Have you wondered what you should be doing while you’re waiting to get monetized? A lot of work goes into creating a new YouTube channel and you don’t want to make no money at all. So, I’m going to show you how to monetize YouTube while you’re waiting.

I recently created another video all about how to get monetized. Here’s the link, if you want to watch it. After I created the video, I thought “that wasn’t very positive”. If you’re brand new, 5 months sounds like a long time to get monetized, let alone 2 years!

So, what can you do while you’re building your channel to make a little bit of income on the side and still keep creating those YouTube videos until you get monetized? I’m going to show you.

Ideas For Making Money With Your YouTube Channel

First, let’s look at some different channels. I’m going to show you how these channels might already be taking advantage of this or not. Let’s start with one of my favorite channels.

Think Media

Think Media has over a million subscribers. They talk a lot about different media equipment and things like that. And if you look underneath any one of their videos in the description, they will typically list a whole bunch of different equipment that they’re talking about.

Sometimes, they’ll just have a list of equipment. And, this list of equipment incorporates affiliate links. This is very easy to do.

The creators of Think Media will go to different companies and sign up as an affiliate. Then, when someone clicks on one of the links in the description below the video and buys that product, Think Media will get a commission.

This is an easy way that you can make some money with your own channel.

So, let’s think of some other channel ideas and see if the channels we find are monetizing and taking advantage of this or not.

How about “how to drive an ATV”? I actually looked up several different videos because I thought they could be promoting Honda or different types of ATVs. I know it can be done because I’ve seen people make lawn mower videos and realized that they’re an affiliate with the lawnmower company.

ATV Channel

Here’s a channel that was created by an ATV enthusiast. There are lots of videos with lots of views. And yes, they are monetized. But what about in the beginning? They could have been making money by promoting products through affiliate links.

Potty Training Your Dog

You might be thinking, how could you make money from a video that teaches you how to potty train your dog? Well, they could be talking about using potty pads or doggie pads.

When we look in the description, these YouTubers have links to courses but they aren’t promoting any physical products.

If this was your channel, you could be promoting different toys that are safe for dogs. Or, you could promote different brands of dog food. The possibilities are unlimited if your channel is about dogs or pets.

Where Can You Find Affiliate Products To Promote?

You’ve heard of Amazon, right? Well, you can promote any product on Amazon as an affiliate. Just look up Amazon Associate program and sign up. Honestly, you can set this up within 15 minutes,

Once you’re signed up, just look under “product links” and type in what you’re looking for.

So, if we search for puppy pads we can get a product link that’s now connected to our account. You can even shorten the link if you want to. Then, you put the link in your description. But, make sure that it relates to your video because YouTube doesn’t want you to put a bunch of links that have nothing to do with your video.

When someone clicks on your link, they’ll get taken to the product on Amazon. If they buy, you receive a commission. However, if the person decides not to buy the product you’re promoting but they buy something else, you’ll still receive a commission for that. In fact, everything that person buys within the next 24 hours will give you a commission.

And, Amazon has absolutely everything. That’s where I go to get my affiliate links when I’m not promoting recurring membership type products.

As you know, my channel is all about turning your passion into a profit. So, I talk a lot about how to build a YouTube channel and how to start affiliate and email marketing.

So, you might be thinking that there are not really products that I could promote from Amazon. But, think about it. If you’re brand new, you could start sharing books that you’ve been reading.

One of my favorite books is “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. Or, maybe I want to find some books about how to market digital products. I could even create a video review of the books I’m reading and sharing.

Just think about what you’re doing and what type of products could relate to that.

One More Channel Example

One more channel example I want to share with you is “how to use watercolors”. This video creator talks about a whole bunch of different products to do with using watercolors.

But, when we look in the description, only 1 of the products that he mentions in his list has an affiliate link.

He could easily have 8 different links for all the products on his list.

Another example would be Health and Beauty channels. There are a lot of videos about makeup and how to use it. Those channels could be promoting so many different products.

Using affiliate links allows you to make some extra money while you’re waiting for those 4000 watch hours to populate.

Of course, you don’t have to use just Amazon for your affiliate products. You can easily do a Google search for different products and see whether they have an affiliate program. Even Target and Walmart have affiliate programs.

Have a think about what products you could promote through your channel right now. Feel free to share some ideas with us in the comments below. Maybe the rest of us can help by adding some extra ideas.

I do hope this was helpful and has started you thinking about all the ways you can make extra money with your YouTube channel.

You’ve Got This!