A YouTube influencer with 260,000 subscribers gives a crash course on how to make money on the platform and shares how much she earns

• Natalie Barbu is a YouTube creator with 260,000 subscribers who lives in New York City and posts videos twice a week about her day-to-day life experiences.
• In this Business Insider video, Barbu breaks down how she makes money on YouTube and how much she earns.
• For this crash course, Barbu covers topics like how to start placing ads in a YouTube video (00:51), her tips on how to make the most money possible on each video (2:19), and how much someone can expect to make from those ads (7:46).
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Natalie Barbu is a recent college graduate who quit her day job to pursue a full-time career as a YouTube influencer and social-media consultant in New York City.

Barbu runs a YouTube channel with 260,000 subscribers and she posts videos twice a week about her day-to-day life experiences.

YouTube creators like Barbu earn money through YouTube's Partner Program, which allows them to monetize their channels with video ads placed by Google.

In the video above, Barbu breaks down how to start placing ads in a YouTube video, shares tips on how to make the most money possible on each video, and explains how much someone can expect to make from those ads.

Below is an outline of the topics covered in the crash course with time stamps to the video.

How Barbu got her start on YouTube (00:00)

Barbu has been making YouTube videos since 2011, and her videos range from lifestyle, to fashion and beauty, to personal finance videos - like how to start a business or how to optimize your YouTube channel.

In order to get a paycheck from YouTube, a creator needs to be a partner. To apply to be a YouTube partner you must have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch time hours within 12 months.

Her first paycheck on YouTube was in 2013, two years after she started (00:51)

Barbu didn't start making money on YouTube until two years after launching her channel and in those first two years she didn't think she could make any money.

What you need to know about AdSense, Google's ad platform (01:18)

AdSense is Google's ad platform and YouTube creators who are approved for monetization receive a check from Google every month.

Google places the type of ads based on the audience that is watching the video.

Barbu likes to extend her videos to over 10 minutes long so that she can place more than one ad break.

How to place ads (01:49) and her ad-placement strategy (2:19)

Creators have the option to manually place their ads in their YouTube studio. Creators can also view new updates in the studio, like recent subscribers.

Barbu is strategic about where she places her ads. She might place an ad right before she says something, like how much money she makes on YouTube, so that her viewers have to watch the ad to see what she is going to say (2:55).

How much YouTube pays Barbu for every 1,000 views (03:48)

How much YouTube pays a creator for every 1,000 views is called the CPM rate, which stands for Cost Per Mil (Latin for "cost per thousand").

The factors that will determine someone's CPM rate (04:30)

The main factors that affect a CPM rate are audience demographic and the overall video content.

How much her videos earn on average and her yearly YouTube income (07:46)

On average, Barbu's videos earn between $200 and $500, she says.

Her 2019 yearly YouTube was around $46,000 from AdSense alone. She kept a consistent upload schedule the entire year, and she would post videos either twice a week, or sometimes three times a week, depending on her schedule.

Saving money for taxes (08:24)

YouTube pays Barbu through direct deposit once a month. After she receives the money, she will save a portion for taxes and she has a separate bank account where she keeps her tax money.

Barbu's main sources of income (09:11)

Barbu explains her top sources of income: AdSense, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing.

Her tips for starting a YouTube channel (10:06)

Her top piece of advice for starting a YouTube channel is to create videos that you actually enjoy watching. Start thinking about your audience and ask yourself what videos would they want to watch.