Final Results From My Year Of Making A YouTube Video A Day

Today I am going to show you behind the scenes of my Youtube analytics and reasons for making a video a day for 2021! Yes, I got monetized and gained over 2K followers!

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase anything, I earn a small commission at no extra charge to you. Check out my policies here.

The Why of My Artsy Fartsy Youtube Channel

At the end of 2020 I decided that 2021 would be the year of a video a day… whoo whoo!

Here are my reasons for doing this…

1. I wanted to do art every day!

So the first thing to know about me is that if I am not doing something for marketing, I will never do it. So making a video a day drove me to make art A LOT over that year, which I really enjoyed.

2. I wanted to get better at art!

I am super comfortable with showing you my stats because unless you want to spend a year cutting pictures from magazines, you probably won't try to copy my channel. That said, unless I got better at doing the art, I wouldn't really have a future in this channel going forward!

3. I have always worked with businesses and didn't really know how to make things consumers liked (B2B versus B2C).

Doing these videos gave me a window into seeing what “normal people” liked and how they thought about watching videos.

4. To make a TEENY-TINY bit of money… more about this later!

Walk Through Of My YouTube Stats – Video

Youtube Productivity Tools & Training I Used In The Video

• ConvertKit – My email provider… I LOVE the stats I can get on clicks and opens!
• TubeBuddy – How I am doing the split testing of the thumbnails.
• Canva – For thumbnail design.
• Darrel Eves 30 Day Youtube Challenge
• Youtube Formula Book With Training

Where I Started January 1, 2021

This was not a new channel, I started it 6/14/13 and had some personal videos on there as well as different little ideas over the years.

Here are my starting stats… 1,100 watch hours and 325 subscribers towards being monetized. So I at least had a little head start towards the 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers.

I will be tracking Youtube stats all year long!

That little peak at the end of 2020 was a Ikea Cubes video that went viral (for me) and kind of showed me what could be accomplished.

I had been making a few artsy videos off and on in the months leading to this so I did have a wee bit of good traffic to start.

January 2021 Stats

Now I am not going to go step by step through the months, but I thought I would show you what the first month looked like… 21 videos uploaded and aided by the “bump” from that good video, I was on my way!

I didn't have a lot going on yet, but I was pleased that I had reached my goal of publishing every day (work days).

That said, it was hard to get into a good swing and I was still working out the process of how to make, move, edit and upload my videos in a timely manner… let alone know what kinds of videos that people would want to watch!

April 2021 YouTube Stats

So the next big thing that happened was in April I got monetized!

This was a fun day but left me without really knowing what my next Youtube goal should be beyond doing a video a day and making money… I had a little existential crisis upon getting monetized… ha!

May 2021 Youtube Stats

I thought you might like to see what you could possibly make on a little Youtube channel like mine in your first full month of being monetized! Yes, it is nice to make $100, but damn that was a lot of work to make a little money!

December 2021 Youtube Stats

This is the last month of the year! As you might know from my “should you get ads on your website” post, I LOVE looking at revenue and RPM (revenue per thousand views).

As you can see, my ad revenue is higher because advertisers spend more at the end of the year! I can guess that my revenue will drop down again in January!

Oh and I had that huge dip in my views around Christmas Eve and Christmas. There is NOTHING you can do stop that happening… stupid holidays make people want to leave their computers and be with friends and family instead of YouTube.

2021 Youtube Stats

Last but not least, here are my stats for the whole year!

Some good things:

• I am on an upward trajectory
• I have grown an audience of people who love to watch my videos
• There are a LOT of videos that I can use to add to my blog posts to make them more interesting

The worst thing:

I am a simple person who can only really focus on one thing at a time! So for me, the opportunity cost that was lost was my blogs (which actually do make me money!)

I made about $1,3000 for the YEAR of making videos every day… sigh!

My Top Youtube Videos For 2021

Here are my top videos by view over 2021.

The thing that surprised me the most is that while the magazine collages ones would get lots of views right off the bat, the product videos were silently creeping up to grab the top spots over the whole year.

Things For Me To Work On

Now that I have a little room to breath, I am taking some classes and working on my channel to see if I can make more money this year!

Impressions Versus Click Through Rate

One thing that is super easy to fix is your impressions click through rate. This is a combination of your thumbnail (video picture) and your title.

The better your video picture is or the more enticing your title, the more likely someone is going to pick your video to watch!

This one is a little hard to find…. go to Channel Analytics > Reach > Impressions Click Through Rate

Testing Thumbnails With Tubebuddy

I LOVE when I can buy technology that will help me with fixing a problem! With that in mind, I will be running all my best videos through Tube Buddy's A/B split tester to help me get a higher click through rate.

This software is pretty expensive for the year but they do have sales and I for sure can't be bothered to track the numbers myself!

If this holds steady at 14.9% on the variation I will for sure be split testing ALL my thumbnails with Tubebuddy targeting specific videos that I think new thumbnails will help!

Any time I can find YouTube analytics tools that actually make my life easier I will get them!

Average Percentage Viewed

This one is harder to find….Channel Analytics > Engagement > See More > Click Blue Plus Sign > Average Percentage Viewed

I can't do anything about the videos I already made, but I can look forward and do everything I can to try and keep people engaged over the whole time of the video and increase my average view duration and audience retention!

Oh, you can also WHERE the people drop off so if you are doing something consistently that is making your viewers leave, you can stop doing it!

One thing to note as you look at this is that my watch time is super high! That is because my videos are super long. One of my best videos is almost and hour and half long.

Year of Youtube Videos FAQ

So I figure you probably have some questions about what making a year of videos looks like or means… here are some things that I think are interesting and I will add to these as I get more questions!

Why Did I Make So Many Videos?

I wanted to have another stream of income for my business and thought that I could make a new video channel for the revenue.

So first off, it is easier for me to do something every day than to do it a couple of times a week (I get distracted), so doing a video a day just made sense for me!

Additionally, I wanted to get monetized fast and have a momentum to get followers and views.

Why did I pick a small niche?

I kinda had a choice with my year of videos… I could do art for my Artsy Fartsy Channel or I could do marketing for my Marketing Artfully channel.

I would FOR sure have made more money if I had made a video a day on my marketing channel, but that would not have made me happy…. making art every day and filming it made me happy!

OH and with a small niche you are competing with people who may not be as tech savvy as you are. For sure the marketing people know how to beat me on Youtube! That said, having a target audience of nice art people makes my life a happier place!

What Data Helped Me?

Before I started I heard A LOT about how to get found in search traffic sources and thought, THAT IS MY TICKET! I love doing search and have a background in SEO.

But honestly getting found in browse is better than being found in the search results to grow your channel. It means you are showing up on people's home page when they log onto Youtube.

Youtube can send you way more traffic by being “popular” on people pages than you could ever manage to get in search!

Watch completion time is also super important! You want your people to watch as much of your videos as possible.

Year of Video Wrapup

So there you have it, all my tips and ideas for doing a year of videos!

I am not sure I would do that again, but for sure it was much easier than digging ditches and I had a super fun time checking out all my Youtube metrics!