19:53Jade Beason · Tutorial
The Ultimate Guide to Earning an Income on YouTube
A 20-minute masterclass on YouTube Partner Program 2026: two tiers, rejected ad slots, RPM secrets, and four strategies to hit the thresholds.
June 19thRead if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You rely on YouTube for audience growth or business revenue and need to adapt your content packaging to algorithmic changes.
- You want to understand how full-video A/B testing and dynamic personalized thumbnails differ from traditional title/thumbnail split tests.
- You negotiate brand sponsorships and want to capitalize on retroactively swapping dynamic sponsor segments across your older catalog.
SKIP IF…
- You do not produce long-form or short-form video on YouTube.
- You are looking for general video production equipment reviews rather than platform growth and monetization mechanics.
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00:00 – 00:44
01 · Introduction: Made on YouTube 2026 Overview
The creator opens with a media scrum visual gag and outlines that Made on YouTube 2026 introduced critical changes that must be broken down by creator utility.
00:44 – 02:11
02 · Growth: Custom Feeds & Topic Pillars
Covers Custom Feeds, explaining why audiences will curate separate niche homepages and why creators need tightly defined topical pillars to get surfaced.
02:11 – 03:21
03 · Growth: AI Search Timestamp Dropping
Breaks down deep AI Search where natural-language prompts jump users straight to the timestamp answering their query, validating chapter use over watch-time fear.
03:21 – 04:25
04 · Growth: Shorts Series & Living Room Features
Explains serialized Shorts playlists for episodic bingeing, alongside television support for community posts and image carousels.
04:25 – 05:34
05 · Production: Full Video A/B Testing
Analyzes the rollout of multi-cut video A/B testing, recommending creators focus their split-test efforts specifically on opening hooks rather than subtle body edits.
05:34 – 06:31
06 · Production: Dynamic Thumbnails Strategy
Reveals personalized thumbnail delivery and argues creators must now design three radically different aesthetic angles rather than testing small single-variable tweaks.
06:31 – 08:03
07 · Production: Ask Studio & Analytics Outliers
Covers draft reviews through Ask Studio, catalog title/thumbnail refresh suggestions, outlier video identification in analytics, and voice-prompt Shorts editing.
08:03 – 09:00
08 · Community: Members-Only Spaces & TV Comments
Details VIP member-only community feeds and television voice-dictation comments via TV remotes, emphasizing prompt preparation to spur engagement.
09:00 – 10:53
09 · Community: Hype Jewels & AI Likeness Protection
Examines monetization leaderboards via Jewels for sub-500k channels, viewer education requirements, and the synthetic face/voice likeness monitoring tool.
10:53 – 12:23
10 · Monetization: Media Kits & Brand Codes
Walks through native Creator Partnerships in YouTube Studio, including dynamic automated media kits, rate preferences, and brand performance verification codes.
12:23 – 14:23
11 · Monetization: Dynamic Brand Segments in Back Catalogs
Explains how dynamic sponsor slot insertion allows creators to swap ads across 20 past videos, requiring a fundamental shift toward term-limited sponsorship contracts.
14:23 – 15:25
12 · Monetization: YouTube Shopping & Final Thoughts
Covers the global expansion of YouTube Shopping affiliate shelves across 35 countries and delivers a closing call to action.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Custom Feeds allow viewers to save keyword-based homepages (e.g., true crime podcasts), rewarding channels with tight, dedicated content pillars over broad generalists.
- YouTube's AI Search drops users directly into the exact second of a video that answers their complex conversational prompt, functioning like automated chapter indexing.
- Video A/B testing introduces full edit split-testing on YouTube, making hook testing the primary variable to test before adjusting structural pacing.
- Dynamic thumbnails let creators upload three distinct thumbnail designs that YouTube serves dynamically based on individual viewer behavioral preferences rather than picking a single winner.
- Dynamic thumbnail strategy requires three fundamentally different concepts (e.g., text-heavy vs. minimalist photo vs. bold graphic) rather than minor single-element tweaks.
- Ask Studio acts as an internal production assistant, giving AI critiques on unlisted video drafts, titles, and packaging before public release.
- Analytics now surfaces Outlier Content automatically, flagging videos that dramatically outperform channel baselines so creators can duplicate the format.
- Television viewing expands into community engagement with voice-to-text comment dictation via remotes and community photo/carousel rendering on large screens.
- Channels with under 500,000 subscribers can receive viewer-purchased Jewels to push their videos up the localized Hype leaderboard.
- AI Likeness Detection alerts creators when unauthorized AI clones of their face or voice are uploaded to YouTube, streamlining DMCA and privacy takedowns.
- Native Media Kits within YouTube Studio pull real-time channel performance and demographic metrics automatically, removing the need for manual PDF updates.
- Brand Performance Codes allow sponsors to verify video analytics directly inside YouTube without creators sending manual dashboard screenshots.
- Dynamic Brand Segments permit creators to replace or insert sponsored integration slots across up to 20 back-catalog videos at once.
- Dynamic sponsor swapping requires creators to transition standard flat-rate contracts from lifetime permanent placements into time-stamped licensing windows (e.g., 6 to 24 months).
- YouTube Shopping expands affiliate integration to 35 countries, allowing creators to tag on-screen affiliate shelves directly beneath videos.
Align your content packaging, production workflows, and contracts with YouTube's automated systems
OPERATIONAL PLAYBOOK
The platform's 2026 toolset rewards creators who systematize hyper-specific topic tagging, multi-variant visual testing, and time-stamped sponsorship contracts.
02Growth: Custom Feeds & Topic Pillars
- Maintain narrow, recurring content pillars so your videos populate users' saved custom topic feeds.
03Growth: AI Search Timestamp Dropping
- Structure videos with clear, verbal answers and chapter markers to capture AI search timestamp referrals.
04Growth: Shorts Series & Living Room Features
- Group related short-form clips into serialized numbered playlists to build episodic binge viewing.
05Production: Full Video A/B Testing
- Prioritize testing alternative intro hooks first when using video A/B testing before experimenting with full structural cuts.
06Production: Dynamic Thumbnails Strategy
- Design three fundamentally distinct visual concepts for dynamic thumbnails rather than minor text variations.
07Production: Ask Studio & Analytics Outliers
- Use Ask Studio to identify stagnant back-catalog titles and examine outlier video metrics to replicate top formats.
08Community: Members-Only Spaces & TV Comments
- Schedule daily check-ins and conversation prompts for members-only tabs, and remind TV viewers to use voice comments.
09Community: Hype Jewels & AI Likeness Protection
- Explicitly inform viewers about Hype Jewels if you have under 500,000 subscribers, and monitor AI likeness alerts.
10Monetization: Media Kits & Brand Codes
- Enable your dynamic YouTube Media Kit and distribute Brand Codes to verify metrics without manual screenshotting.
11Monetization: Dynamic Brand Segments in Back Catalogs
- Renegotiate sponsor contracts with 6-to-24 month expiration terms to resell legacy video inventory using dynamic sponsor swapping.
12Monetization: YouTube Shopping & Final Thoughts
- Integrate YouTube Shopping affiliate product shelves early as YouTube aggressively prioritizes in-platform e-commerce.
Things they pointed at.
00:24productMade on YouTube 2026
08:51linkMade on YouTube blog post
11:50toolYouTube Studio
Lines you could clip.
01:38
“it's almost like custom algorithm feeds”
04:48
“This is like the advanced version of trial reels.”
06:08
“you need to be creating three completely different thumbnails.”
13:54
“It unlocks your entire back catalogue of content and makes it available for new sponsorships”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
metaphoranalogy
Now I know I like to be dramatic but these are genuinely the biggest changes that I've seen happen to YouTube in years and I should know I've been studying the platform for the last six years. YouTube just announced a bunch of new features, you've probably heard a few people talk about them but let me ask you something, have they broken down how you should be using each of these features to get ahead?
No? Well don't worry you're in the right place, that's exactly what I'm going to be doing today so stick with me and let's talk about the new YouTube. Alright so Made on YouTube 2026 happened recently and if you didn't know this is the huge event they do every single year where they announced all of the new features coming to the platform.
Now this year there are so many features, so many updates that I had to group them because there are that many. We're going to get into every single one of them and I'm going to make sure you have a tangible piece of advice on how you can use them to get ahead as a YouTuber. Kicking off with features that will help you grow.
Now the first thing you need to know here is that the way that your audience will find your content is changing. One of the updates that are changing how people find your content is called custom feeds. This essentially allows your audience to build their own homepage and to say it for later so instead of your audience opening up youtube and relying on what the algorithm has served them they can now build separate home pages based on specific interests for example true crime podcast they could type that in save it as a home page and refer back to that later it's almost like now the creators who are going to benefit from this update the most are the ones who have really core content pillars i have not spoken about content pillars in a long time this was like a real throwback but just stick with me people who have a handful of topics or pillars or buckets whatever you want to call it for their channel that they rotate around they're the ones who are going to see the most value from this because they're the ones who will be creating individual pieces of content that are so specifically about one thing that increases the chances of that appearing when their audience are creating these custom feeds for example if someone in my audience was like joe what i want to create a custom feed that's just going to teach me how i can grow on substack because i've now started creating content that is just about substack there's a big chance that my content will appear in that custom feed my general videos that are more
about social media as a whole probably won't appear in that custom feed. Do you see what I mean? So it's where specificity will get really important.
This doesn't mean you should niche down moving forward. It does just mean that you wanna have a few videos in your content strategy that are highly specific and really just about the one topic. The next thing that's impacting the way people will find your content is AI search.
So this one actually blew my mind. It's essentially a feature that allows people to ask a question and YouTube will go through all of the potential answers to that question and drop that viewer in the video that answers the question the best. If someone said, tell me about the new AI search feature on YouTube, YouTube might find my video in this explanation to be worthy, fingers crossed, and drop that person immediately at this moment.
in this video. So this is a very advanced, somewhat futuristic way of searching for content. Now I know what you're thinking, oh my god Jade is that going to mean that people aren't going to watch my whole video?
I hate to break it to you but they probably weren't doing that anyway. It's the same argument about whether you can use those chapters in your videos, you know the things when you highlight over your video and you can see the different sections. It's the same argument there where some people say don't use them because it makes people skip through their content.
I have always said that you should use them because you want people to find the parts of the video that are most relevant to them as easy as possible because if they can't find those parts then they won't watch any of your content right so people skipping part of your video and being dropped in the part that matters to them is actually going to leave a far better impression on them than if they had to search through a bunch of videos to try and find something vaguely relevant right so overall i think this would be a good thing for us they are also releasing short series which will allow you to organize your shorts as part of a series did i just explain that by using the same words yes i did it is very similar to what you already have on tiktok and instagram where you can basically group a bunch of your shorts so that they feed into one after the other so people can watch them like they would a tv show speaking of tv and speaking of shorts whilst you can already view your shorts feed in your tv they are now making it possible for you to see posts and carousels on your tv as well so if you didn't know already if you use your community tab you can upload photos polls carousels kind of similar to what you can do on other platforms you can do that on your youtube community tab they're now going to be pulling through those photos and carousels so you can see them on tv as well which just provides a great opportunity for people to engage with you i don't necessarily think that type of content is going to massively perform because when you
watch TV you're expecting to watch a video. but that's just my perspective let's see I will trial it and I'll let you know if this becomes this huge growth hack the short series though is a great growth hack because it encourages people to check back into your content to see when the second episode has dropped so definitely use that one if you're a big shorts creator all right the next group of updates we're calling YouTube your new producer these are actually the ones that I think I'm most excited about because these are like quite game -changing ones they use the word innovation a lot and made on YouTube this year and I just think yeah I can see that like I can see that you sat down and had a and said this year is all about innovation and you're not delivered.
First up, get ready, video A -B testing. Yes. You'll soon be able to test different cuts of your video to see which performs best, which means testing hooks, testing structures, like testing entire videos to see which changes make the biggest difference in its performance.
This is huge. This is like the advanced version of trial reels. You know, on Instagram where you can upload multiple versions of the same post before it goes to your audience, you can test to see how the broader world would respond to it.
This is like YouTube's version of it. And it has so much potential in terms of how you should use this. I personally think you should be testing the hook.
first before you start testing other parts of your video. It's the most important part of your video if you don't nail it then people don't watch the rest of it so that's what I recommend you test. It is also worth noting and hopefully goes without saying all these features will be released at different times depending on your location and also if you're part of any like insider program with YouTube.
I'll put a link to the Made on YouTube blog post below so you can find out more information. Next up dynamic thumbnails. literally gives me like tingles this will allow you to upload up to three thumbnails and youtube will show the best thumbnail for that particular viewer so you know how you can already test thumbnails we're not talking about that we're saying that person a who really responds to bright bold colors is going to get the thumbnail with bright bold colors whereas person b who loves to see some explanation text on their thumbnail is going to get the thumbnail with a bunch of explanation text on it So to use this and listen up, because this is not advice I've ever given before, you need to be creating three completely different thumbnails.
Usually when I'm talking about using A -B testing, I'm like only change one thing at a time. And then over time you can learn what works and what doesn't work. That's not what I'm saying for this.
For this, you need it to be completely different so that it appeals to completely different groups of people. So some people will prefer thumbnails that are heavily visual and really shocking in that way. Whereas others will prefer thumbnails that are really stylized.
Like that's the kind of differences that you want to be making and paying attention to. Next up, Arc Studio is... coming for the role of producers because you will soon be able to ask arc studio for feedback on a draft video before you publish it so you can say hey can you just take a quick look at my thumbnails and my title and everything else and like what do you think do you think my audience will like it and it will be able to give you feedback which is wild you'll also be able to ask arc studio should i just be saying arc studio you'll also be able to arc studio sure um if it can spot any older videos that could perform well if you refresh the title and thumbnail which is actually really interesting because this is a manual thing that i used to do at the end of every single year is go through my previous year's content and be like okay should i be updating the thumbnails or anything to see if this will continue to perform in the next year but this is basically a way to do it that's backed up by data because arc studio uses your own youtube data to inform its responses your analytics will also be getting a revamp so a new feature they're going to be adding is outlier videos so these are those videos that are performing so much
better than the rest of your channel and i always talk about how important it is to identify those so that you can recreate them push them further extend its distribution onto other social media platforms the list goes on there is going to be a feature in your analytics that will make it easier for you to do that and there will be a feature that makes it easier for you to edit your shorts by using like conversational prompts so basically you'll be able to talk to youtube and say hey trim the pauses in this video cut to the beat etc i'm not that wild about that update but maybe that's because i don't edit a lot of my content anymore i have to be quite self -aware so actually i take that back that's a really big deal and it's going to be very useful for a lot of people we are about to have a bunch of updates that will make it easier for us to talk to our fans if that if we call our audience fans i don't know starting with member only communities so if you have a paid channel membership you'll soon be able to have an area that's just for the people who pay so they'll be able to chat with you leave comments etc and it will be in a small private place which will make it easier for you to respond to them when it comes to how to use this it really is just for people who already have a paid membership on youtube or a
think about doing in the future if that's you then my biggest advice is to utilize it to its full extent so make sure your audience know that it exists remember you're going to know it exists because you watch videos like this but your audience might not do that so make sure they know and encourage them to participate set a reminder on your calendar every day every other day to check in so that you don't miss anyone's comments and so that you're really driving an engaged community once i get one step further write down a bunch of prompts so if you're ever thinking oh my god how do i get more people to engage in this space write down a bunch of prompts that are based on what you think your audience would respond to have those ready and just drop them in there every now and again to really spark some conversation next up people will soon be able to leave comments on your tv by speaking to their remote this one's got over my head a little bit because i'm like what can everyone speak to their remote is that just something that i've not been doing apparently everyone can speak into their remote and when they do they'll be able to transcribe their comments and leave comments easily when they're viewing content on tv this update does not surprise me because so many people watch youtube on tv now youtube knows that they're pushing it quite heavily and part of that push needs to involve them making it easier for people to get comments and interactions when they're watching on tv versus desktop or mobile and this is clearly a big step in that direction in terms of how to use this to get ahead if you are saying
call to actions in your videos like let me know in the comments which is something that I do very often I'm pretty sure I did in this video if you're leaving call to actions like that you might want to add in a line that says like if you're watching on your telly you can just speak your comment into your remote or maybe something that sounds a bit more official than that they've also added something new to hype now if you've not been watching my videos for a while then you won't know what hype is but at least now you've learned your lesson to watch all the content that I share Hype is basically this function that they released around a year ago now where people can hype, which is like clicking the hype button, smaller channels.
And that gives that channel a bigger chance of reaching more people and going up on the hype leaderboard. It's a way for viewers to help smaller channels grow. What they've now made possible is for viewers to purchase jewels for channels with under 500 ,000 subscribers, which is technically me.
I'm not going to ask you to buy a jewel though. Please don't do that. Keep your money.
But for other channels that you might wanna do that for, you can purchase a jewel and it will push that video up the hype leaderboard, which will in turn mean that that channel gets more views, gets more exposure and hopefully grows quicker. So from a creator's perspective, if you are under 500K and you wanna make the most out of hype and the jewels feature, you need to be making it clear that that is something that's available.
That's actually the tip for a lot of these here is to remember that your audience don't naturally know about these features, especially when they're changing so quickly. You need to be the one to effectively communicate this to them so that they're able to purchase. you a jewel and help you get up that leaderboard last for this section but not overall because there's more to come youtube have released a tool that will help you detect and monitor your likeness which personally is one that i'm very excited about because this is something that i sometimes get worried about what we're referring to here is basically when someone can use ai to copy your face so they can create like an ai version of you or an ai version of your voice youtube is releasing a tool that will make it easier for you to find when someone is doing that which is The first step, right?
Once you find them, you can report them and hopefully get their content taken down. Right, so the last section. is all about the money of course you know I keep the best bits for last as a thank you for watching the video.
First up is creator partnerships you've probably heard me talk about this before it's a new platform that's integrated into YouTube that makes it easier for creators to find brand partners and for brands to find creators. Now to make the most of this you want to log into a YouTube studio and click on earn then you want to click on the partnerships tab and you want to make sure you have selected to have your media kit connected this basically creates a media kit that sits within YouTube that uses your own data so you don't need to update it because YouTube is updating it in the background another thing that i want you to do that i have not actually done yet is to set your preferences so i don't predetermine my rates because they are going to change depending on what i'm creating you don't have to copy me but i kind of think that you should what i do think you should set up though is your business contact email you can set this up and then you'll get emails when a brand wants to work with you and if you're managed then there's even an option for you to add in your manager's email address which i think is pretty useful as well speaking of brand partnerships this is a somewhat boring but useful update you can now send codes to your brand partners that allow them to see
how your video performed. So a lot of the time when you work with a brand, when you're done, they'll be like, send me screenshots of how it worked, which honestly isn't the most laboursome thing in the world. Like it's totally fine.
But if you use this code, it will just make that process a lot easier. And then also from a brand's perspective, they know that the data they're looking at is actually accurate. Another brand partnership tool that they're releasing is the ability to ask studio.
We're just going to run with that way of saying ask studio for an hour. Is the ability to ask studio for help with your brand briefs. You'll basically be able to use it to respond to briefs.
by... extracting and tailoring specific data to share with brands to increase the chances of them wanting to work with you which sounds pretty cool. Another update they've actually been talking about for a while and I know I've mentioned it on my channel before but it seems like it's finally coming and this one is pretty disruptive in terms of how things usually work in this industry and that is dynamic brand segments.
This will allow you to add or swap a sponsor slot in your previous videos. So videos have already gone live, maybe went live a few years ago, you can go back and swap out the sponsored segment for a new one and you can do this for up to 20 videos at a time the reason why this is so significant is because up until now how most youtubers have been doing brand deals is they'll say okay i'm going to send you this two minute slot in this video i'm going to share it on my youtube channel and your ad sponsorship will live in that video for as long as that video is on my channel which in some cases you can remove the video later on in your contract but in other cases you just have to keep that video up for as long as you have a youtube channel right this is putting a time stamp on that which means really moving forward the way you negotiate your youtube sponsorship should change we should now be adding in a part of our contract what says your sponsored slot will remain in this video for six months for a year for two years right and after that date we are allowed to swap out that sponsored segment for another brand sponsored segment it of content and makes it available for new sponsorships huge and with this one in terms of using it to get ahead it's a little bit complex if you have management flag this to them they should already know but flag this to them and start talking about how you're going to change your contracts to reflect this but also how can
you sell your back catalogue of sponsored slots? Like what can you do there as well? All right we're almost there guys.
YouTube shopping has landed in the UK and in the US but they've extended this to 35 different countries. This is basically YouTube's answer to TikTok shop. It allows you to link different products and they appear on a shopping shelf in your videos and earn commission from the products that you are linking.
Now specific markets only have access to specific affiliate catalogues and yada yada. Check out the link below if you want to find out information specific to your location but the point is they are rolling this out.
They are trying to become like an e -commerce destination. This is a huge focus for them. So as always, when I'm giving you the insider track and telling you that YouTube is focusing on something, that is your sign to use that feature.
Okay, we're at the end. I don't know why I feel surprised. How incredible.
So many updates. As always, guys, you need to tell me what your thoughts are. like get in that comment section and tell me what you think like i really really want to hear from you thank you so much for watching as always if you feel like hanging around i recommend watching this video it includes my top tactics for increasing your watch hours if you're trying to get monetized soon or maybe you just want to increase your watch hours overall this video is for you thank you so much for watching as always i cannot wait to see my next video
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
A visual gag of multiple press microphones swarming the creator sets up an urgent declaration that platform mechanics have shifted, followed by a direct question challenging whether other commentators actually taught viewers how to exploit the new tools.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:44model
The Four Update Pillars
- Features that will help you grow
- YouTube your new producer
- Features that will help you connect
- Features that will help you earn
A four-part operational taxonomy categorizing platform feature releases by their direct functional impact on a creator's channel strategy.
Steal forStructuring platform updates or product feature teardowns in educational content.
06:02concept
Dynamic Thumbnail Differentiation Model
- Heavily visual/shocking style
- Text-heavy explanatory style
- Stylized aesthetic design
Instead of testing small single-variable tweaks, creators design three completely distinct artistic styles to match differing viewer preferences matched by the algorithm.
Steal forA/B testing packaging and visual asset creation for client campaigns.
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
15:06next-video
“if you feel like hanging around i recommend watching this video it includes my top tactics for increasing your watch hours”
Seamless video end-card pitch offering an exact topical bridge to watch hours and monetization.
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
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Visual structure at a glance.
