YouTube Channel Studio

Start here: how the channel runs

Sponsor reads, from pitch to payment

Sponsors

Brand deals from first pitch to paid, with the fee, the read and what it earned per thousand views.

Videos

Every video from idea to upload: who edits it, when it goes live and how it performed in its first 28 days.

Shoot days

Filming days with the location, call time and crew, and how many videos each day feeds.

Payouts

Money the channel earns outside sponsor deals: ad revenue, members, affiliate links, merch and tips.

The weekly rhythm

Who owns what

Rules that keep the channel healthy

Past their publish date

Going live this week

My videos

Sponsor drafts due

Brands that still owe us

Start from the promise

Every video row has a promise sentence in its plan. The title and the thumbnail are two different ways of saying that promise, and they must not repeat each other. If the title says what was built, the thumbnail shows the surprising part: the crack in the slab, the price tag, the before and after.

Titles

Thumbnails

The first 30 seconds

Open on the finished piece or the problem, then say what the viewer will get. Channel name, sponsor read and shop tour all come later. The sponsor read sits after the first build step, never in the opening.

Reading the results at day 28

Shorts and live streams skip the check, because their views come from the feed, not from a click on a thumbnail. Look at RPM beside it: a tool test with a lower click rate but a high RPM can still be the better video for the business.

Worked example

The budget track saw test went out with the title in plain words and a thumbnail showing the price tag beside a perfect cut. It clicked at 8.1%, the best of the quarter, so the next tool test copies that layout: object, price, proof.

1. Pitched and Negotiating

Every brand that writes in or that we approach gets a row in Sponsors with the Brand sponsor brief filled in. The first question is always whether we would use the product in the shop if nobody paid us. If not, mark it Declined and say so politely.

During negotiation, settle four things and write them on the row: the Deliverable (an integrated read, a dedicated video or a short mention), the Fee, the Usage rights (whether the brand may run our clip as a paid ad and for how long) and Category exclusivity. Paid usage and exclusivity are worth extra; price them separately rather than giving them away.

2. Contracted and Script review

3. Live and Invoiced

When the video goes live, the sponsor moves to Live. Send the invoice with the live link the same day and move it to Invoiced. The Awaiting payment view on the dashboard shows every brand in Live or Invoiced, so nothing waits quietly for 60 days.

4. Paid

Press Mark paid when the money lands. It stamps the date, which shows which brands pay on time when it is renewal season.

Is a deal worth it?

The Effective CPM divides the fee by the views the sponsored videos earned in their first 28 days, times a thousand. Compare it with the channel's ad RPM:

A dedicated video usually shows a lower CPM than a read, because the whole video is theirs; price it at two to three times a read.