99% of Creators Still Don’t Know the Basics of Making Money on YouTube

You started a YouTube channel to make money. You created content. You hit publish. You waited. And if you are like most creators, the AdSense check never showed up, or it showed up for $11.47, and you wondered what you were doing wrong. The answer is not your upload schedule. It is not your thumbnail. It is something more fundamental: most creators were taught to treat YouTube like the destination when it is really just the on-ramp.

In this video, Alston breaks down seven things that 99% of YouTube creators still do not know about making money on the platform. These are not hacks. They are business basics that the big names use but rarely teach. If you apply even two or three of these, you will stop chasing views and start building something that actually pays.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Why educational content outlasts entertainment content by years and what that means for your niche
How to treat YouTube like a highway billboard instead of your whole business
Why email marketing is the one asset you own that YouTube cannot take from you
The actual math comparing YouTube Partner Program revenue to digital product sales
How a value ladder lets you earn more money with fewer customers
Why topic clusters make YouTube’s algorithm treat you as an expert
How affiliate marketing lets you earn without creating your own product
A free tool to find the right monetization path for your specific skills and audience: finder.platformproof.com

Tip 1: Provide Education, Not Entertainment

Ten to fifteen years ago, YouTube was built on entertainment. Funny videos, viral stunts, celebrity gossip. That era is mostly over for small creators trying to build an income. Today people go to YouTube because they have a question or a problem. That is your opening.

Educational content means teaching something you already know how to do. Alston is clear that this is not about calculus or formal instruction. It is about showing someone how to do something easier, faster, or better using a skill you already have. That could be AutoCAD drafting. It could be using Canva for graphic design. It could be winning at a specific video game. Every skill is teachable, and people are searching for all of them.

The practical difference between entertainment and education comes down to shelf life. Entertainment content goes stale fast. A comedy bit from five years ago might not land today. A joke format that worked in 2019 might get a creator canceled in 2024. You have to constantly come up with new ways to perform, and when the culture shifts, your back catalog loses value overnight.

Educational content does the opposite. A tutorial showing how to throw a pass in Madden 25 will still get views from new players who picked up the game used three years from now. A video on how to organize a pantry in a small apartment will stay useful as long as people live in small apartments. When you build an educational library, you are building an asset. Each video keeps pulling in viewers and potential buyers long after you recorded it.

This does not mean your content has to be dry or boring. Entertainment mixed into education is fine. But make sure some percentage of your videos are genuinely solving a problem. Those are the ones that will get views six or eight years from now and quietly bring people into your business the whole time.

Tip 2: YouTube Is the Front Door, Not the Business

Think of YouTube like a highway. People are moving fast, scrolling through Shorts, clicking around on desktop, looking for answers. They are not there to set up camp. They are passing through. Your job is not to build a house on the highway. Your job is to put up a sign big enough to make them pull over.

Alston uses the McDonald’s golden arches as the analogy. You know those signs you see from half a mile away on the interstate? That is what your thumbnail and title are. They are not the meal. They are the signal that pulls someone off the main road and into something you control. Once they pull over, that is when the real transaction happens.

Most creators make the mistake of treating the video as the final product. They obsess over views, subscribers, and watch time because those feel like the goal. But YouTube can be taken from you. Large channels get banned. Algorithms shift. What was getting 100,000 views a month can drop to 10,000 overnight and you have no recourse. If your entire income depends on the platform continuing to send you traffic, you are building on rented land.

The better model is to use YouTube as a traffic source. Your videos get people in the door. Then you move them to something you own: an email list, a product, a community you host. A viewer who came for a no-bake cheesecake tutorial is probably interested in making high-quality desserts with less effort. If you understand that deeper desire, you can speak to it and get them to take a next step that does not depend on YouTube’s algorithm treating you well next month.

Every video you make and every thumbnail you publish is another chance for someone driving down that highway to veer off. The more videos you have, the more signs you have up. That is a compounding asset, but only if you are pointing those signs toward something off-platform that you actually own.

Tip 3: Email Marketing Will Make You More Money Than the Algorithm Will

Email marketing is the only guaranteed delivery mechanism you have. YouTube might not show your video to your own subscribers. Instagram throttles reach constantly. But an email goes to the inbox of the person who asked for it, every time.

Alston makes a point that most gurus skip: if you go to a brand and say you have 10,000 YouTube subscribers, they will say okay. If you go to that same brand and say you have 10,000 subscribers and 15,000 people on your mailing list, that is a completely different conversation. The email list is a tangible asset they can price. The subscriber count is a vanity metric they cannot reliably reach.

The other thing email gives you is portability. If your YouTube account disappears tomorrow, your email list goes with you. You can send one message to your list saying where you went, what happened, and where to find you now. Your audience follows. That kind of resilience does not exist on any social platform.

Setting up email marketing is simpler than most people think. You pick an email service provider (there are plenty of options, including free tiers for beginners). Then you create a lead magnet, which is something you give away free in exchange for someone’s email. If you are in the gaming niche, that could be a hotkeys cheat sheet or a quick-start guide. If you are in cooking, it is a recipe bundle or a weekly shopping planner. Whatever problem your audience shows up to solve, give them a shortcut they can download in exchange for their email.

After the lead magnet, you build a landing page (a single-purpose page that captures the name and email), and then you set up an autoresponder. An autoresponder is a sequence of emails that go out automatically on your behalf. You can load it with links to your old videos, affiliate products, or your own digital products, and it runs without you touching it. You build it once. It keeps working. That is the kind of passive income most creators think AdSense is going to deliver but rarely does.

Tip 4: The Math on Digital Products vs. YouTube Partner Program Revenue

Alston puts real numbers on this comparison and it is worth looking at closely. The YouTube Partner Program pays you based on RPM, which stands for revenue per thousand views. If your RPM is $5, which is common in entertainment and lifestyle niches, you need 2 million views to make $10,000. If your RPM is $15, which is on the higher end and often found in finance or business content, you still need 667,000 views to hit that same $10,000.

Those are not impossible numbers, but they are not beginner numbers either. And they are inconsistent. Your RPM changes based on the time of year, what advertisers are spending, what country your viewers are in, and what topics your videos cover. Too many variables outside your control.

Now look at digital products. To make $10,000 selling a $27 digital product, you need 371 buyers. For a $47 product, you need 213 buyers. For a $97 product, 104 buyers. For a $197 product, just 51 buyers. A buyer is a buyer regardless of where they live. The money goes straight to your payment processor. No variable RPMs. No algorithm deciding how many of your subscribers see your upload this week.

If roughly 1% of your viewers buy from you, you can work backwards from those numbers to figure out how much traffic you actually need. To get 371 buyers at 1% conversion, you need 37,100 viewers exposed to the offer. That is a realistic number for a creator with a small but engaged audience. Getting 2 million monthly views for AdSense money is a different game entirely.

Alston notes from personal experience that buyers are buyers even when views drop. When view counts go down, AdSense income crashes with them. But buyers who found you through your content and chose to spend money with you tend to keep buying from you if you keep delivering value. Building a buyer base is more stable than chasing views.

Not sure whether to start with AdSense, digital products, or affiliate marketing?

Answer a few questions and get a clear direction at finder.platformproof.com.

Tip 5: Build a Value Ladder So Fewer Customers Can Make You More Money

A value ladder is the structure of your product offerings from free to premium. Most creators think about the one thing they might sell someday. A value ladder is the whole staircase, and each step makes the next step make sense.

The structure Alston lays out looks like this. At the bottom is the free lead magnet that gets someone onto your email list. The next step is a low-ticket digital product around $27, something like a step-by-step guide, a printable workbook, a mini workshop, or a planner. This is an easy first transaction that builds trust and turns a subscriber into a buyer.

Above that is a mid-ticket course, which could run anywhere from $299 to $499. This goes deeper than the low-ticket product and serves people who want more comprehensive instruction. Then above that is high-ticket coaching or mentorship, where you work with people more directly at a higher price point. At the top is a recurring membership where someone pays monthly to stay in your community or access ongoing content and support.

The value ladder changes how you think about content. When you know your educational videos are the front end of this ladder, you stop making random videos and start making content that speaks to the problem your $27 product solves. You become more strategic about what you put out because each video is doing a job in a system, not just existing on its own.

This also gives you income that holds up when views fluctuate. If your views go up, more people enter the ladder and revenue goes up across all tiers. If your views dip, you still have buyers moving through the ladder and monthly members generating recurring income. You are not starting from zero every month the way you are when AdSense is your whole income stream.

Tip 6: Create Evergreen Topic Clusters Instead of Isolated Videos

A topic cluster means creating multiple videos on the same subject or product rather than making one video and moving on. Alston demonstrates this using a microphone sitting on his desk. Instead of making one review video and calling it done, a creator should build a cluster around that product.

The cluster might include an unboxing and first-impression video, a head-to-head comparison against the top competitors, a deep dive into the best features, a roundup of recommended accessories, and a troubleshooting or setup guide. Each of those videos targets a slightly different search intent and a slightly different moment in the buyer’s journey. Someone searching for “Warm Audio WA47 Jr review” is in a different place than someone searching for “Warm Audio WA47 Jr vs Shure SM7B,” but they are both your potential viewers.

When you build clusters, two things happen. First, you signal to YouTube that you are an expert on this topic. The algorithm starts to associate your channel with that subject, which can help your videos surface in related searches and recommendations. Second, a viewer who finds one video in the cluster has multiple other videos they might watch next, all from you. That compounds your watch time and builds trust faster than a viewer who watches one video and has nowhere else to go on your channel.

You can build clusters around anything. If you are in the gaming niche, you could create a cluster around a specific game mode, building out videos on offense mechanics, defense strategies, best plays, common mistakes, and team compositions. If you are in cooking, you could cluster around a specific dietary approach or a specific technique. The same framework applies everywhere. One topic, multiple angles, compounding returns.

The evergreen part matters too. A cluster built around a skill, tool, or concept that stays relevant over time keeps generating traffic without you having to update it constantly. That is the combination you want: multiple bites at the apple on a topic that does not expire.

Tip 7: Add an Affiliate Marketing Component to Every Niche

Affiliate marketing is when you promote someone else’s product and earn a commission on every sale that comes through your unique link. Alston points out that there are over 12,000 affiliate programs available right now. Almost any product or service you already talk about has an affiliate program you could join.

The advantage affiliate marketing has over creating your own product is that you are partnering with an established brand that already has trust in the market. When Alston holds up his Warm Audio WA47 Jr microphone, viewers already know Warm Audio makes good equipment. He does not have to build that brand recognition from scratch. He just makes honest content about the product, includes his affiliate link, and earns on every purchase his review drives.

There is also no fulfillment burden. You do not handle shipping, returns, customer service, or inventory. You make the content. The brand handles the rest. That is a clean income source that fits naturally on top of your existing content creation without adding much operational weight.

Combined with your topic clusters, affiliate marketing becomes especially powerful. If you build a cluster of videos around a specific microphone, gaming peripheral, software tool, or cooking appliance, every video in that cluster can include your affiliate link. The cluster drives sustained traffic, and the affiliate link turns that traffic into recurring commissions over time without you having to do anything after the videos are live.

Look at Your Channel Like a Business

Alston closes the video with what he considers the overriding principle behind all seven tips: treat your YouTube channel like a business. Not a hobby. Not a side project you do for fun that might someday pay off. A business with a front end, a back end, assets, and a strategy.

When you think of your channel as a business, your videos are the front door. Your lead magnet and email list are the customer acquisition system. Your value ladder is the product line. Your topic clusters are the content strategy. Your affiliate partnerships are an additional revenue stream. All of it connects.

That shift in thinking changes the decisions you make. You stop making videos just to make videos. You make videos that solve specific problems for a specific person who is likely to take a specific next step in your business. That is what makes the content feel purposeful and what makes the money actually show up.

Honest Drawbacks

Everything in this video is accurate, but none of it is instant. Building an email list from zero takes time. Creating your first digital product takes work. Building a value ladder means you need to know your audience well enough to design a meaningful progression from free to premium, and most new creators do not have that clarity right away.

Affiliate marketing sounds passive, but getting your affiliate content to rank or get recommended requires the same discipline as any other educational content. If you create a cluster of three videos that get 50 views each, the commissions will reflect that. Volume and audience trust both take time to build.

The YouTube Partner Program also still has a role. For creators who hit the numbers, ad revenue on top of digital products and affiliate income is meaningful. The mistake is treating it as the primary goal rather than one layer of a larger strategy. Once you stop chasing it and start building the other pieces, the ad revenue often takes care of itself as a byproduct of having an audience that found you through your educational content.

The creators who get frustrated and quit are usually the ones who went all-in on ad revenue as the plan, spent a year chasing it, got discouraged by the numbers, and never built the systems that would have made that year worth it. Building the systems takes longer but it holds up.

Find Your X

The seven tips above are a framework. But which one is the right starting point for you depends on your niche, your audience size, the skills you already have, and what you are willing to build first. Guessing wrong costs you months.

The Finder at finder.platformproof.com asks you a few targeted questions and tells you where to put your energy first. It is free and built specifically for working adults who want to make their first real income online without starting from scratch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does educational content really stay relevant longer than entertainment content?

Yes, in most cases. A tutorial teaching a specific skill tends to remain searchable and useful for years because the problem it solves does not change. Entertainment content depends on timing, cultural context, and trends that shift quickly. There are exceptions in both directions, but educational content built around durable skills generally has a longer shelf life for driving consistent traffic.

How many subscribers do I need before I should build an email list?

You should start building your email list before you have any subscribers. The sooner you have an email capture set up, the sooner every viewer who finds you becomes a contact you can reach directly. Waiting until you hit some subscriber milestone means you are losing months of potential list growth for no practical reason. Even a list of 100 engaged people is more valuable than 10,000 passive subscribers who never hear from you outside of YouTube’s algorithm.

What should my first digital product actually be?

Start with a simple, targeted solution to one specific problem your audience already has. A checklist, a workbook, a short workshop recording, a template pack. Something you can create in a weekend and that someone would genuinely pay $27 for. You do not need a full course for your first product. You need proof that people will pay you for something, and a simple, useful product gets you to that proof faster than spending six months building a course nobody has asked for yet.

How many videos should be in a topic cluster?

Alston’s example points toward four to six videos per cluster as a solid starting range. A review or introduction video, a comparison video, a deep-dive on specific features or techniques, an accessories or tools video, and a troubleshooting or beginner guide. That gives you multiple entry points for the same audience without overlapping so much that the videos compete with each other. You can expand a cluster later if the first few perform well.

Is it too late to start email marketing if I have been on YouTube for years without a list?

No. You can add a lead magnet and email capture to your channel right now by putting the link in your description, mentioning it in your videos, and adding it to your channel’s about section. Creators who already have an audience often find that even a small percentage of existing viewers will sign up quickly once the offer is in front of them. Late is better than never, and the list you build today starts compounding from today forward.

What RPM should I expect from the YouTube Partner Program?

RPM varies significantly by niche, audience location, and time of year. Entertainment and gaming niches often see RPMs in the $2 to $5 range. Finance, business, and career content can reach $15 to $30 or more. These numbers also fluctuate with advertiser spending, which tends to peak in Q4 and dip in Q1. Rather than targeting a specific RPM, it is more useful to plan your income strategy around what you can control, which is your own products and affiliate commissions, while treating ad revenue as supplemental income.

How do I find affiliate programs for my niche?

Start with the products you already use and mention in your content. Most brands have an affiliate or partner program listed in their website footer. You can also search for affiliate programs through platforms like ShareASale, Impact, PartnerStack, or Commission Junction, which aggregate programs across industries. Look for programs with reasonable commission rates, reliable tracking, and brands your audience already recognizes. Promoting products you have actually used is much easier to do honestly and tends to convert better than promoting something you have never touched.

Do I need to pick just one of these seven strategies, or can I use all of them at once?

These strategies are designed to work together, not compete. Your educational content clusters feed your YouTube traffic. Your thumbnails and titles pull viewers off the platform. Your lead magnet moves them to your email list. Your email sequence introduces your digital products. Your affiliate links earn on products you are already talking about. The value ladder means a buyer at the $27 level has a natural next step. You do not implement all seven in a week, but the goal is to build toward all of them over time so each piece supports the others.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “99% of Creators Still Don’t Know the Basics of Making Money on YouTube,” Platform Proof YouTube channel, youtu.be/KSmROIvzvkA
YouTube Partner Program monetization requirements and RPM documentation: support.google.com/youtube/answer/72857
Platform Proof Finder tool: finder.platformproof.com