Optimizing your YouTube channel for revenue using revenue shares is generally calculated according to the number of active monetized claims. For example, if a video is claimed by four non-music assets, all of which are set to monetize for a territory, each partner would receive 25% of the revenue. In a multi-claim scenario (aka “mashup”) with a track policy on one asset and a block policy on the other asset for the same territories, the video would be blocked in those territories. You can find information on the applied policy for a claim with YouTube’s downloadable Claims Report.
Think of a custom policy as a series of if-then rules for monetizing, tracking, or blocking content. The policy gets applied if the conditions are met for a particular rule. Before you set up your custom policies, it may help you to construct a decision table so you can analyze the conditions and outcomes. You may have a need to fine-tune policies so that specific outcomes align with your business goals. For instance, you may want to monetize short fan-uploaded clips of a TV show, while blocking full episodes. To make a custom policy, first, you select the rule, such as “Block if the following conditions are met.”
Require a Manual Review of YouTube Revenue Claims
YouTube gives you the option to manually review claims before your policy gets applied to confirm you’re taking the right action on the claimed content. Review these claims as soon as possible before they expire. Your policy won’t be applied until the claim is made active, so for a Monetize policy, you could be missing out on optimizing your YouTube channel for revenue as a potential claim sits in your ToDo queue.
If you have Content ID, campaigns are a feature that lets you place cards on claimed user videos that direct viewers to a video or channel of your choosing. This can help increase viewers’ awareness of your content by leveraging views from UGC (user-generated content).
There are three types of campaigns:
- Manually configured campaigns: Groups of assets or asset labels you create that directs viewers to watch user-uploaded videos. These provide partners with the greatest flexibility and generally result in the best performance.
- Default campaigns: YouTube creates links to an “official” video that a given user-uploaded video is claimed against (if that video is being used as a reference and available on YouTube).
- TVOD (transactional video on demand) auto links: If a UGC Content ID claim is detected from a video that is TVOD, YouTube automatically creates links to the available video title for rent. This is only relevant for partners who provide TVOD content to YouTube/Google Play.
Most partners…
Follow a two-step approach. You can have campaign coverage across your assets and based on how much effort you devote to their creation, potentially improve performance with more targeted campaigns:
- Enable “default campaigns”.
- Construct manual campaigns to augment and improve the default campaign experience by creating more targeted, higher-performing campaigns.
Transactional partners…
Offer movies and shows for rent on YouTube and Google Play. YouTube then automatically constructs links from that user and uploads them back to the official version.
The first step is to think about your content and the groupings that make the most sense. This can be done by using asset labels to create groups of similar content as the basis for your campaign.
Here are a few ways different verticals might organize their assets with labels:
| Music – Genre – Artist – Album |
Film
– Studio |
TV
– Channel |
Sports
– Team |
Audit Process for Automatic Claiming
- Review top assets: Sort assets by a number of active claims and review your top-performing assets. For a reference that generates erroneous claims, deactivate the reference and release all bad claims on that reference.
- Review disputes and appeals: Routinely check disputed claims and appealed claims. It may not be enough to release the disputed claim. Make sure you also review the underlying reference file and exclude problematic segments so bad claims don’t proliferate.
- Review top claims: Sort claims by lifetime views, and use filters such as Claim Status. Fix any problems at the source, often a reference file with ineligible or indistinct content.
- Review recent claims: Look at the 100 newest claims, or all claims from the last week, repeating the steps you did for top claims. Sort and filter by claim type or origin as applicable.
When conducting your audit, look out for the following examples which frequently contribute to invalid claims:
| Video Gaming |
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| Music Labels/ Publishers |
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| News |
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| Sports |
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| Entertainment |
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Use the Reference Exclusion tool to exclude third-party content. Sort your claims to prioritize cleanup with lifetime views. Penalties that are imposed for Content ID misuse require manual review for certain references, disable content ID features, and Terminate YouTube partnership.
Check Your Asset Ownership
- Search for assets you may not currently have ownership of using the “All Assets” and “Ownership” filters.
- Use the “Conflicting Ownership” filter to review assets currently in ownership conflict.
- Monitor your Dashboard for any ToDo items, including assets with conflicting ownership.
- From the Reports section, download the full Asset report to see your ownership information.
It is important to resolve an ownership conflict because it could prevent monetization. Optimizing your YouTube channel for revenue by an asset owned by multiple partners comes from claimed videos allocated per territorial ownership. Any owner can respond to the dispute, and the first action applies.
I hope this article is helpful when it comes to optimizing your YouTube channel for revenue. If you have any questions or comments you’d like to share please do so below!