How long does Adsense take to Approve Youtube
Introduction
So, it's been about three months since I got monetized and started receiving money from YouTube ads and through Google AdSense. I made this video about three months ago, going over how I actually got monetized, how long it took from zero watch hours to 4,000 watch hours, and then how long it took from being eligible to be monetized to actually starting to make money. This video is about my entire monetization process and tips for getting monetized. But if you are interested in how I'm doing right now after three months, how much money I've made, and the detailed analytics, let me know in the comments.
The Monetization Criteria in 2022
So, right now in 2022, how the heck do you get monetized? Well, there are two criteria, and I'm sure a lot of you already know about this, but basically, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. But not just 4,000 watch hours in your total time of being a YouTuber—it has to be in the last year. So, in the last 365 days, you need to accumulate 4,000 watch hours. That is the hardest part because, let's say somebody binge-watches your video the last year on this exact same day, you might lose some watch hours.
The thing YouTube wants to see is that people are continuously watching your videos. Pretty much, the only way you can get your watch hours is if your channel just grows in general, and you're building your audience, and you're getting more people to watch your videos, or you have more videos, and they're watching longer.
For Detail Read : How Long does Adsense take to Approve Youtube
My Journey to 1,000 Subscribers and 4,000 Watch Hours
First of all, how long did it take me to get my first 1,000 subscribers? I would say it took me around a year—I have to double-check, but I think it was around a year. And then, for 4,000 watch hours, actually, maybe 1,000 subscribers was like seven months or something. I've really had a hard time with getting the 4,000 watch hours, so it took me a year and a half.
I started my YouTube channel in October 2020, so yeah, around a year and a half. I've been waiting so long to get monetized because I got my 1,000 subscribers pretty early on, I would say, and then it took double the time to get my watch hours. So, I think it really depends. I've heard a lot of people get their watch hours first, but then they're not at 1,000 subscribers, or they're missing the watch hours. So, it really depends on how well your videos are doing.
For me, I think one part of me being able to get 1,000 subscribers is that I had a following already on Instagram. My niche, when I first started my YouTube channel, was tips for calligraphy business owners. Because on Instagram, I already had about three thousand or four thousand followers, I think a lot of people then subscribed to my YouTube channel because of that. So, for me, it was way easier to get 1,000 subscribers, but the watch hours took me forever.
I have to thank this video, "How to Start a Greeting Card Business," because it's the video that really, really helped me get watch hours. It's my best-performing video, getting around 200 views every 48 hours. If I didn't have this video, then it would be really hard for me to get the watch hours.
The Monetization Process
So, what is the process to get monetized? Well, first, you have to get your 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past 365 days. Then, you should already have an AdSense account because you can apply for an AdSense account before you reach your 4,000 watch hours or 1,000 subscribers.
I actually applied for an AdSense account a couple of months ago, and I would say the process was pretty straightforward. But the only thing I didn't do was the tax information because it seemed a little bit complicated, so I just left that. So, actually, my AdSense account was not complete when I was able to apply for monetization. I had to then go back into my Google AdSense account and add the tax information.
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Here's a tip: when you're adding the tax information, there might be some questions where you don't really know what to answer. So, I actually had to Google how to input AdSense information if I'm a Canadian resident because they're going to ask you different questions depending on which country you're in. I didn't really understand the withholding tax and stuff like that, and then, like, Canada has a treaty with the US, so I think there's no withholding tax or something like that. It's kind of confusing, but I didn't really understand it, so I had to Google how to set up and add AdSense information.
If you are at that stage and you're not sure how to do it, then I'm sure there's a video that explains how you can do that. So, that took me about 20 minutes to fill in the tax information, and I had to watch a video on how Canadians can do the tax information. Then, it took me three days to get approved after that, so it was pretty fast.
I'm not sure if it would have been faster if I did it on a weekday because I finished setting up my AdSense account on a Friday, and then I got approved on Monday. So, I would say it was pretty fast. I do have a friend who said that her friend took like six months to get approved, and I have read some Reddit forums where they say it's kind of all over the place with how long it takes to get approved. So, I'm not sure if it depends on the country or depends on your channel, like the topic of your channel. I'm not really sure what YouTube does to approve somebody, but for me, it was pretty fast.
I don't know how long it would take for you, but if it is taking a lot longer than you think it should, maybe go look into some forums—those can be helpful. But YouTube does say that you should be approved within about a month, so I guess if it's taking more than a month, then maybe go read some other stuff on how you can get approved.
I'm really happy because it took me three days. One other thing I had to do was, after I connected my bank account to Google AdSense, I had to wait for a PIN to arrive in the mail. This is like a PIN to authenticate my Google AdSense account. I did this after I applied for monetization, but that's because I think I didn't put in all the tax information and stuff. But I'm pretty sure you can do this before you get approved for monetization. I'm not sure—I think it's because I didn't put the tax information, but I think you can do this whole PIN thing, waiting for the mail thing, before that.
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Earnings and Analytics
Oh yeah, and then just like an interesting tidbit—so, it's been like three days of me being able to see how much money I've made. So, in three days, I made five dollars and 32 cents, which is averaging 1.7 dollars a day. This month, in one month, I'll probably make fifty dollars, which I guess it's not so bad. It's something, you know? It's like the start of this new income stream.
Actually, in the first month, I made 87 dollars, which is more than the 50 that I estimated like three months ago. So, even though it's not that much money at first, I'm really, really thankful, and I think things will just get easier from here.
Tips for New YaouTubers
So, I do have some tips for new YouTubers if you are trying to grow your channel.
1. Make Videos That People Are Searching For
My first tip is to make videos that people are searching for. If you look through my top-performing videos, all the video topics are things that people are actually searching for. It's like answering a question or some kind of information that people want.
As a general thing, I would say it's harder to get bigger at the beginning if you're doing a vlog channel. I'm not saying that you can't be successful with a vlog channel, but at the very beginning, it's easier if you are answering questions that people are typing into YouTube—stuff that people are actually searching for.
Another thing is, you might post a video and then think, "Okay, this is a great question that people are searching for," but it might take like six months for YouTube to pick it up and for it to show up in YouTube search. This is what happened with the "How to Find Your Lost Cat" video that I made. This is totally not my niche, but I lost my cat Melvin one time, and then I thought, "Okay, maybe it would be useful to make a YouTube video." Right now, every 48 hours, it's getting like 30 views, which I think is actually pretty good.
Another video I made is about how to start using a one-line-a-day journal, like a five-year diary. At first, this video performed not so well, but then it just picked up. I made the video a couple of months before the end of the year, so the end of the year is usually when people buy this kind of notebook so they can start it in January. So, you can clearly see the line going up when it was like December, January, and now it's one of my best-performing videos.
So, when you look at your YouTube analytics, don't get too hung up on the analytics of videos you've just posted because it's going to take time for the YouTube algorithm and YouTube search to rank your videos. With my newer videos, I don't really take the analytics seriously. I really think you should wait one year and then look back and see which videos are performing well.
I'm not saying that you should never look at your analytics—I'm just saying don't make it a super big deal if a video is not performing well when you just release it and for the first three months.
2. Leverage Your Existing Following
Okay, my next tip for you is, if you already have a following somewhere else—like maybe you have an email list or you have Instagram or TikTok following—use that following and leverage that to build your YouTube channel.
For me, it was really my Instagram and my email list that helped. Every single time I had a new video out, I would promote it on my Instagram multiple times, and I would send an email to my email list so they could watch the video and subscribe to my channel. I did this every single week.
A bonus tip on top of that tip is, when you are talking about your video and asking people to watch your video, you can add a PS like, "Please watch until the end." I would always do this whenever I posted it on Instagram or Facebook. I don't do it so much on my email list because I feel more close with my Instagram followers and my friends on Facebook. I would say, "Please watch till the end so I can build up my watch hours, and I would really appreciate it."
That will help because a lot of people don't know that they need to watch through the whole video. Some people think that if they just click into the video, then that kind of helps you, but it's actually not that way. If people click into the video and then exit the video, it's actually really bad for your watch time because they're just exiting after five seconds.
So, when you can, and if you feel comfortable, then I would tell people, "Watch until the end; I would really appreciate it."
3. Ask Your Followers to Help with Watch Hours
Okay, and then another bonus on top of that is, when you're really close to getting your 4,000 watch hours, you can ask your followers to help you by playing playlists on your channel.
In the one week before I got monetized, I would post on Instagram and ask all my followers to just put a playlist on, and they can just leave it on. That's going to slowly build the hours. I actually didn't think I would get monetized within that week—I thought it would take me like two more weeks, but it was actually faster than I thought. It was really because maybe like six people actually told me that they were putting on a playlist, but maybe there were actually more people who didn't message me that put on the playlist just to help me out.
So, you can always ask your following to help out a bit.
4. Keep Going and Improve Gradually
My next tip for YouTube is to just keep going. I honestly thought I could get monetized in like six to twelve months of doing YouTube, but it took a year and a half. But I think I'm really, really happy right now with where I am. Yeah, it took longer than I expected, but I think that's what happens a lot of the times when you're starting a business or starting a new project.
It is difficult—I felt really discouraged a lot of the times with my YouTube, feeling like it's not growing, or my content is not good enough, or the video editing or the video quality and audio quality is not good enough. But if you keep getting better—and one of my favorite YouTubers, Sean Cannell from Think Media, always says, "If you just get one percent better, then you will be successful." So, that's also something I want to share with you: just get one percent better with each upload.
Conclusion
If you are interested in the other videos I've made about my YouTube journey, then make sure you check out these videos right here and leave a comment if you found this helpful.
