From what I have heard, sponsorships are well worth for the creators. Usually bringing in at least the amount that YT otherwise gave them, and often more.
They surely get analytics on how well a sponsorship works since they use dedicated URLs. And if a sponsorship does not produce a return on the investment, the sponsor will stop giving money to the content creator.
I see the same few sponsorships constantly: Skillshare, Brilliant, Nebula, Hello Fresh, BetterHelp, Raid: Shadow Legends. I like to guess which one it's going to be when the creator starts telling a made-up story that leads into the sponsorship segment. The fact that it's the same ones, over and over again, across a wide spectrum of channels, makes me think that sponsorship is not yet a proven reliable source of income in the long term. A seemingly small number of companies are trying it out and it seems like they could easily pull out at any time. Patreon may be harder but it feels like a more dependable source of income than sponsorships.
You can get sponsors and remain trustworthy, you just need to disclose sponsorships, and curate the people who you actually take money from. This can be a problem because genuinely good product sponsorships are probably not the first ones you get offered as a content creator, but I've seen plenty of examples of this working and it pays more than ad revenue for most people.
I think sponsoring invokes a feeling of supporting an individual person, or small group. It says this product in of itself may not be worth $X/mo but the feeling of the buyer enabling a creator to continue their passion is what compels the buyer to pay.
Hmm, I don't know how I feel about this. I tend to find that with most content creators I watch, the sponsors they pick for their videos tend to be more relevant to their audience than standard pre/midroll ads might be. I'm okay with supporting their channel typically with a sponsorship.
That's a too simplistic view and not how sponsorships work. The sponsor expects a return on the investment. If a sponsorship does not generate revenue, that content creator will stop getting sponsorships because their audience is worthless.
They're "sponsored by", just like some YouTubers do. So if your target audience is significant, you can choose to include something from a sponsor in return for a payment.
Sponsorships rarely go 100% into the pockets of creators. The share varies but it can be anywhere from 25% to 75% because these sponsorships typically come through agencies and management takes a cut too.
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