The Advertising Question. (Patreon)

Hi folks.  I have a lot of thoughts about this particular question inside my head, so this might be a rambling post - but it has an end goal!  So...let us begin.

Over the past few months or so, I've upped the advertising on my channel by quite a bit - doing things like having adverts mid-video and so on which I never had before that...at the time, it was silly not to do it really - to at least see the effect that it would have.  And I have various thoughts on this...

Of course, there's the one positive: You make more money.  I mean, that's obvious - more ads equals more cash.  That's pretty much the one and only positive of increasing your ad breaks in the videos, but it's a not inconsiderable one.  When ad revenue was good (and we'll get to that!) it was absolutely best practice to get ads in there, and it helped out a fair bit last year.  

Still, there are negatives...people do complain, of course - mid-video ad breaks aren't ever going to be popular.  Some people may even unsubscribe - that's happened...it's easy to get annoyed about this, to think that "well, I'm just trying to get the money I need to sustain this job choice and all that", but these things aren't really the issue - a bigger issue is that people don't necessarily immediately subscribe.  I've definitely noticed that since ads have become more prevalent - the videos do as well as they have ever done if not better, but subscriptions have gone down.  This also means less people who would have potentially signed up to be Patrons, people more reticent to come back and watch other vids, and so on.

Because...well, in the end - who likes watching ads?  Nobody, they're awful.  The only worthwhile ads on YouTube are ones that are 5 seconds long, but most companies have no idea how to market on the platform - so what do you end up with?  You're relaxing, watching a video - then all of a sudden your ears get blasted with an ad that's much louder than the vid itself.  Or you're suddenly confronted with some moron who thought that making a 2 minute+ video an advert was a good idea.  It's...yeah, it's not good - and it's not going to entice people to come back.  Sure, there's the money - but there's lots of negatives to go with it.

And that's certainly something to think about.  Sure, ads were good in the short term, but long-term?  Less so.  The real long-term prospects are right here, right now.  One person's donation of $5 a month?  Well, that's more than all but a few of my videos make from ad revenue in a month.  I talk a lot about ad revenue in the past time because, as you probably know already, ad revenue is terrible right now - it's gone down the tubes, and there's no real word on if it may ever come back.  I've not talked about it much, but I've personally been hit hard.  

YouTube is changing - that's very clear.  Channels - especially those in the gaming sphere - that primarily or indeed entirely relied on ad revenue are going to have a tough time of it.  Some people like to use this to fan various political flames, but that's all bullshit - everyone's down across the board.  If you have a channel that specialises in FPS's or something like that?  Gee...you actually might be screwed.  Obviously things are bad right now.

The effect of losing ad revenue has been somewhat minimised here at Kim towers, mind - because I've been adding a few more strings to my bow.  Obviously I've been doing a lot more stuff here in the first instance - the Patreon has been revamped, and that's boosted up accordingly - this is the main way the channel functions and has been for some time.  Some of you may know that I help out with Guru Larry's videos now - Larry is obviously the man, and unlike some folks he does not believe in paying people with "exposure" - that's helped a lot.  Plus I'm writing for Retronauts, and there's always the possibility of more work for Retro Gamer in the future...the loss of a chunk of ad rev is a punch, but it's not a critical hit.  

Still...we can do better.  And it's becoming clearer to me that one of the best ways to do that is to work towards getting rid of ad revenue completely...I ask myself if this volatile revenue stream is worth the stress and irritance that it causes, and I find it harder to find many positive reasons to keep it going.  The money was obviously a big one, but that's less of a factor now - the ad revenue money isn't worth the stress and annoyance, or stunting the growth of the channel.  And so, I'm officially working towards that goal here on Patreon.  For the moment, I'm setting the ad free goal at $1750.  And as a mark of good faith towards reaching that goal, I'm going to be dropping mid-video adverts.  Once this post is finished I'm taking them off of Duke Nukem Forever, and then I can work on taking them out of other vids too. 

What, ideally, the end result of all this is a channel where in the end, I'm fully in control of its destiny - and I don't end up annoying people with adverts where, in the end, the only actual direction I have over them is where to stick them in the video.  I'm not even saying that advertising is necessarily never going to be a part of things at Kim Justice - if there's a sponsorship deal, or an opportunity that is suitable, NOT intrusive (to the point where it effects a video - I'm not a fan of making something that's clearly paid content), morally correct (you'll never see me repping G2A...) and actually related to the sort of things that I do?  Then that's certainly worth thinking about - I've never taken any paid opportunities in the past and nor are there any on the table, but equally I wouldn't entirely rule them out because that's just common sense when you're doing the sort of thing I do.  In the end, it's something I'd rather be in control of, as opposed to the ever worsening world of ad revenue.  YouTube is changing, and you've gotta change to keep the game going.

Anyway...that's the end of this ramble.  Hopefully it all makes sense somewhat.  Wherever you are and whoever you be, have a good one - and I'll see you next time.

-Kim