 is something most creators aspire to. While YouTube’s basic tools are helpful for any user, YPP grants 

 for building a career on the platform, such as:

access to all of YouTube’s monetization features

access to YouTube’s creator support teams

a copyright match tool to ensure your content isn’t stolen

Of course, these perks aren’t granted to just anyone. 

1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of Watch Time

 on your channel. And even then, you need to set up an AdSense account and accept all of YouTube’s terms and conditions to move forward with the application.

But once you’ve achieved those milestones and clicked apply, how long does it take YouTube to review an application? Is it a matter of days, a fast turnaround few creators would complain about? Or is it closer to weeks, perhaps months?

If you want the answer with a bit of entertainment, watch this video about our experience applying to YPP for the first time in eight years:

On the other hand, if you want to read the full story of what really happened - plus the time period for YPP’s acceptance - keep reading.

How Long It Takes to Get Monetized on YouTube

OK, here’s the truth: We had a relatively short and seamless experience applying to the YouTube Partner Program. We had two channels that qualified for the program, which were our 

 vidIQ channels. So we found the application screen in the YouTube Studio, clicked apply, and crossed our fingers. 

Luckily, we weren’t kept waiting for too long. Actually, we hardly had to wait at all.

After applying to YPP on Friday, October 16, the Spanish vidIQ channel was accepted just 60 hours later!!!

We couldn’t believe it. In just a few days, YouTube gave us permission to monetize our channel with every advertisement type. We had the power to display pesky banner ads, which viewers have to click just to get rid of. We even had access to pre-roll ads, which play before a video begins.

Even more surprising, the Russian vidIQ channel got monetized too. We’re not sure when that happened because YouTube hasn’t sent us a notification email. But that’s OK. Maybe emails take longer to send from Moscow. The important thing is that all the monetization features were there, and we could finally take our Russian channel to the next level.

Why the Monetization Process Can Take a While

Now, some of you who’ve applied to YPP may be saying to yourselves, “It took me weeks, months even, to be accepted into the program!” And that’s true. Years ago, the process did take much longer.

But today, there’s another reason your application could be delayed, and it has to do with COVID-19.

 that with reduced staffing in their buildings, things like creator support and applications for YPP could take longer than usual. View their statement below:

As you can see, YouTube doesn’t primarily use software or an algorithm to review applications. Instead, it uses human reviewers. They decide whether your content is viable for companies to place advertisements on them. And with less in-office staff, that could slow down the entire process.

However, YouTube hasn’t cited COVID-19 as an application delay for a couple of months now. Their support page still says YPP reviews could take a month, but that’s probably just a safety net for YouTube. It ensures that creators don’t have unrealistic expectations of monetizing their channels, even if some are getting approved in just three days.

As long as you hit the requirements for YPP, it seems as if the reviewers will process your application as fast as possible. That’s what happened in our experience, but as always, each creator is on a journey of their own.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps. 

How long does it take to get accepted into the YouTube Partner Program? Well, the answer may shock you...

This Is How Long It Takes To Get Monetized on YouTube

When you created your YouTube channel, you probably had an idea of what your videos would be about. Whether you wanted to create Fortnite gaming tutorials, comedic sketches, or hours upon hours of pranks, you at least had 

But here’s a question worth asking yourself: 

Does your audience know what your channel is about? 

It almost seems silly to ask, especially if you’ve been pumping out very specific content. Nonetheless, it’s worth answering to make sure you’re on the right track. For example, if you think your channel is about one topic while your audience thinks it’s about something totally different, that tiny misconception could block your channel’s growth.

Fortunately, a new panel within the YouTube Studio can help. To see if you and your audience are on the same page about the content you create, just keep reading.

YouTube’s ‘Audience Watched’ Panel Is a Data Goldmine

Most likely, your audience watches a wide variety of YouTube videos within your niche. To get a glimpse of what that content is - and whether that proves you have a clear, concise channel by comparison - make your way to YouTube’s new audience panel:

From most YouTube desktop screens, click your profile image in the top right corner and go to the YouTube Studio.

You should arrive at the main analytics screen. In the uppermost menu, click on the ‘Audience’ tab.

About a third of the way down the screen, probably on the right side, you’ll see a panel called ‘Other videos your audience watched’.

You’ll know you’ve reached the panel when you see something that looks like this:

Or, if you need some extra guidance and would rather hear and see the instructions in real-time, watch our video tutorial:

Not Seeing Any Audience Data? Here’s Why

While some of you may see the ‘audience watched’ panel above, a lot of you might not because of a lack of data.

There are a few reasons why no data is appearing in this panel. It might be because you're violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines or your content is made for kids, which means YouTube won’t collect any audience information. But most likely, it’s because you don't have enough data on your YouTube channel.

To get a more scientific reason for this issue, we went to our beloved vidIQ community to see what their ‘audience watched’ panels look like. 

After creating a poll on our Community Tab, we discovered that 13% of creators in our community found the panel and could see some data. Unfortunately, another 18% could see the panel but no data. And much worse, 14% said they couldn't see the panel at all. The remaining 55% chose a throwaway option, which said, "I’m going to vote here to spoil your data." I guess we walked right into that one, but still, it kind of hurt. We laughed it off in the end. Sort of.

This poll tells us less than half of our typical vidIQ audience is able to see this panel (with data). Our typical audience includes channels under 1,000 subscribers, less than 4,000 hours of Watch Time, and any channel working toward YouTube monetization. 

So that could be a reason some channels (or yours) have zero data. You might need to increase your channel’s Watch Time so YouTube has enough data to work with.

If You Have Zero Audience Watched Data, Use This vidIQ Tool Instead

If you aren't getting any data from the ‘audience watched’ panel, vidIQ has an alternative. As long as you have vidIQ installed, follow this path to get the data you need:

In your YouTube Studio homepage, go to the left menu and click ‘Channel Audit’.

On the next screen, you should see a huge report card on your channel. Scroll down, look to the right, and find a section called ‘Top Suggested’:

Free users can see this section, but paid users can click on it and get a full list of videos. This is essentially what YouTube’s ‘audience watched’ tool would have shown you.

How to Use the 'Other Videos Your Audience Watched' Panel

OK, back to the YouTube audience tool itself. This panel shows you what your audience watched on YouTube over the last seven days. At the time of writing, it shows you 15 videos split into three pages, and you can click on either the video title or the channel’s name to view the content. These videos aren’t sorted by age, the number of views, or channel size, but it’s worth looking through all of them if you can.

Now, here comes the real question: Why is this so important? The basic premise is that the content your audience watches on other channels should be the content they enjoy watching on your channel. That’s how YouTube encourages you to use this tool. You can use it to find new video topics, title and thumbnail ideas, and collaboration opportunities.

And here’s the most important thing to know: 

No matter what you, the creator, think your channel is about, your audience thinks it’s about the topic in your 'audience watched' panel.

How to Research ‘Audience Watched’ YouTube Data

OK, let’s do an experiment using the vidIQ channel. In our ‘audience watched' panel, we should see a list of videos that reflect our target audience.

How to Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers on YouTube in 2020

How to Stop Haters, Trolls, and Spammers on YouTube

How to Color Grade in Adobe Premiere Pro for Beginners

How to Get 100 Subscribers on YouTube Every Day

Dream & MrBeast Gaming Speedrunning 10 Million Subscribers Live 

It's great to see our friends at Think Media on the list. And YouTube is right on the money with a video about how to get your first 1,000 subscribers in 2020. That's the type of content we make, no doubt. 

Nick Nimmin is also on the list with a video about haters, trolls, and spammers. We recently did a video on 

Interestingly, there’s a video about color grading in Adobe Premiere Pro, a video editor. That's something we don't cover on the vidIQ channel, so YouTube doesn't always get it right when it comes to mixed audiences. And finally, another video we're happy to be connected with is fourth on the list: How to get 100 subscribers on YouTube.

But the next two are subscriber battles, which is cause for concern. We’ve tested the topic on the vidIQ channel with great success, gaining tons of subscribers from each video. However, they aren't necessarily what we cover every single day. Instead, we're about YouTube education and growth.

If YouTube suggests this content to our audience, they may be left a little disappointed. Everything else on the list looks pretty good, though. If anything, this panel confirms we should do more videos about how to get a certain number of subscribers, how to grow your channel, how to get 100 subscribers every day, and how to get more views.

Can you see the value of this panel and its data? We've been able to learn so much about our YouTube channel in two minutes.

How to Track YouTube Channels That Share Your Audience

With the new ‘audience watched’ panel, YouTube empowers creators to research the targeted and mixed audiences on their channel. But, guess what? vidIQ has a tool to help you track the audiences you share with other creators.

As mentioned earlier, you can click on any of the videos in this audience watch panel to jump straight to the watch page for that video. Well, you can also do this from our channel audit tool. Once you’re on the watch page, next to the likes and dislikes, you'll see a vidIQ button that looks like this:

Next, click the button to reveal an ‘Add competitor’ menu option. Once you select that, you can add the channel of the video you’re currently watching to your competitor list. That allows you to track their most successful videos via views per hour.

If you share an audience as YouTube already suggests, it's likely you can make similar content. It's more likely to be suggested by YouTube and most importantly, watched and enjoyed by more viewers within that audience.

So, what does your audience think your YouTube channel is about? If you’re not sure, all you have to do is follow the data.

If you're new to vidIQ, our creator-obsessed goal is to educate you on your YouTube journey. We help you 

 and create an outstanding career on YouTube, one you can be proud of. For competitor research tools, video analysis, and helpful channel audits, 

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

YouTube recently released a new audience data tool. If you’re not sure who your audience is or how they behave, let’s explore all the ways it could get you more views.

How to Get More Views from YouTube’s Audience Data Tool

Convincing viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel may be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It takes time and effort to create unwavering loyalty among viewers, so of course, no one gains millions of subscribers overnight. 

In fact, before that happens, you may ask viewers to ‘like, comment, and subscribe’ hundreds of times.

But once you get the number you’re looking for - several hundred, a thousand, or even hundreds of thousands - that’s going to feel amazing. All the hard work of starting a channel, sticking to a niche, and uploading consistently will finally be justified.

And guess what? Nothing will bring you down - not the army of bots spamming your videos with sub4sub comments, not even the discrepancy between 

. Nothing will steal your joy except maybe, quite possibly, seeing a number like this on your channel analytics dashboard:

By the way, that’s how many subscribers our YouTube channel, 

, has lost since joining the platform: 349,032.

But why does this happen? How can any creator lose so many subscribers on a free platform?

If you’re experiencing the same thing, don’t worry. 

The relationship between creators and viewers is just like any other. It goes through changes, seasons of uncertainty, and sometimes it ends altogether. To prepare yourself for the impact of losing fans, watch our “Why Am I Losing Subscribers” video on YouTube:

As long as you’re gaining more subscribers than you’re losing, that’s a win. But if you need more proof, here are six reasons why all YouTube creators lose subscribers at some point:

7 Reasons Why Your YouTube Channel is Losing Views (And How To Fix It)

1. You’ll Lose Subscribers when YouTube Deletes Fraudulent Accounts

It’s true. Now and then, YouTube audits your list of subscribers to track down annoying bots and spam accounts. This process includes some form of account verification, and if YouTube detects any suspicious activity, it may remove those accounts from your subscriber list or the platform altogether.

In the past, YouTube performed these audits three or four times a year, but the process is more nuanced today. Instead of waiting for bot and spam accounts to pile up through the year, YouTube audits accounts in real-time -  or at least within 24 to 48 hours of you gaining new subscribers. That lets the platform remove illicit users as soon as they subscribe.

 from your channel, just know this: There's nothing to worry about, and it’s not your fault. Your subscriber count may decrease, but that just means your channel - and all of YouTube - is becoming a better place for viewers and creators alike. Here's some info on that topic:

2. Viewer Fatigue Can Make Fans Unsubscribe

Have you ever stopped watching your favorite YouTube channels for no particular reason, even though you enjoy the content?

If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of people experience viewer fatigue on YouTube, and if that feeling becomes too heavy, unsubscribing is just one way for viewers to reclaim their headspace.

Rob Wilson, our YouTuber in residence here at vidIQ, found himself in that exact predicament. In 2015, he fell in love with the work of filmmaker and storyteller 

. Around 7 p.m. each night, he’d watch his daily vlogs after downing a cup of tea, which became his ritual for 18 months.

But one day, Casey decided he wouldn't upload daily vlogs anymore and took a break from YouTube. When he returned to the platform, he also decided to post non-vlog content every few days. All of that led to Rob watching less of Casey’s videos over time.

The interesting thing though, is that Rob maintained his subscription to Casey’s channel for quite a while. Only after seeing Casey’s videos constantly pop up, and realizing he was never going to watch them, did Rob finally hit unsubscribe.

3. Viewers Unsubscribe When They Outgrow Your Channel

 and watch our videos regularly, you know our value proposition to you. As you embark on the journey of mastering YouTube, we educate you on how to overcome the challenges of being a creator. 

But does that mean we're going to educate you from zero subscribers to 100 million subscribers? Probably not.

It's not feasible to target every YouTuber - the beginners, the intermediate, the advanced - so we speak to one particular audience. Right now, those viewers have channels with less than 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of Watch Time. Basically, they’re working toward 

When you reach 50,000 subscribers and have already monetized your channel, your relationship with us could change. If we're honest, maybe the vidIQ channel is no longer for you when you’ve secured huge brand deals and sponsorships.

Always remember that your viewers are on a journey of self-discovery. They may outgrow your channel as their interests change, and that’s OK. There are more than 2 billion monthly users discovering new things on YouTube, and many of them will fall in love with your past, present, and future content.

4. Viewers Unsubscribe When You Don’t Post Evergreen Content

As a creator, you should understand the potential shelf life of the topics you cover. 

For example, if you started a YouTube channel about fidget spinners back in 2016, where would you be now? Fidget spinners are still cool, but nobody's watching videos about them. And what about the cultural phenomenon that was “Game of Thrones"? The television series was popular on YouTube for 10 years, but unfortunately, the show ended.

I think ASMR is a good topic to evaluate too. It had phenomenal growth in the last five years, and prior to that, many of us didn't know what that abbreviation meant. Now it seems to be an ever-expanding universe with no end in sight. However, as a creator, you can’t be blindsided by its current popularity. There has to be an inflection point somewhere in the future where the topic plateaus or dips in popularity.

If there’s a trend you want to cover on YouTube, act fast, and enjoy the extra views and subscribers you may receive. Just keep in mind the probability of your audience unsubscribing when the trend inevitably dies.

5. YouTube is Competitive. Viewers May Unsubscribe to Watch a Better Channel

This is a bold statement, but probably true nonetheless: If we uploaded videos about YouTube growth education 10 years ago, we’d have millions of subscribers right now. That's because a decade ago, there were fewer YouTube education channels to compete with.

Because there are so many good channels today, including our own, the views and exposure in this niche are divided amongst several creators. So here’s a reminder for every YouTuber: 

If you stand still, never seeking to improve your channel, someone better is going to take your audience.

It wasn't always this way. A decade ago, individual creators making content from their bedrooms dominated YouTube. But these days, YouTube is filled with traditional media companies who’ve taken the platform seriously, or new groups creating phenomenal channels run by skilled production teams. The world is realizing the power of video, so it's becoming increasingly difficult for individual creators to dominate YouTube. 

It's possible, of course. Just extremely challenging.

To make sure your audience grows with you, do everything in your power to become a better content creator with each upload.

6. Viewers Unsubscribe When You Don’t Stick to One Niche

And now, let's talk about the one thing we always cover: the focus of your YouTube channel.

To start, here’s a scenario among viewers and creators that happens repeatedly. After watching one of your videos, new viewers will subscribe to your channel under the assumption that the video they watched reflects your entire channel. 

But upon diving deeper, those viewers may realize your channel is all over the place. They may find gaming content, sports commentary, DIY challenges, and crafting videos during a five-minute scan. All those unrelated topics make it hard to know what a channel is really about.

To keep your audience, don't confuse them by uploading videos about many different topics. 

Instead, try to stick to your channel’s niche. It’s OK to branch out a bit and even ride the wave of certain trends, but you should only do that when they align with your channel’s focus. We did a video on the simple mistakes creators often make on YouTube that includes advice on niching down on your content:

So, losing subscribers is a natural part of the YouTube journey. I would estimate that channels with a million subscribers have lost 100,000 along the way - and I'm probably being generous with that number. 

Your current subscriber count is the number to pay attention to

. If it keeps decreasing overall, analyze your YouTube data to see what’s going wrong and get yourself back on track.

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Are you slowly losing subscribers on your YouTube channel? Here’s why.

6 Honest Reasons You Might Be Losing YouTube Subscribers

Phone numbers, passers-by, and license plate numbers are common things that often end up in YouTube video footage. But according to YouTube’s 

, certain types of sensitive information - even if recorded by mistake - are never OK to post on the platform.

If you need a reliable way to clear your video of anything that really shouldn't be there, YouTube is on top of the problem. 

To reduce the risk of identity theft and violation, the platform has created a tool for blurring objects and faces in creators’ videos. 

Best of all, the tool is free to use and easy to find in the YouTube Studio.

If you haven’t tried YouTube’s blur feature just yet, here’s everything you need to know to get started.

In the top right corner of YouTube, click on your profile icon and go to the YouTube Studio.

’. This will show you all of the uploaded content on your channel.

Mouse over the video you want to edit, then click the pencil icon to jump into that video.

The next thing you’ll see is a page titled ‘

’. On this screen, find the left navigation menu and click ‘

When the next page loads, you’ll see a video timeline. Go directly below this editor and click the link that says ‘

’. You should see two menu options appear, one to create a face blur and another for custom blurring.

For real-time guidance, watch our video tutorial on how to find this section of the YouTube Studio.

If you want to blur anything other than a face, your best option is to use YouTube’s custom blur tool. This feature allows you to place circular or rectangular blurs over different objects in a video.

A few weeks ago, we used the custom blur tool to hide an object in a vidIQ video. Rob, our YouTuber-in-residence recorded himself waving a red ‘subscribe’ button, and we were able to make it disappear - even with all those jerky movements.

This worked because YouTube lets you track the objects you’ve chosen to blur. All you have to do is find the Blur Behavior section on the video editor page and select ‘

’. If you don’t need to blur a moving object, select ‘

’ to keep everything in place. You can see both options in the screenshot below:

Once you make your selection, you can also reposition or resize your blur shape. To make Rob’s subscribe button disappear, we dragged a corner of the blur box, which is shown in the screenshot above, until it was big enough to hide everything underneath it.

Lastly, you can determine when a blur appears in your video. To do this, go to the video timeline and drag the marker to any point. Then navigate upward and use the time indexes to define the duration of your blur, as shown below:

The first time you try to blur a face, YouTube’s editor will spend a couple of minutes detecting all the faces in your video. When it does, you can easily select the ones you want to blur, as shown below:

Luckily, that’s the only piece of new information when it comes to blurring a face. If you want to reposition the blur, track it to a moving face, or make it appear at a certain timestamp, you can repeat the steps we’ve already outlined in the custom blur section.

As you experiment with these blur tools, you may notice that they sometimes behave strangely. That doesn't take away from their helpfulness or convenience, but these small hiccups are good to know about:

The tracking feature doesn't look perfect when you're editing, but it improves a lot when the video is fully processed.

It can take a few hours for edits to stick. In the meantime, viewers will be able to see the original, unblurred video, if it's public.

Sometimes the tool leaves faces unblurred for a fraction of a second, which can be frustrating.

We also noticed an odd error while editing blur timestamps. The message ‘Blur region must contain at least one checkpoint’ kept appearing in the editor. We’re not sure what that’s about, but we fixed it by starting over until the error disappeared.

As helpful as YouTube’s blur tool can be, most creators probably use off-platform software to blur faces and objects. Of course, not every video editor has that kind of technology. And to be fair, YouTube does a good job of blurring and tracking objects with its free tool.

However, if the tool doesn’t perform as promised, go back a few steps to catch the root of the problem. As frustrating as that sounds, it’s a better alternative than exposing someone’s identity or information (or your own) without permission.

Want To Learn More YouTube Tips and Tricks?

Have you ever needed to blur a face or a logo in one of your YouTube videos? Here's a quick and easy guide on how to do just that in YouTube Studio

How to Blur Anything You Need to in Your YouTube Video

Have you ever wondered what happens to the analytics on your video in its first 12 hours on YouTube? Well, wonder no more! To understand certain traffic source trends, we recorded a video timelapse to see exactly what happens. If you have the time, watch the below YouTube Short a couple of times to catch all the percentages and traffic sources:

Did you see anything interesting? Here are three things we noticed:

In the first few hours, notifications from your subscribers are king

. They made up 60% of our initial views, so be sure to make content your audience wants to watch.

After your video gets those early notification views, another traffic source comes into play: 

 An increase here means YouTube is testing your content in a more random fashion to see if people like it.

If a video is successful as browseable content, YouTube might start promoting it as 

vidIQ is a YouTube education channel, so we aim to create informative, searchable content. Within 12 hours, the video we studied for this timelapse was already being 

 - and that’s exactly how we planned it!

You can do the same thing. Keep reading our posts about how to succeed on YouTube and you’ll be one step closer to making it happen.

Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps today.

. Learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

Do you know what actually happens in the 12 hours after you publish to YouTube? We recorded the live analytics of a video to discover three keys to snagging more views.

What Happens When You Publish a YouTube Video? [Timelapse]

At vidIQ, we get asked the same question from new creators all the time: 

How can I get more views and grow my channel? YouTube is so competitive!

You probably weren’t expecting this answer, but we’ve got to say it: 

YouTube Shorts may be the key to getting discovered on the platform.

If you’re unfamiliar with the new feature, it’s basically YouTube’s way of entering the short video universe. The platform has created an in-app Shorts camera, where creators can record and upload short, vertical videos.

You can access this feature right now if you live in India, as that’s where YouTube is testing the Shorts camera. For everyone else, posting a general YouTube Short requires three simple steps:

Record a vertical video under 60 seconds.

Add the hashtag #Shorts to your video’s description or title.

Plenty of YouTubers have already published these micro-videos, and we’ve noticed a 

. A common scenario is witnessing a previously stagnant video skyrocket to hundreds of views - a strong sign that YouTube is featuring it on the new 

. If you want to see what such a feat looks like, watch our latest video about YouTube Shorts:

Now that you have some background knowledge, it’s time to dig deeper. More views are what YouTube dreams are made of, so here’s how to get them with YouTube Shorts.

Small Channels Are Getting More Views With YouTube Shorts

As a creator, it’s important to boldly test new strategies on your channel. After all, you never know what positive discoveries you could make - whether that’s a gateway to more views, subscribers, or both.

 is a good example of this. A few weeks ago, this was just another small gaming channel struggling to gain traction with long-form videos. That partially ended when they decided to test YouTube's short video format and earned thousands of views in the process. The screenshot below shows a bunch of successful videos highlighted in red, plus the low-performing ones this channel was previously uploading.

Of course, this isn’t all good news for 

. Unfortunately, they tried posting another short video that didn't perform as well as the others. After that, the channel returned to posting long-form content with equally disappointing results, but hey - that comes with the territory of testing new features.

 was definitely getting more views from YouTube Shorts, if only for a brief moment.

Are you a smaller YouTuber looking for your first big break? If so, give YouTube Shorts a try. Some creators are getting thousands, of views from testing the feature.

Posts Written By Lydia Sweatt

This Is How Long It Takes To Get Monetized on YouTube

How to Get More Views from YouTube’s Audience Data Tool

6 Honest Reasons You Might Be Losing YouTube Subscribers

How to Blur Anything You Need to in Your YouTube Video

What Happens When You Publish a YouTube Video? [Timelapse]

How To Get More Views as a Small YouTube Channel

Virtual Halloween 2020: Top Keywords on YouTube

How to Find the Right Time to Publish on YouTube

What is Cottagecore and Why is it Taking Over Social Video?

How Creators Can Get More Views With YouTube Shorts

How to Reach 1000 YouTube Subscribers with Gameplay Videos

How To Get a Custom URL For Your YouTube Channel