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The GMTK ad experiment - the results are in! (Patreon)

Published:
2020-08-28 08:32:22
Imported:
2021-01

Content

Hello everyone!

So, in case you missed it, I ran an experiment in August. I've never had adverts on GMTK videos, and was curious just how much money I was leaving on the table by making this decision. So for the month of August, I put adverts on the front of every GMTK video.

My rules for doing this were that I would only use a single skippable video ad, I would donate a percentage of the profits to charity, and I would be fully transparent about what happened, here on Patreon.

I'm a few days early, but I've been eager to share my findings. So here's what happened!

Before we get to that, I should note that I have always had "Display Ads" on my videos - which are image adverts, on the sidebar, and only on desktop. These are really low impact and they're also useful because monetised videos are (possibly) more likely to be recommended by YouTube, and it means that I get a cut of YouTube Premium (YT's advert-free subscription service).

So I'm going to compare two months: May 2020 and August 2020. I released two videos in each month, and received about 3.3 million views in each month. So, they're pretty similar. I'm going to look at the first 28 days of May, to account for the fact that I'm ending this experiment before August is actually over.

  • In May, I earned £753. 
  • In August, I earned £1942. 

So we can break that down a bit. May's £753 total can be split into:

  • £125 from Display Ads
  • £628 from YouTube Premium

And August's £1942 total can be split into:

  • £242 from Display Ads
  • £668 from YouTube Premium
  • £1032 from Skippable Video Ads

So, as you can see, the display ads and YouTube Premium are reasonably similar - there's just that extra £1000 from the skippable adverts.

Which is less than I was expecting, actually! A grand's not to be sniffed at, but people have reported an average YouTube RPM (revenue per thousand views) of between $1 and $5. Meanwhile, I'm seeing a really low RPM of about 80c. 

And I think it's because I'm being very conservative with the types of adverts I'm running (no mid-rolls, no unskippable ads, no banners on the videos, etc). But I have no intention of ever having more aggressive advertising. This is as far as I'd ever want to go. And so, basically, I have to make this decision: is an extra £1000 a month worth having these adverts on?

Before I answer that, I need to talk about my experience of running these adverts, and the feedback from viewers and Patrons. 

For me, I had to upload two versions of my new videos (on The Last of Us and Follow the Fun): an ad-free version for Patrons and one with adverts for the public. And because you can't upload the same video twice to YouTube, I had to export them twice with near-indistinguishable changes. This was a major pain in the arse. 

And as for feedback, I learned that my ad-free videos are important to people here, and their Patreon support was conditional on GMTK being ad-free, which is fair enough. I know that GMTK is used in educational settings, and I don't want to bring adverts into the classroom. I also learned that some people were seeing multiple adverts between videos (I can't actually control the number of ads), and seeing adverts for things they didn't like, such as commercials for Trump's reelection campaign. 

And so I think you'll agree with me that all of this makes it pretty clear that it's simply not worth running these video adverts on GMTK videos!

After publishing this post, I'll be removing all video adverts from GMTK (meaning that I'll just be keeping the display ads). From the £1032 made from skippable video ads, I'll be donating 50% (£512) to various accessibility charities. The rest will be used for private healthcare treatment needed by my family (I neglected to mention why I was looking to boost GMTK's revenue in the original post - sorry about that omission). 

Anyway. I wanted to say thank you to all Patrons for being patient with this experiment. And most of all, thanks for your generous support. It just goes to show how brilliant you are that the Patreon is in such a good place that I can happily give up £1000 a month! 

Back to normal now. New videos in the work, as always.

Love ya

Mark

Files

Comments

Aadit Doshi

Thanks for your transparency Mark! Proud to be a Patron.

Anonymous

I’m super impressed Mark, not a lot of creators are willing to give up potential bucks to maintain the highest quality content. I appreciate the transparency too, really interesting to read the findings.

Anonymous

Thanks for being so transparent with it Mark. You are an amazing content creator and your care for the community is inspiring

Anonymous

Thanks for being transparent about this Mark! Your videos being ad-free is one of the things that made me want to contribute monthly, is not like I would stop if you implemented ads since I love all your content, but I still don't really like ads.

Anonymous

It’s great that you’re putting fans before profit and being suuuper transparent with everything :)

Anonymous

Just curious, do you know how much of your viewers are a YT Premium viewer? I'm curious about how much more you will get from YT premium. Anyways, thanks mark for your effort, and not putting ads on your vids!

Tim 🦆

Thanks for being so transparent and thoughtful about this! I totally respect that you wouldn't want to go any farther than skippable pre-rolls, but I will add that I don't really mind unskippable pre-rolls. It's really just the mid-rolls that drive me crazy as a viewer.

Anonymous

I would also love to know the percentages of YouTube Premium views vs non. I've always hoped that my Premium sub was rewarding you more, and the numbers seem to suggest it is.

ignosis.co

I use ad blockers which blocks YouTube video ads as well, which is why i am a patron for your channel as your channel is very informative and worth an exchange for the value you provide

Anonymous

Another thanks for your transparency. I think you are truly an example how to build a community instead of a business. I honestly was a bit worried while reading your post, for me the jump from £753 to £1942 was already enough to suspect you would keep the ads. But reading through your reasoning why not, helped me understand why you choose not to ... and I'm thankful for that. Getting annoyed more and more by all the ads Youtube is throwing my way lately. I understand they need to pay the content creators and such ... but again, you are showing how you can do it without annoying ads Keep up the great work, good sir!

GameMakersToolkit
>>42987419

Unfortunately I can't see that info! You can see from the post how much I get from premium subs, but I don't know exactly how many people that comes from

Anonymous

I don't usually comment on things like this, but I just want to say how much I appreciate your transparency and integrity here. (For what it's worth, though, I personally wouldn't mind if you did decide to use skippable video ads further down the line - emphasis on 'skippable'.) Anyway, keep up the great work! I hope your family's medical situation works out. x

Anonymous

I wholeheartedly second everything esufmp just wrote above. I've never actually posted online in my life - and I really dislike advertising - but I'm doing so now because of how much I appreciate your integrity and transparency, Mark. I'd willingly skip videos for you to get the extra income, especially for your family's sake, but I'm grateful that you're so conscious about respecting your audience and the impact of advertising that you would forgo that income. All the best to you and your family - and thanks for the fantastic work!

Anonymous

You're awesome. One more reason to support ya. Thanks for the transparency. Although I've subbed to YouTube Premium so I don't see ads anyway but its great for people who do not have that much money to spend.

OSW Review

Thank you for the update, and thank you for your transparency. It always confirms my decision to continue supporting GMTK. You rock! Also, speedy recovery and best wishes to your family.

Anonymous

It's great for you to know there is a possibility for you to boost the income if you ever need it badly: I'm sure everyone will understand if you decide to turn monetization on due to personal financial challenges. This should help you stress less about the financial security, which is great!

Anonymous

Thanks for sharing, Mark! You are really great and supporting your work is truly rewarding <3

Anonymous

If Mark can make an extra 1,000 a month - on average - simply by flicking a switch, and he gives half of that away to charity, aren't we missing out on a pretty large public service? I'm more than happy to see a skippable ad in front of GMTK if it means a children's hospital or whatever gets 500 pounds a month. That's a nice benefit to society for us doing essentially nothing.

Anonymous

I still wouldn’t mind even if you added an unskippable preroll ad. But I appreciate your communication about the issue. Maybe this is a good reason to bump my Patreon level instead :)

Anonymous
>>42992832

This was my thought as well. Didn't even notice the ads; make some extra cash!

Anonymous

I'd like to second all the positive feedback up here in the comments. Thanks for the transparency and love your integrity here! I'll also echo what others have said: if you find a way to make it less of a chore to add the ads, I personally wouldn't mind watching part of a skippable ad. I'll still love every bit of the content you put out there for us.

Anonymous

Honestly, if it’s fort health, it’s ok to put ads, and I think you should continue until everyone in your family is safe. <3

Anonymous

It's very noble of you to donate that revenue to charity. Thank you, Mark.

Tukaro

Thank you for this thorough review, but also bless you for that unexpected separate result.

Ian Easton

Thank you for your thoughtfulness and transparency. It would've been so easy to turn them on, and then apologize and backpedal if people got upset.

Jarathen

After I saw you would not be doing this I finally decided to chip in each month. Especially with the deluge of political ads in the US, I am more than happy to pay for content I want to see. Thank you.

Anonymous

Seconded to what Jarathen said - I am now a $5 a month subscriber - keep up the great work and thank you

Virak

Thanks for being open about the experiment and results! Added a dollar to my subscription!

Anonymous

If I can support charities just by waiting 5 seconds before I see your content, I'd be glad to see Ads on your channel. Also I think it's unfair from a viewer to get upset about an skipable Ad, since you'd loose 500 bugs for your own pocket and it are really just 5 seconds... One more thing, YT might take a big piece of the cake and I think that big companies are orientated on profit too much and should care more about their staff etc. But still their name is huge. Companies want to be sure that their Ads are seen and YT as a platform ensures that. Futhermore, most people don't visit other streaming sites. Without them, far less people would know about this awesome channel. This is why I think Ads on Videos are, for a publisher, something that can be to coped with.

Anonymous
>>43323541

I don't entirely agree with the "only 5 seconds" part The way I see it it's millions of seconds for those 500 bugs, just spread across hundreds of thousands of users

Anonymous

Be well and thanks for all you do!