YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

AdSense

YouTube is owned by Google and therefore uses Google's advertising program, AdSense, to monetize its Partners' videos. AdSense (www.adsense.com) (URL 11.6) is a program open to anyone who creates an AdSense account. Outside of YouTube, AdSense is used by webmasters and bloggers to display text and picture ads alongside their content, in hopes of making money from these ads. Google provides the ads and splits the revenue with these website owners, just as YouTube does with its content creators.

Most AdSense ads are paid on a per-click basis, meaning the webmaster and Google make money only when a visitor clicks the ad. However, some ads are paid for on a per-impression basis, meaning the webmaster and Google make a set fraction-of-a-dollar amount every time a visitor views that ad, that is, visits the page on which the ad is displaying.

YouTube ads are all paid for on a per-impression basis. Ad rates seem to vary from campaign to campaign, because earnings per view vary each and every month. AdSense ads display next to videos uploaded by Partners. You'll need to keep your AdSense account in good standing to remain in the Partner Program. This means you should not try to fraud the system by autorefreshing your videos. You should also not click over and over on your own ads; this gives the impression to advertisers that your videos are more popular than they actually are and breaks the contract you sign with YouTube when you become a Partner. (Both YouTube and AdSense have really ...