn off the ads shown in their videos. To start making ad money from YouTube, you’ll need 4,000 hours of watch time and 1,000 subscribers within a 12-month period. On top of that, your channel has to generate 50,000 views on average. When your channel meets all these criteria, you’ll become eligible for your first $100 payout.

So, all in all, there’s not much to be concerned about in terms of losing out on income. Sure, you’ll lose out on some money, but it won’t make much of a difference in the grander scheme of things. And the best part is, you can compensate for the lost income by employing other methods, which we’ll get to in the next section.

Making money on YouTube without ads: The top tips

Now that you know that your channel’s income generation won’t be hurt too much by ad blockers, let’s go through some other methods to make money off your YouTube channel:

• Start selling your products and/or services: If you’ve got products and/or services to sell, you can market them on YouTube and generate sales for making money. After all, there are not many better marketing platforms than YouTube right now. You can consider selling products such as online courses, artwork, eBooks, brand/channel merch, and licensed content. In terms of services, you can explore speaking/performance opportunities, contracting work, consultancy roles, and education.
• Ensure that your content has value and is discoverable: This is directly related to the previous point. Quite simply, if your content isn’t discoverable and fails to provide value to your target audience, no one’s going to buy what you have to sell. So, get started with keyword research first and optimize your content with the right keywords – this should deal with the discoverability part. Next, create content that offers value, i.e. educate, inform and entertain your audience. Last but not the least, finish with call-to-action (CTA) messages that encourage your audience to buy.
• Get crowdfunded: Crowdfunding has emerged as a popular method for YouTubers to earn money by asking their respective audiences for donations and financial support. You can explore crowdfunding platforms and set up accounts on those platforms to get started – Patreon, Kickstarter and Buy Me A Coffee are two of the most popular crowdfunding platforms right now. Again, your channel needs to have ample quality content before you can ask for donations from your audience. Otherwise, it’ll just seem like you’re begging.
• Understand the different crowdfunding options: When it comes to being financially supported by your audience, you can explore various options. Some of the most popular crowdfunding types include project-based funding, exclusive memberships, and tiered rewards. Project-based funding involves securing donations for a particular project. Memberships involve recurring voluntary donations – YouTube has a built-in membership option. If you activate it, viewers will be able to see the ‘Join’ option when they watch your videos. Tiered rewards feature incentives. For instance, you could give shoutouts to audience members who donate $5 – $10. The incentives typically get more extravagant as the donation amounts increase.
• Sign a sponsorship or a brand deal: There was once a time when brands both big and small used to rope in conventional celebrities (movie stars, musicians, and athletes) for marketing their products and/or services. However, those times are fast changing. The business world has recognized the sway that social media influencers and content creators hold over their audiences. As a result, more and more businesses are beginning to collaborate with content creators and influencers. Of course, signing a sponsorship or brand deal isn’t possible when your channel doesn’t have a significant following. However, as your channel starts to grow, you can spread the word by being active on influencer marketing networks.
• Get involved in affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing refers to marketing or promoting products and earning commissions from their sales. For instance, if you review a product and/or service, you can include a link for your audience to buy it in your description. If your audience members proceed to buy by clicking on the purchase link in the description, you’ll get a certain commission percentage based on the deal you’ve agreed with the company selling the product and/or service. Typically, companies offer 5% – 30% affiliate commission rates. There are some types of YouTube videos that work incredibly well for affiliate marketing purposes such as how-to videos and product reviews. To start affiliate marketing on YouTube, we recommend exploring networks like Rakuten, PeerFly, and Amazon Associates.
• Do affiliate marketing exclusively in your area of expertise: If you have in-depth knowledge about gaming, you should pursue affiliate marketing in the niche of gaming gear and accessories. Quite simply, your affiliate marketing efforts will fall flat if you’re trying to sell products that you don’t know much about. Think about it – would you buy gaming gear recommended by someone who is not an expert in gaming. So, before you start affiliate marketing in the hopes of earning money, take a good look at yourself and figure out what you’re good at. Earning money through affiliate marketing can only become a reality when you manage to earn the trust and faith of your audience.

Conclusion

We’re nearly at the end of this article, and it’s safe to say that you don’t need to be worried too much about your audience using ad blockers. The fact that only a small percentage of YouTube users use ad blockers means that you won’t be losing a lot of ad money. And even if you do, you can make up for it by putting into practice the methods we mentioned in the previous section. Of course, there’s a lot of work involved, but if you want to earn good money off your YouTube channel, you’ve got to put in the work, both on YouTube and beyond.

Before we bid you goodbye, we’d like to encourage you to try out SubPals – a software tool for budding YouTubers that is perfect for getting free YouTube subscribers. You can also use SubPals to boost your channel’s user engagement stats by purchasing YouTube shares and YouTube likes. So, if you haven’t used SubPals yet, it’s about time you gave it a try. One thing’s for sure – it won’t disappoint you.