Introduction

YouTube cash cow channels or what others like to call them YouTube automation channels are a type of channels with the goal of making passive income. These channels are not just ordinary YouTube channels since the main focus of those channels is to produce high quality videos that gain attention and views. Those views then turn into money through a YouTube advertising program called Google Adsense.

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YouTube automation channels when done right can generate a lot of money. I personally have built up two YouTube cash cow channels with my business partners to show you what this business model can do and if this business model is legit or not. I’m not here to sell anything, I will show you exactly what tools we used to build up these channels and if this is even worth trying for an average individual who wants to earn passive income online.

Are YouTube Cash Cow Channels Legit?

People that are promoting this type of business model are either scamming you or showing you numbers that are too good to be true. YouTube cash cow channel is not a business model but a way of earning money online. Since YouTube is a platform from Google, you need to play by their rules which means that you don’t really have equity like you would have for example in building your own business with clients.

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This is something that not a lot of people will talk about but equity is something that’s very important. How easy is it for YouTube to shut down your channel? Very easy, it happened to me one time and I was terrified because all of my revenue went down the drain. I’m not here to scare you. I want to show you the reality of building and growing a YouTube channel. If you follow YouTube rules, your channel won’t be terminated but keep in mind that you must be very careful with the type of content that you want to produce.

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I still didn’t answer your question, are youtube cash cow channels legit? The answer is YES, they are. In fact this is one of the revenue sources that anyone can start with no money and with no experience. My business partners and I have built a channel to almost $10K a month recurring revenue in just 365 days. Yes, you’ve heard it right, in just 1 year. Now we are making well over 6 figures a year just from a single cash cow channel which is crazy to think about.

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If you’re curious about learning more about YouTube automation from someone that actually did it we have an interview that we did with Youri Van Hofwegen. He is a popular YouTuber and a youtube automation expert that is making $30,000 per month from several different YouTube channels which is CRAZY if you think about it. We went over everything from A-Z with him while he was visiting Croatia.

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How to Get Started?

Getting started is fairly easy, the only thing you need is a WI-FI, laptop and you’re good to go. Most people that promote YouTube automation complicate the whole thing which then provides beginners with a very difficult path not knowing where to even start. There are two types of channels on YouTube; Browse based channels and SEO based channels.

Most of you know who Mr.Beast is. His channel is a browse based channel. On the other hand we also have SEO based channels which not many people know but those channels make a lot of money as well.

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Let me explain the difference between a browse based channel and an SEO based channel and then based on that I will talk about my experience, what I did to grow the channel and how my business partners and I leveraged YouTube to grow rapidly and sustainably which is the most important factor.

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Browse Based Channel - This is a channel that focuses on viral video ideas, most of the time ideas are based around what’s currently trending and around what’s popular on YouTube.

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Channel Example - Mr.Beast

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Pros: You can get a lot of views at once but it’s very hard to produce these videos as they demand time, money and a lot of resources which can be hard to get especially for beginners.

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Cons: Since those videos tend to do very good short term this is a big problem. These videos fall off after some time and that’s why you would need to produce multiple different videos per week to get the ball rolling and start making money. Not only that but you would need to keep producing to make money. Whenever you’re not producing, you’re not making money because each video impacts your revenue drastically.

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SEO Based Channel - This is a channel that covers a specific type of videos which are called “tutorial” videos or “how to” videos. If you ever searched “how to fix a tv” or something similar, those are the types of videos that an SEO channel does.

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Channel Example - SimpleTutorials

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Pros: In the short term you will get less views but as time goes on your older videos will start performing better because people are searching for them in the YouTube search bar. These  channels tend to be safer especially if you produce evergreen content that will be relevant now and in 5-10 years as well which in most cases “tutorial” type videos are just that. The best part is that these videos can be short and the production on them doesn’t need to be anything fancy which makes the barrier to entry extremely low.

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Cons: You need to produce a lot of shorter straight to the point videos daily which can take a lot of time. At the beginning you also won’t be able to see any substantial results for at least 4-6 months.

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Now that you know all the types of channels that exist, this is a good starting point as a beginner. I personally decided to go with the SEO based channel because it’s a much more sustainable way of earning real “passive income” on YouTube. There are a lot of pros to running an SEO based channel, some of them are:

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Now that you know all the types of channels that exist, this is a good starting point as a beginner. I personally decided to go with the SEO based channel because it’s a much more sustainable way of earning real “passive income” on YouTube. There are a lot of pros to running an SEO based channel, some of them are:

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• Shorter videos (2-3 minutes each)
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• Very low production (viewers are oriented for you to solve their problem)
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• Thumbnails are all the same with different logos
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• Easier to produce multiple videos a day
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• Sustainable (in terms of views and income)
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• Anyone can get started and grow within 4-6 months
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• You don’t need any money just a WI-FI and a laptop

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So you might be thinking why are not many people running these channels already? The thing is that there are a ton of people running these channels already but no one from those people is actually talking about it. They just don’t want you to know. Although this type of approach is not being talked about since it’s not that popular, a lot of people are doing it. The fact that anyone can do this makes this a really great low barrier to entry “business model” if we can call it that.

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So you might be thinking why are not many people running these channels already? The thing is that there are a ton of people running these channels already but no one from those people is actually talking about it. They just don’t want you to know. Although this type of approach is not being talked about since it’s not that popular, a lot of people are doing it. The fact that anyone can do this makes this a really great low barrier to entry “business model” if we can call it that.

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YouTube Cash Cow Revenue Sources

Before showing you exactly how I grew two of our YouTube channels, I want to talk about the revenue sources from just a single channel. Most of our channels are making money directly from Google Adsense which is a really great source of income. This source of income depends on the CPM (cost per mille) - how much advertisers pay per 1,000 views. Now CPM is a good indicator how much a channel can earn but usually what you need to watch is RPM (revenue per mille) - how much revenue advertisers pay per 1,000 views. 

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RPM is basically what your revenue is per 1,000 views in a nutshell. So if your RPM is $13 then you will be earning $13 per 1,000 views. RPM is based on a lot of things so if you are recording a video about Facebook, Instagram or any social media videos that typically has around $1 RPM which is bad in my opinion because there are a lot better categories of videos that you can record. Some of the better videos are tech videos like website development, finance, ecommerce, anything B2B like SAAS platforms such Shopify, Monday.com, Trello or finance apps like Chase, Trading 212 or any other platform like that.
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So whenever you’re recording a next video think about how much advertisers will pay to show up on your video. Advertisers pay more on videos that are talking about tech stuff and finance stuff because that is a high bidding category on Google and YouTube. This is something that you should definitely consider when recording a video and publishing it to YouTube.

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Other revenue streams that we have from our YouTube channel is affiliate marketing which is making us quite a bit of revenue every single month. This is us promoting tech tools and platforms on our videos every single week. Next up we have brand deals and sponsorships. This isn’t something that we do very often however it’s something that comes here and there as brands or apps want to be shown on our videos. We charge anywhere from $200 per video to $400 per sponsored video.

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That in a nutshell is what you can expect in terms of the revenue sources from a single YouTube channel which is not too bad and it can definitely pile up over time into other revenue sources like blog, digital products, newsletter or something else. This totally depends on you and how far you want to take it.

YouTube Cash Cow 1 Year Results

Building up a YouTube automation channel is not an easy task to do. While it sounds like a great business to start, that's far from the truth. The truth is that it can feel discouraging especially when you’re starting out since there is no hope of you making money within 3-6 months at least. Essentially you need to stick to it for that period for it to work. In the above interview that we attached you can clearly see what’s needed in order to succeed with your YouTube automation channel.

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It takes time to build everything up but in the end it’s all worth it. So let’s stop beating around the bush and let me show you exactly how much we’ve earned from creating 5 videos a day for 1 year. Keep in mind those are very short videos (2-3 minutes) that are very easy to produce. If you’re wondering how many hours we’ve spent each day recording and editing, it would be around 2 hours approximately each and every day with no pause. In a period of 12 months we made:

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• $26,602.45 in ad revenue
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• $12,000 from affiliate marketing
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• $5,000 from brand partnerships and brand deals

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In that process we made well over 3000 videos since some days we did more than 5 videos a day which is a big number if you think about it. Right now we have around 250K views each month and around $2,200 each month from the YouTube side of things and around $4000+ from affiliate marketing since we are promoting a few marketing softwares.

While this all sounds fantastic, to be honest with you it was a very painful journey recording multiple different videos a day. I need to thank my business partner for sticking with me since he was the one editing all of these 2000 videos. Right now there are a lot more videos since we’ve passed the 1 year mark, however it’s crazy to think that we made it through with all of the hard work that we’ve put in.

If anyone asks me if it was worth it? I always say the same thing: heck yeah! We practically worked hard and had no days off for 1 year and now we have a cash machine quite literally that spits money every single day, week and month. Not only is this $2,200 monthly from a YouTube ad revenue but also $4000+ additionally from all sorts of affiliate programs and deals that we are promoting. This definitely isn’t a joke and it’s something that is replicable, that’s what I like the most about this model.

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While this model isn’t for everyone it’s definitely something to think about especially if you want to achieve financial freedom, time freedom or even just quit your job to get that additional $1000 per month with this approach. Anyone can go out there and achieve what we did or even just make $500 if that’s your goal. It just depends how bad you want it of course.

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Conclusion

Now that we’ve covered pretty much everything about YouTube automation and cash cow channels it’s time to wrap it up. This way of achieving passive income is totally doable with this approach and while it is an approach where you need consistency and patience it rewards you big time in the future. Just to motivate you a bit, we’ve had $50 in December of 2022. One year ahead we had a $3000 per month cash machine built up. All because we wanted to build a passive income business from zero.

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If you’re looking to start a YouTube cash cow channel or simply understand more about YouTube as a whole take a look at some of our other blog articles in that specific category to learn more about it. I hope you enjoyed me writing here about my journey as someone who has built a YouTube automation channel from the ground up. Keep pushing those limits and maybe you could be the one that will build a successful YouTube automation channel.