YouTube content makers creators in the company’s Partner Program can make money in different ways through advertising, subscriptions, donations, live-streaming features, and YouTube Premium revenue.
There are several variables, and now YouTube is certainly collecting all of those numbers in one area and giving that information to content creators in the form of a new monetization metric called RPM.
YouTube RPM (Revenue Per Mile):
RPM, or revenue per mille, is a part of the standard metric YouTube creators previously use referred to as CPM, or cost per mille (sometimes referred to as cost per thousand).
Although the two sound alike, they do two different things. RPM is much more beneficial for creators who are seeking to grow their channels and figure out where their monthly income is arising from.
CPM measures the cost of every 1,000 ad impressions before YouTube gets its share of the revenue. Still, RPM shows a creator’s total revenue (both from ads and other monetization areas) after YouTube takes the cut. This doesn’t signify a change to how much creators are making.
Instead, it assists creators in fully understand where they’re making their money and how the revenue share breaks down on youtube RPM.
“It’s kinda been similar. You get a paycheck every month, but you’re not precisely sure how it got to that number,” Matt Koval, a former YouTube content creator who now serves as the platform’s head creator liaison, published on Twitter.
RPM is a snapshot of the rate at which you’re earning money on youtube by creating informative or entertainment content.
If CPM is an advertiser-focused metric, RPM is tailor-made for content creators. For example, RPM combines the total number of video views, including videos that weren’t monetized.
This is designed to give creators how much they might be missing out on revenue-wise from videos that make views but aren’t available for monetization and changes they can make to ensure future videos are monetized.
“RPM is a snapshot of the rate at which you’re making earning money on YouTube,” the latest blog on earning money on youtube by Google blog. “Whether RPM goes up or down, it’s a great indication of things that are working or not working in your revenue strategy.”
YouTube starting RPM doesn’t mean CPM numbers are unnecessary. The higher the CPM, the more an advertiser is paying for that ad, and the more money a creator makes on a video.
If a creator has a higher CPM, it can be a rather good sign of how valuable a specific advertiser notices that the creator’s channel and its videos. YouTube’s new RPM stat won’t show that same kind of advertisement indicator.
What’s reassuring to creators about the RPM metric is that it acknowledges how much monetization has changed on the platform, even in just the last few years.
At VidCon 2019, YouTube started introducing alternative monetization, including channel memberships (subscriptions), live chat features like Super Chat (donations), and merchandise shelves on creators’ channels to assist those channel owners in diversifying revenue amid deeper advertising concerns that have existed for years on the platform.