We’re about to share five high-impact YouTube monetization tips for small channels. These aren’t the same old tips. We’re going to assume that you already know thumbnails matter and you’re aware that optimizing your YouTube titles and descriptions is key.
Rather, these are less known or often overlooked settings and must-follow best practices for small channels. Tips that will help your channel reach the 4,000 hours of YouTube watch time and 1,000 subscribers. The tipping point for acceptance into the YouTube Partner Program where you can start earning YouTube ad revenue on your videos.
Whether you’re a new creator or a small YouTuber looking to level up, these YouTube monetization tips for small channels will get you on the fast track.
So, open another browser window, jump into YouTube Studio and follow along.
Our Five YouTube Monetization Tips for Small Channels
- Use the Inspiration tab in YouTube Studio analytics
- Dive into advanced analytics
- Use Shorts to get attention for your long form videos
- Create and curate playlists and
- Use and optimize end screens
1. YouTube Inspiration: Start with a Video Your Audience Will Love

Coming up with an idea for a video can sometimes be a challenge. That’s why we always recommend using a YouTube content calendar. Coming up with a video idea that will resonate with your target audience is even more of a challenge. So stop guessing and let YouTube Inspiration help you with a little… inspiration.
You’ll find this too often overlooked feature of YouTube Studio:
- Go to Analytics
- Select the Inspiration tab.
Here, you’ll see what your audience is searching for and watching. Not just your own videos, but videos from other creators in your niche too. You’ll even get customized content ideas which you can act on right away or save for later.
Inspiration is a goldmine, and it only gets better as you interact with it and as you grow your audience and content library.
2. YouTube Advanced Analytics: Analyze Your Traffic Sources

YouTube’s standard analytics are helpful, but to really understand what’s driving traffic to your channel, you need to dig deeper. In YouTube Studio:
- Go to Analytics
- Toggle Advanced mode
- Open the Traffic source tab to see where your viewers are coming from
- Click on YouTube search to see which specific search terms are bringing viewers to your videos
Once you know the exact terms people are using to find your content, you can make more targeted videos that answer those searches. For example, if a large number of viewers are are searching “how to get 50 subscribers fast,” and landing on your video about getting 1,000 subscribers, you can create content tailored specifically to that search.
You can use TubeBuddy’s YouTube Keyword Explorer tool to take this a step further by looking at what viewers all across YouTube are searching for, identifying the low competition keywords and phrases, and finding gaps in your niche that your content can fill.
The best YouTube monetization tip for small channels is to create content that viewers are searching for. You’ll rack up the watch time and earn the subscribers you need to meet the YouTube monetization threshold faster.
3. Don’t Sleep on Shorts

YouTube Shorts are a powerhouse on YouTube, and small channels can grow fast using this format. The catch is that Shorts watch time don’t count toward the 4,000-hour watch time goal. If your Shorts get 10 million views over a 90 day period, you can qualify for YouTube monetization but for most creators, 10 million Shorts views isn’t the goal. And not just because YouTube Shorts pay creators squat (we earned about $100 for 3.1 million Shorts views or about $32 per million views).
The trick is to treat Shorts like an ad for your long form content, driving Shorts viewers over to your long form videos.
YouTube banned links in the description and comments on YouTube Shorts. But at the same time, YouTube Studio introduced a better way to link your Shorts to your long form videos.
When you upload a short, use the Related Video setting and select a relevant long form video. This makes it easy for the viewers you engage with your Short to click through to your long video, where watch time counts.
This strategy is a game-changer, especially for small channels. Creators like Jenny Hoyos have seen incredible growth using this method. Because it works.
4. Curate YouTube Playlists to Boost Watch Time

If you keep viewers watching, you’ll increase your watch time. Also, water is wet (or is it?!)
Organize your videos into curated playlists. This makes it easer for viewers to consume more of your content in one sitting.
Not only that, but by showing off the depth and breadth of your content, playlists can also increase the chances of turning casual viewers into subscribers. It often takes multiple videos for someone to decide they love your content enough to hit that subscribe button, and a well-curated playlist will help speed up that process.
To get even more mileage from playlists, TubeBuddy’s YouTube Playlist Actions tool can sort your playlists by performance metrics like watch time or subscriber gain. That way, the first videos in your playlist will be the ones that are most likely to hook viewers and keep them watching.
5. Add End Screens for Extra Views
Another YouTube monetization tip for small channels: don’t ignore the end screens. End screens are not a hidden feature in YouTube, but too many creators overlook them. They shouldn’t.
End screens are clickable elements that pop up in the last five to 20 seconds of your video. They keep viewers watching your videos and they make it easy to subscribe to your channel.
By adding end screens to your videos, you can guide viewers to related content, revive older uploads, or encourage them to subscribe. This strategy not only boosts views and watch time but also helps with overall channel growth. If you’re not using end screens yet, you’re leaving views, watch time, and subscribers on the table.
TubeBuddy’s YouTube Bulk Endscreen Editor lets you update the end screens across all your videos or a selection of videos with just a few clicks.
YouTube Monetization Tips for Small Channels: You’ll Get There
The takeaway for a YouTube creator with a small channels and big goals is this: if you do the work, your channel will grow. You’ll reach and surpass the 4,000 hours of watch time and 1,000 subscribers you need to monetize your channel.
If you follow these YouTube monetization tips for small channels, and other advice on the TubeBuddy blog, and if you use TubeBuddy tools, your channel will grow faster.

✅ Use the Inspiration tab in YouTube Studio analytics
✅ Dive into advanced analytics
✅ Use Shorts to get attention for your long form videos
✅ Create and curate playlists and
✅ Use and optimize end screens
Follow these five YouTube monetization tips for small channels and your small channel won’t be small for long.
Get an unfair advantage on YouTube
Give your YouTube channel the upper hand and easily optimize for more views, more subs, and more of every metric that matters.
5 YouTube Settings To Get Small Channels Monetized FAST! – Video Transcript
all right so you want to get monetized on YouTube but the problem is to get fully monetized you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time and you’re stuck with either not enough subscribers watch time or both but what if I tell you you’re just a few YouTube settings away from reaching those monetization requirements in getting monetized faster than you think use these settings and I guarantee you’ll get monetized faster than you ever expected starting with setting one all right so a great video starts with
inspiration there is this useful setting hiding in YouTube Studio go to analytics and it’s right there the inspiration tab seeing what your audience watches and searches for can Inspire successful videos that you can make like this video with 400,000 views in 2 weeks if we made a similar video it would probably blow up too you can use these videos and searches to see exactly what your audience is watching and what they have a interest SP all of these examples are for our Channel but of course they are going to be completely customized to you
also you can type anything in the search bar and see similar searches top performing videos for that search and with the help of AI create an outline for a video that you can use or Draw inspiration from this tab shows you exactly what viewers want using this you can create videos that earn you more subscribers watch time and ultimately get you monetized all right setting number two although inspiration is helpful it’s also also useful to know what topics and ideas are already driving viewers to your channel you can
do this with another setting hidden in YouTube Studio go to content click on a video then tap analytics then as scary as this is going to sound I need you to click Advance mode in this section you’ll see way more detailed analytics around your channel than you would normally see in the standard view now I want you to click traffic Source this is where you get to see the traffic sources that led people to your video but I want you to click on the YouTube search section specifically because in this area you see the exact Search terms
people use to find your content for example even though this video was around getting your first 1,000 subscribers on YouTube I can see that viewers found the video by searching things like how to get 50 subscribers on YouTube fast how to get views on YouTube and even sub for subs for us knowing that viewers have an interest in these topics means that I can take this information and make videos that are more relevant to what they actually wanted to watch and you can do that same thing on your channel from YouTube Studio go to
analytics then go to advanced mode again hit traffic Source then click YouTube search to see all the ways people find your content through search this will give you a stream of keywords that you know people are searching for and you can use this information to create more successful videos that will rank higher get more views and increase your watch time and if all those things happen baby you’re going to get monetized setting number three right now shorts are overpowered in the past a Channel with 100,000 to a million subscribers posting
an average of 1,000 long form videos now short form creators are reaching millions of subscribers just by posting like 100 shorts it’s absolutely overpower shorts are great for subscribers but they do not count toward your 4,000 hour watchtime goal but well unless you got 10 million views on your shorts in the last 90 days and I’m just going to guess that for most of us that’s not happening it’s super annoying that these do not count toward watch time but there’s a YouTube setting that can help with that this YouTube setting
allows you to push traffic from your shorts to your long form video and I’m going to show you in a second how well this works creators like jiny Hoyos who’s absolutely killing it in YouTube sorts right now uses this feature to drive short form viewers to her long form videos so as her shorts get more views her long form videos gain more views also to do this go to content in your YouTube Studio then click the details icon for your short then find related video right over here click the edit icon next to it and add a link to a
full video you want to direct viewers to take a look at this here’s a short that we published on another Channel I linked this long form video we created to that short and in the last 48 hours over 60% of views came from viewers who transition from this short to this long form video where it is earning a ton of watch time you see by using the massive overpowered potential to get views on YouTube shorts and sending some of that traffic over to your long form videos where watch time does acrew you’re going
to just hit your monetization requirements a lot quicker setting number four you know how Netflix keeps us watching shows for hours you can do the same thing with your YouTube channel content by using custom playlist okay this this is a setting that not a lot of creators really value or really understand the potential of but you definitely should listen that’s because playlists don’t just organize your videos they create an experience that keeps viewers glued to their screens which of course YouTube loves when a
viewer clicks on a playlist they are more likely to watch a video after video which is absolutely amazing for watch time and how many channels do you watch regularly that you’re not subscribed to 61% of the viewers for our last video are not subscribed you’re probably not subscribed and that’s okay it sometimes takes viewers video after video watching several pieces of your content before they decide to subscribe or simply remember to subscribe so subscribe but a playlist can help speedrun this process
I recommend you add playlist around popular ideas on your channel to your YouTube channel page then sort the videos in that playlist by a goal watch time subscribers or whatever for example if you want to do watch time then put the videos that earn you the most most watch time to the front of the playlist this makes it so that the First videos viewers see in that playlist are your top performers for that metric increasing the chances that they’ll watch longer and engage more deeply with your content sobody also has a tool that
optimize and sort your playlist content based on metrics like watch time subscribers gain average view duration and more for example I can sort my playlist by subscribers gain per video that way I’m increasing the chances that they’ll hit that subscribe button I will put the info to this free tool in the description below and Now setting five okay this one is super super super super powerful and I’m going to show you why once again but it’s so overlooked it’s frustrating let’s talk about ins screen
these are the clickable elements you see in the last 5 to 20 seconds of a video here you can add links to other videos playlist and even a subscribe button all of which increases your chances of winning the monetization game personally I I like to call in screens extra views and here’s why as you can see some channels get a huge amount of traffic just from adding in screens I mean millions of extra views just by adding an in screen for our Channel you can see that we have gotten an extra 83,000 views from our in screens alone that is
a lot of extra watch time just by putting these little things at the end of your video to add an in screen go to your video Details page click editor then click here to add an in screen I recommend that you add a relevant video that’s related to the video that that audience member is currently watching or just click best for viewer and let YouTube decide every time we publish a new video we always direct viewers to another one in our end screen and then we can look at the analytics on that video that we sit viewers to and see the
views immediately start climbing and climbing again this is a way that we use to revive old videos or just to send traffic to a previous upload that we want more views on it’s extremely effective all right friends those are five creative things that you can do to hit those monetization goals a lot faster I am so excited for you to grow on YouTube but before you go do me a favor hit the Subscribe button because we’re trying to hit a million subscribers baby and next video over here is about why you should
stop using YouTube tags because they’re not really that effective and I’m going to show you some things that you can do that are actually effective for ranking your videos in getting more views so subscribe and and I’ll see you over there