The primary source of income for many YouTubers is through ad revenue generated by ads displayed on their videos. Advertisers are often willing to pay more for ads targeted at viewers in developed countries with higher purchasing power. This means YouTubers with a larger audience base in developed countries will likely earn more from advertising.
For example, in some niches, 100,000 views from developed countries will earn a YouTuber about $500. The exact number of views from developing countries will make the same YouTuber less than $100.
There’s this common belief that relocating from a developing country to a developed country as a content creator would bring more opportunities and earnings, especially from ad revenue. When you get there, your earnings will double or triple because advertisers from these countries pay so well.
I will share some insights from creators in the diaspora and discuss the reality of relocating as a content creator to a developed country, what lies ahead, and the factors you should consider to get your expectations right.
I contacted some of my YouTube friends who recently relocated to other parts of the world to share their experiences as content creators in these foreign countries and how it has affected their creative processes and income. Their revelations might surprise you.
These wonderful friends gave me the basic analytics I needed to make this post.
Unfamiliar Habitat
So, if you are very observant, you will notice that some of your favorite YouTubers who relocated after the pandemic have to subtly change their niche or move on to the next big thing in their lives.
This is not because they are not interested in content creation or what they were doing before but because they have faced the reality of creating content in a different habitat. So they need to adjust their content or drop it entirely.
Those who maintained their niche complained that video views on their channel dropped, but their channel’s CPM remained within the usual average. Then, a few confirmed a surge in views but with the same CPM.
And the surge in their views resulted from them keying into trending topics like “JAPA,” which is a popular phrase in Nigeria that means “relocate” or “escape”, and keying into these trendy topics has brought them more views and subscribers.
However, they confirmed that some factors affected their earnings after relocating; this includes audience demographics, cost of living, content relevance, and changes in brand partnerships.
Audience Demographics
You are certainly going to lose some followers when you relocate. This impact will depend on the type of content you create and how you are willing to adjust your strategy.
For a creator who does more outdoor content, like visiting markets in local areas and helping viewers get information on what they can buy from these markets, there’s no doubt when she relocates to, say, the United States, she won’t find these types of local markets there, and if she continues with the outdoor shopping content, most of her audience might not be interested in them because they came to her channel to watch her shop in local African markets with their uniqueness.
In the US, most shopping is done in the mall. So her audience will be less interested in mall shopping compared to shopping in local African markets. And no place in her new location can match the local African market experience.
A way to overcome this challenge is to adjust her content strategy to cater to the expectations of her existing and new audiences, such as changing the topics, style, and frequency of her videos.
CPM Factor
Some YouTubers initially thought that when they moved to a country with a high CPM, they would automatically earn more money from the ads displayed on their videos because advertisers in these countries pay more for ad placements. It is not so.
This is how YouTube Alorigthm currently works; it pushes your newly published video to people that recently watched your videos (not even all your subscribers), then to those who might be interested in the topic of the video. Then it extends the recommendation to a broader audience based on other complex factors. So if people interested in your videos are based in a low CPM region, making videos from a High CPM country will make no difference.
From these friends’ experience, it is important to explain that advertisers in these high CPM regions only pay more to reach an audience in their region, not the type of audience you currently have from countries with low CPM. The fact remains that YouTubers that relocated to these countries still carry their audiences based in low CPM countries with them. Even if they reside in these big economies, a good chunk of their audience is still from Africa or Asia, as the case may be.
Cost of Living
For example, someone getting 200,000 views a month with 70% of the views from Africa with $3 RPM should earn an average of $600 monthly.
A creator earning $600 a month in Africa can live with this earning comfortably, but living somewhere in the US with $600 a month will make life uncomfortable; you get points.
This raises the issue of what it will cost you to produce a video and your living expenses: Relocating to a country with a higher CPM might slightly increase your revenue. However, it’s important to consider the proportion of your earnings to the cost of living in your host country.
Content Relevance
Another shocking revelation was the relevance of their content.
Some types of content resonate better with audiences in specific countries or cultures. Suppose your content caters to a global audience or has broad appeal, like some niches in tech or finance whose topics are globally related; relocating to a country with a high CPM could be more beneficial. But if your content is region-specific or language-dependent, relocating won’t be beneficial.
For example, some of you know my Amala analogy; if you create content around African delicacies, most of your viewers will undoubtedly be African, and many of them will be based on the African continent. So also, if your content is language-specific, like a member of our community that earned only $10 for 60,000 views because his videos are created in the Hausa language. It will not be applicable for him to relocate to Europe to make more because most of his audience will still be those who understand Hausa, most of whom are in African countries.
Now, when you relocate and still create the same type of content, the set of people watching your content before you relocate will still be your audience base when you move to your new location, and your videos’ CPM will not be different. There may be an increase or decrease in views based on how you pivot your content towards high-paying niches.
Also, some countries have some monetization options restricted in their region, so you have to confirm if your new location has all monetization available, like super chats, super thanks, membership, and the rest.
It is convincing that your content and audience location will determine if you will earn more when you relocate and not your relocation itself.
Brand Partnership
A brand terminated its partnership with a friend because of her relocation, which was understandable because the brand she was working with targeted her home country’s culture. They used her content to reach their target audience. So, after she left her home country, her content wasn’t appealing to the brand as it was not relatable to their product and customers. Hence they terminated the partnership, which affected her revenue from content creation.
Again, this is understandable because the cultural difference in your new location will affect your content and audience.
Recent suggestions from YouTube explain that you treat your channel as a business or a means to direct your audience to your business. YouTube is evolving as the global economy is, so depending on ad revenue might not be the best idea.
The way out of this situation is not a “one solution fits all“, but you have to figure out the uniqueness of your case and apply what works best for you. And an excellent place to get insight into how to solve this issue is your channel’s analytics in YouTube Studio.
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Thanks for your time; see you soon.