How Much Money We ACTUALLY Made Our First Year on YouTube

Lloyd & Mandy

Want to grow your youtube channel fast? Join Creator Society Pro - Use code LLOYDANDMANDY at checkout for 25% Off For Life: https://www.lloydandmandy.com/pages/community  Join us as we share our honest and transparent monetization journey on YouTube, revealing exactly how much money we made in our first year as creators. From our humble beginnings as travel vloggers to learning how to effectively monetize our content, we&#039;re pulling back the curtain to give you a realistic look at what it takes to succeed on the platform. If you&#039;re interested in learning more about ad revenue insights and vlog strategies that work, then this video is for you. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn from our experiences - both the successes and failures - as we dive into the world of YouTube monetization.  If you enjoyed this content, please subscribe for more 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@LloydandMandy  GET IN TOUCH: 🌏 Email: lloydandmandy@ruthlesstalent.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lloydandmandy/ 💻 Our Website: https://www.lloydandmandy.com/  🎥 Join Our FREE Youtube Content Creator Community: https://creator-society-lloydandmandy.circle.so/join?invitation_token=9283dc35b4d3fcae4f

Transcript

00:00G'day guys welcome back to our channel in today's video I'm going to be talking

00:04about a super interesting topic at least I find it interesting and I know a lot

00:09of you do too because I get asked this question literally all the time by the

00:13digital nomads people looking to get into content creation or just random

00:18people family friends and that is how much can you actually make in your first

00:25year of doing YouTube this is a complex question because it's going to be

00:30different for everybody it depends on a lot of different factors but all I can

00:34do is share our experience of our first year in YouTube and how much money we

00:39were able to make in fact we were able to go full-time on YouTube after just six

00:45months so I'm gonna share literally every little detail every breakdown all the

00:52money we made from different avenues such as YouTube Adsense sponsorships

00:57affiliate sales selling digital products everything to do with our YouTube

01:01channel and at the end of it I'm gonna tell you how much we made in our first

01:04year and if you enjoy this video remember to hit like and subscribe stick around

01:09to the end because I'm gonna give you some tips if you are looking to start a

01:13YouTube channel in 2025 or beyond on how you can make a full-time income within

01:19one year but it is so hot out here I'm gonna head into the studio and film in

01:24there because I'm getting really sweaty

01:36okay so before I get into it guys I want to tell you about our brand new

01:41community that was built and designed by us for people like us so when we started

01:47our YouTube channel back in 2021 we had absolutely no idea what we were doing

01:52and honestly we really wish something like this existed which is why we built

01:57it introducing creator society our new online community for creators who want to

02:02connect get advice and level up their content game there's a free plan you can

02:07join and you'll get access to other creators our Q&A library resources like our

02:12thumbnail course publishing checklist and loads more but if you're serious about

02:17growing your YouTube channel in 2025 check out creator society pro which has

02:22weekly live Q&A's channel audits courses that were constantly updating live

02:28webinars guest speakers and so so much more use code Lloyd and Mandy when you

02:33join to get 25% off the pro account the link is below and hopefully we'll see you

02:37inside okay so I want to point out before I go too far that the point of this

02:42video isn't a flex or like to show off how much money we made in our first year

02:48of doing YouTube actually it's really to try and help people to maybe adjust their

02:54expectations as far as starting a YouTube channel a lot of people we meet

02:59either through our community or just randoms like that we made out when we're out

03:05for a meal and we get chatting to people or a lot of people who DM us and email

03:10us online and tell us that they're basically looking at doing a similar

03:15thing that what we've done and what can they expect how long can they expect to

03:20be working on YouTube before they start seeing an income and how much income can

03:25they actually make and how long will it take for them to actually start making a

03:29full-time income so that's why I'm making this video but before I get into the

03:33numbers and break everything down I want to start all the way back in November

03:372021 when we posted our first video so we were working online for about three

03:42years part-time in Australia we had started off in Amazon FBA e-commerce we

03:49started a few brands and we're selling physical products we were doing drop

03:54shipping as well as private labeling and we're getting pretty good at it to be

03:57honest we sold our first two brands for a decent amount of money nothing crazy

04:02like enough to give us the confidence that hey this might be a viable income

04:07stream for us we really just wanted some kind of a way to make money online

04:12that was scalable and that we could work our own hours because I've done every

04:16job there is under the Sun every shitty job I have worked in factories I've

04:21worked in offices I've worked in hospitality I worked in oil rigs I worked in

04:26underground mines I worked on construction sites and I had a lawn mowing and

04:30gardening business all of them took up so much of my time all I wanted to do and

04:36this was our intention from the beginning was first of all be able to be

04:41in control of what hours we worked and how much we were able to earn and I just

04:46wanted the freedom to be able to look after my body like when I was working

04:49construction on the Gold Coast I used to have to drive an hour to an hour and a

04:53half to get to the site in the morning which meant leaving my house at 530 and

04:57then it was an hour and a half to two hours back depending on traffic so maybe

05:00getting home at five that's a 12-hour day and then if you're trying to fit in

05:04going to the gym or any kind of training going for a run even just

05:08stretching like it's really difficult because by the time you get home you're

05:11absolutely exhausted now working on the oil and gas rigs in the mines was even

05:16another level to that because you're literally just getting up working finishing

05:20work and going to bed after you eat and have a shower so that was the goal we

05:25wanted to make money online and we had spent three years learning how to do

05:29that and we were making enough money so that we didn't have to work full-time but

05:35we weren't making enough that we could actually support ourselves in Australia

05:38so I can't believe I'm even saying this but when Australia decided to open the

05:42borders and let people leave yes that's right there was that period of time where

05:46we were not allowed to leave our own country which was extremely difficult for us

05:50because Mandy and I both had family living overseas I had family living in

05:55all different states in Australia so we were really isolated but we had already

05:59decided that we wanted to go somewhere cheap where we could just focus on

06:05working online and hopefully get our income to a position where we could

06:09actually live off it and hopefully scale it up because we didn't have all the

06:13time to focus on online work when we were working part-time jobs we could do 10 to

06:1820 hours per week but we both knew in the back of our minds if we actually had

06:22the time and no distractions no friends no having to worry about commuting to work

06:28no working shitty jobs that we didn't want to do if we were just devoting our

06:32time completely to this that we could get to that next level we decided to

06:36document this because at the time in November 2021 no one was moving to Bali in

06:42fact everyone we told that we were moving to Bali told us that it wasn't

06:45possible they would tell us things like you know if you go to Bali you're gonna

06:49go you're gonna get COVID you're gonna get sick if you move to Bali it's

06:53dangerous you can't move to Bali now especially during COVID you don't have

06:58enough money to move there which we didn't they went wrong we only had about

07:01I think ten thousand dollars saved up like just enough to last six months we

07:05had a lot of doubts but we wanted to document the whole process in case anybody

07:10else was trying to do the same thing and also we were using YouTube as a

07:15marketing tool for our online work that we're doing so apart from e-com we were

07:21building e-com businesses for other people I was running Facebook Ads so

07:25doing digital marketing for businesses Mandy was doing social media management

07:30content creation and graphic design although these were all very

07:35inconsistent income streams they were income streams and we figured building a

07:40personal brand would help to make these income streams more viable and even though

07:46I was absolutely terrified of talking to a camera and I still am to this day I

07:50remember going and doing our first few vlogs and I had to literally knock back

07:54two or three beers and have a cold shower and listen to some David Goggins speech

07:58while I'm in the shower just to get myself in the right headspace where I

08:02wasn't hearing negative thoughts and I could actually go out and look at a

08:06camera and talk to a camera these days it's not as bad it's still something I

08:10struggle with but so my point in sharing all of that is we always had it in the

08:14back of our minds that YouTube could become the thing that we do full-time we

08:18just never really thought that it would happen so fast and we kind of went into it

08:24blindly we didn't know what we were doing we had just had other youtubers that we

08:28watched and got inspiration from we listened to a ton of podcasts and

08:32watched a ton of content on how to create a successful YouTube channel but

08:37really it was all just trial and error and us kind of winging it okay so our

08:41first video was released November 11 2021 so that's where I'm gonna start from

08:46and this video was titled our first vlog moving from Australia to Bali November

08:522021 now that video has 15,000 views right now but at the time when we released

08:57it it probably got 50 views we shared it to our Instagram page who no one was

09:03following us so that didn't really mean anything it was probably honestly mostly

09:06family and friends that were watching that video our second video we released

09:10on 18th of November so a week later November 2021 again that video has 13,000

09:16views at the time it probably had 20 or 30 then we got dengue fever and we didn't

09:23publish a video for about 10 days but this actually was the turning point where

09:27I was laying there sick and I remember feeling like unsure if I really wanted to

09:32do this YouTube thing or if I just wanted to be behind the camera and just keep

09:36working on my digital marketing stuff this probably sounds over the top and

09:39corny and cliche but I literally felt like I was on my deathbed and like the

09:44doctor told me that I had to go to hospital because my blood platelet and my I

09:48think it was white blood cells was so low that I was gonna need a blood transfusion

09:53luckily we had nurses come around to our house every day doing IVs and blood

09:57tests and we recovered after about two weeks but I sort of told myself like I

10:01think when you get sick and you have all these worries and doubts when you get

10:05really sick all that sort of goes out the window and you tell yourself man if I

10:08just get healthy again I don't care about any of that stuff I'm just gonna give it a

10:11crack so I said to Mandy look let's really give this YouTube thing a go we've

10:16bought the equipment we've come on a one-way ticket to Bali we have

10:20everything we need we've put out our first videos the world didn't come

10:24crashing down so let's just see what happens so as you can see here I have

10:28opened up our YouTube analytics page you're going to see all of our

10:32statistics from when we published our first video on the 11th of November 21

10:36until the 11th of November 2022 one year later which just so happens to be when we

10:43got married on the 11th of November 2022 in Las Vegas which we also filmed if

10:47you haven't watched that video go and check it out but 1111 has a massive

10:51recurrence in our life it was the day we left Australia and started our YouTube

10:54channel it was also the day we got married in Vegas and it was the day we

10:58moved to Thailand so something about 1111 keeps coming up with us but over

11:03that period of time we gained 6.4 million views on our channel 572,000 watch time

11:12hours 57,000 subscribers and we earned a total of 30,000 US dollars which

11:19converted to Australian is something around 45 46 47 thousand dollars so in

11:26this time we published a video pretty much two to three times a week we published

11:32over a hundred videos in that first year and the reason that's important is

11:36that's probably honestly how we were able to earn this amount of money and get

11:41this amount of subscribers if you're starting out on YouTube and you are

11:45publishing one video a week or one video every two weeks or even one video a

11:49month it's gonna take you a lot longer to be able to earn money off your

11:53channel we got monetized around the seventh of January and we made 97 cents on

12:01our first day of being monetized now to a lot of people that probably would have

12:06been a little bit disheartening and I'm not gonna lie it was for a minute I was

12:10like damn like all this work we've been doing for two months making videos and

12:14we're making one dollar a day but I also had a feeling in the back of my mind

12:19that if we could be making one dollar a day from just doing YouTube for not

12:24even two months like six weeks imagine what we can be earning in 12 months 24

12:29months or 36 months and my feeling was right because we kept publishing we

12:35stayed in Bali for six months and made all types of videos about Bali digital

12:40nomad life working online until around April was when our first video really

12:46took off and we got 52,000 views in one day and that was when we earned around

12:53about 75 US dollars for that day so if you convert that to Australian dollars

12:59it's about 110 Australian dollars which isn't like life-changing money but if you

13:04think about earning 100 bucks a day every day for a whole month that's over

13:09three thousand dollars which isn't bad just for making YouTube videos we also

13:14saw a huge jump in subscribers around that time we got like 500 subscribers in one

13:20day and that was due to one video that we put out that just went kind of viral in

13:26Indonesia it didn't necessarily reach much of an audience in Australia or

13:31Canada or America but it went pretty viral in Bali and that really boosted our

13:37channel a lot but that would have never happened if we didn't have the

13:41consistency of putting out videos every second day or every third day for six

13:46months straight so 30 roughly $31,000 is what we made from YouTube AdSense in

13:52our first year of doing YouTube which isn't bad it's close to 50 grand

13:56Australian that is a pretty decent income for making content but here's the kicker

14:01that is about 50% of what we actually earn because on top of the YouTube AdSense

14:08money which accounts for maybe nowadays 20 to 30% of our income we started

14:14getting brand deals our first brand deal was for $100 and we were absolutely

14:18stoked they wanted us to make six videos for 100 US dollars each which worked out

14:24to be about a thousand Australian dollars and we just couldn't believe that

14:27someone was actually willing to pay us to make a video nowadays obviously it's a

14:32different story we charge a different amount and we have companies that we work

14:36with regularly now I mentioned earlier that YouTube AdSense is about 20 to 30% of

14:41our revenue majority of the revenue actually comes from sponsorships and you

14:46guys have obviously seen the sponsorships in our videos in a perfect world we

14:50wouldn't have to put ads on our videos we wouldn't have to do sponsorships but if

14:54we want to make content full-time for a living then obviously we need to have

15:00some sort of monetary gain otherwise we would have to be working full-time jobs and

15:05we wouldn't be able to make any content at all so for the period of November 11 to

15:11December 11 we made approximately actually pretty much exactly the same

15:16amount it is exactly the same amount thirty thousand nine hundred and eighty

15:20four dollars in US wow that's really close it's like two dollars off so that was

15:26from brand deals as well as affiliate sales so we were lucky enough that we got

15:34some brand deals pretty early on with only about ten thousand subscribers we

15:38started getting brand deals coming in when it comes to sponsorships we like to

15:43try and only work with brands that we think relate to our content and that you

15:47guys are actually interested in which is why we've been working long term with

15:51brands like Olafly eSIM which we use to this day I've got an Olafly eSIM on my

15:56phone right now Surfshark VPN I never log on to my laptop without turning on my

16:01Surfshark VPN we also have level 8 luggage which is the luggage we use for

16:06everywhere we go and we also have safety wing nomad insurance which we've

16:12covered in other videos we used for Mandy's entire pregnancy and we've been

16:16using since the day we left Australia if you're traveling without travel

16:20insurance quite frankly you're an idiot because it's saved the day for us a

16:25couple of times we like to only promote brands or products that we think you

16:29guys are going to be interested in every now and then we'll get an offer and we're

16:33not sure if it's going to resonate with the audience we'll make an ad we'll put a

16:37sponsorship out and it won't do well it won't get many clicks it won't get many

16:41sales which tells us that it's probably not the right fit for our channel and we

16:47won't do any more sponsorships with that brand we like to stick with brands

16:51that align with our content and with what you guys are looking for and that

16:55hopefully helps you guys out so the grand total of how much we earned in the

17:00first 12 months purely from YouTube both ads sponsorships and affiliate sales is

17:07almost 62,000 US dollars which translates to just under a hundred thousand

17:16Australian dollars honestly that's pretty bloody good if you have told me in

17:21November 2021 that in just a year's time we would have earned $100,000 purely

17:28from making YouTube videos not doing any other digital marketing no other graphic

17:32design work no social media management no other jobs just YouTube I would have

17:38been absolutely stoked which is why I'm telling you guys this now this isn't

17:44going to be the same journey for everybody everybody's different you may be in a

17:48different niche you may not have the time to put out the same amount of videos

17:53that we put out as I mentioned earlier we put out well over a hundred videos in

17:57our first year and that's because honestly when we got monetized and we

18:01realized that this was actually a possibility to make money from YouTube and

18:06it was way more fun than what we were doing at the time we sat down and we said

18:09okay let's set out some goals and our number one goal was first of all how much do

18:14we need to make to feel comfortable doing YouTube full-time I said around

18:19$10,000 a month I would be completely happy with that that was our ceiling that

18:23was my goal and we hit that and to be completely honest we hit that after the

18:29first six months a lot faster than what we thought we would have and we only had

18:34about 10,000 subscribers when we started earning that kind of money yes there may

18:38be some people who spend years and years on YouTube and aren't seeing much

18:44growth and aren't making much money in the beginning and then all of a sudden

18:47their channel just skyrockets mr.beast is by far the biggest youtuber in the

18:53world but he started when he was like 12 or 13 years old in his bedroom and he

18:58was making videos for years and years and he didn't even start making any kind of

19:04an income for like four or five years and then fast forward 10 15 years later

19:09and this guy's like a billionaire he's got his own show on Amazon he's got all

19:13these different businesses and whatever you think about mr.beast whether you like

19:16his content or his personality or whatever he is proof that it can go so

19:21many different ways there are people who can jump on YouTube and straight away

19:25their channel just skyrockets because it just hits all the factors and then there

19:29are people who have to gut it out for years and years and years so

19:32everyone's journey is different I think we were able to capture a combination of

19:39timing as well as placement so the timing was great because we were traveling

19:45during a period where not many people were traveling and they were watching our

19:50videos to travel vicariously but the key to that was that in every single one of

19:54our videos that we make and still to this day we've made over 300 videos the

19:59goal is always to provide as much information and value as possible so the

20:04reason we were able to get six and a half million views in the first year is

20:09because every single video we were trying to give some kind of value some kind of

20:14information something helpful we weren't just picking up a camera and

20:17walking around with it because we wanted to be on camera and we wanted to become

20:21famous or we wanted people to look at us the point was to help people to

20:25navigate traveling during covert and then we also transition to we've discovered

20:31this newfound freedom which is working online creating content creating art

20:37really and doing something that we love which was travel and experiencing new

20:43things and we wanted to share that with other people and how they could do it

20:47too which is where we're at in our next chapter in our lives now which is

20:51raising a daughter here in Thailand as expats we've shared the whole journey of

20:57moving here and Mandy being pregnant for all of last year basically she was

21:03pregnant here in Thailand we get tons of DMs about what it's like moving to

21:07Thailand how do you move to Thailand with your dog what are the hospitals like

21:10what was it like having a baby what is it is it family friendly in

21:15Hua Hin or in Thailand in general and these are the types of questions we like to

21:19answer on our channel so that's why I made this video today because if you're

21:24somebody who's either started a YouTube channel but you're not all in and you're

21:30wondering if you should give it all of your effort or if you're maybe a content

21:34creator on something like tick-tock or Instagram and you're thinking about

21:37jumping over to YouTube or if you've never created content ever and you're just

21:41wondering is this even a viable business option well I think the answer is

21:46yes I think making a hundred thousand dollars a year creating content is a

21:50pretty good result compared to the jobs that I used to do back home this is by

21:54far the most rewarding the most fun it's also the most challenging at times as I

22:00said I still get nervous before filming videos there's still times where I just

22:04don't want to pick up the camera there's negative comments they get left in our

22:08videos we get negative DMs from time to time but overwhelmingly the response is

22:12generally thank you for providing information on whether it be a hotel

22:17that we stayed at or a cost of living video or what hospitals are like here in

22:22Thailand it could be anything but we get an overwhelming number of messages

22:26emails and comments of people thanking us for putting out content so that's why we

22:31keep doing it and if you made it this far in the video thank you I appreciate it

22:35please hit the like and subscribe button one key tip I want to give anybody who is

22:41thinking about starting a YouTube channel or has already started YouTube channel

22:46and maybe you're doubting yourself I would say put out as much content as

22:51possible just get better at making content forget about everything else

22:57forget about trying to game the system and turn your content into short form and

23:03put it on tick-tock and put it on Instagram and make every single video

23:07perfect just make as much content as possible and put it out as much as

23:12possible because every time you put a video out it's gonna be a little bit

23:16better than the last one if you go back and watch our videos we made back in

23:20November 2021 and then you go and watch a recent video that we made this year

23:25it's night and day like the sound quality the picture quality just the way we

23:30talk to the camera everything is completely different and that's because we had no

23:34idea what we're doing the only way we learned what we were doing was by

23:37actually doing it now if you want to fast track your journey to making money on

23:43YouTube or making it a career as I mentioned earlier you can join our

23:47community the Creator Society which was a hundred percent designed and built by us

23:51we have full-time admin there we have plenty of resources including short

23:56courses webinars we've got monthly guest speakers and most importantly weekly live

24:01Q&A's where you can jump on and ask us absolutely anything as long as it is

24:05content creation related so hit that like button hit the subscribe button click

24:09the link down below if you want to join our community and we'll see you in the

24:13next video Cheers

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