Creators in YouTube’s Partner Program have the opportunity to earn many in several different ways. It is good that creators have that flexibility. However, there is a lot of uncertainty where the money is coming from specifically. Now, YouTube is looking to make it easier for creators to find where their money is coming from with RPM.
YouTube is compiling all the money earners from things like advertising, subscriptions, donations, live-streaming features, and YouTube Premium revenue all in one place. Creators will now be given their financial numbers on the platform through a new monetization metric named RPM.
What is RPM?
RPM is an acronym for revenue per mile. Essentially, it is a new way of looking at the standard metric YouTube uses, CPM (cost per mile). Regardless, RPM is much more useful to those wanting to grow their channels and figure out where their monthly income is coming from. CPM measures the cost of every 1,000 ad impressions before YouTube takes out its share of the revenue made. With RPM, creators see the total revenue from both ads and other monetization areas after YouTube takes out its part of the revenue. This should result in creators having a better understanding of where their money is coming from.
“It’s kinda been like you get a paycheck every month, but you’re not exactly sure how it came to that number,” Matt Koval, YouTube’s head creator liaison, said on Twitter.
Typically, CPM is much more useful to advertiser-focused metric. RPM looks to be much more useful for creators. In fact, it looks like it was made just for creators. RPM includes the total number of video views, even if they are not monetized.
Helps creators better understand revenue on YouTube
YouTube has been working to be more transparent with the creator community. While RPM is an excellent addition to the metrics offered by YouTube, that is not all YouTube is bringing to creators. They are doing a few other things that should make it easier for creators to earn more money. For instance, YouTube is allowing creators to run mid-roll ads on eight-minute videos. Previously, videos had to reach 10 minutes to be able to run mid-roll ads.
RPM looks like it will make monetization on YouTube much more transparent. It should allow creators to break down their revenue and better strategize how they monetize.