How to Get Sponsored on YouTube: 10 Proven Strategies

Last updated: April 4, 2024

Having a YouTube channel can be a lucrative way to make money online. Not only can you earn money from ad revenue, but you can also make money by getting sponsored on YouTube and doing what you love!

Sponsorships can take your income to a whole new level. Brands can sponsor your videos and channel through affiliate promotions, product reviews, or paid sponsorships. In this article, we’re going to share the process of how to get sponsored on YouTube in 2024. To start with, the big question…

How much do YouTube sponsors pay?

There’s no set amount that YouTube sponsors pay. The pricing structure can range from 1% of your subscriber count to $10 to $50 per 1,000 views. A YouTuber can negotiate with sponsors to add bonus payments based on performance. This can be a massive boost for partnerships for small YouTube channels just by creating a sponsored video.

Types of YouTube Sponsorships

1. Product reviews

One of the YouTube sponsorship ideas you can execute on your YouTube channel is product reviews. Brands can hire you to create video reviews of their product, and they’ll often send you free products and compensate you for your work.

You can highlight a product by discussing a broader problem and highlighting the product as the solution to the problem.

For example, create a video about having less food waste at home and introduce a new sauce that helps make leftovers more delicious. Alternatively, you can create videos showing how to use a product; this works best if the brand’s product is recognized.

2. Affiliate promotions

Another form of YouTube sponsorship is affiliate promotions. For this, you won’t need to pitch the brand an idea. You’ll just need to sign up for the brand’s affiliate program.

When you create YouTube videos about the product, you’ll earn a commission for every sale generated via your link. This is the easiest way to get sponsored on YouTube, but it risks doing free work without getting paid.

However, if you create demand or have a large audience, your earning potential could be much higher from the affiliate promotions. It boils down to the idea of whether or not you’re presenting the right product to your audience.

3. Paid sponsorships

You can also get a paid YouTube sponsorship. This works best for YouTube channels that do podcasts or long-stream videos. You might do product placements or give brands shout-outs at the beginning of your video to say, “This podcast was sponsored by…” In these cases, a brand is either paying to have their product in your video or to get a mention during your recording.

You may have already seen branded content from Dollar Shave Club, Paypal Honey, gaming sponsorships like Raid Shadow Legends, and more. Now that the methods are out of the way, how can you get these?

The Top 10 Ways to Get Sponsored on YouTube

1. Optimize your channel for businesses

There is a way to optimize your YouTube channel to help you get sponsorship deals on the platform. There’s an element of influencer marketing where you need to create a brand that people connect with, which usually tends to include an influencer or public figure as the face of the channel.

People tend to buy from people they trust. If you always recommend great products to people, they’ll start trusting you. If you promote harmful products because you got paid to promote them, you might lose credibility with your audience.

With the rise of reviews, people are increasingly very vocal online when something doesn’t quite live up to the hype, which could get negative comments. While some people in the YouTube world say there’s no such thing as bad press, brands looking to sponsor influencers might have a different take.

The sponsorships you accept have to be vetted. Otherwise, you could end up with a lawsuit on your hands. Many influencers who promoted certain crypto brands ended up being included in lawsuits.

So, when you vouch for a brand, you’ll want to ensure you’ve done your homework. We’re bringing this up in this first section to emphasize the importance of trust. If you build a channel on YouTube to attract business deals, you need to be trustworthy to your audience and thorough in your brand research.

By doing some YouTube SEO and optimizing your channel for businesses in video descriptions, you must ensure you know which key players in your industry are the real deal and which aren’t.

2. Build an audience around a niche

Before you find a YouTube sponsor, you must ensure you’ve built your audience around a specific niche. Brands don’t typically deal with random accounts; they often look for influencers or YouTubers in the same industry.

If you create videos about fashion, you’ll have fashion brands reach out to you for sponsorship deals. If your videos are all about AI, AI brands will contact you. Creators with a niche focus will also have a clear idea of what kind of brands they can contact regarding sponsorships. It could also work as a great platform to sell your courses online.

If you have yet to decide on a niche, you can use tools like Google Trends to see if your niche is growing or declining in popularity.

If it’s growing, you’ll be able to grow with the niche to reach a bigger audience over time. If it’s declining, the market may be saturated.

When choosing a niche, select a broad topic for which you can create tons of content from various angles. And choose a niche where plenty of businesses compete for eyeballs on their brand. This will help elevate your channel and your ability to monetize quickly when growing your income from YouTube sponsorships.

3. Create a media kit for sponsors

Before you reach out to potential sponsors, you should create a media kit. Your media kit will have all the details about your rates, audience, and key metrics you can share. You can email your media kit or place it on your website.

Typically, your kit is a PDF file of about three to five pages with as much context as possible about your audience and performance to help justify the rates you charge. You can use Canva or Photoshop to create the media kit.

The design is only one of the elements, but it can add more credibility to a well-designed media kit. Editing the file as your subscribers grow or rates change is necessary.

Some influencers grow so consistently that their rates change monthly. The month and year on the media file indicate to potential businesses that these rates will change if they act slowly. Consider having consistent branding between your media kit and your YouTube channel design to ensure cohesiveness.

4. Create a list of potential sponsors

Take the time to craft a list of potential Yosponsors. You can make a list of all the brands in your industry. You can use Google or social media to find brands online in your space by reading lists of top companies in the industry, searching for brand accounts under hashtags, or looking at other YouTube channels that are getting sponsor deals.

You can find sponsorship opportunities by looking for brands with affiliate programs, as they’ll likely have a marketing team or budget set aside for marketing activities.

If you don’t know how to get a list of potential sponsors, you can always hire someone on Upwork to create a list for you of as many brands as possible in the same space as you, with links to their website and affiliate program if they have one.

Outsourcing a task like that can allow you to focus on being a content creator while ensuring that the work of building up sponsorship opportunities is still happening.

5. Reach out to the list about your channel

Once you’ve compiled your list of sponsors, it’s time to sell yourself to potential sponsors. Crafting an email to a sponsorship or marketing director at a large company or directly to the CEO or marketer at a small company can be a great way to get a foot in the door.

You should engage with their content on social media or with the person you plan to contact by commenting on their posts to help warm them up as a lead. At least they’ll know you exist.

As for your pitch, you can try something like the following:

Hey (Contact name),

I’m (, Your name) a YouTuber with (number) subscribers on my channel in the (industry) space.

I’ve been a massive fan of your product for some time now, and I’d love to create content about it on my channel. Are you planning any campaigns with content creators? I’ve attached my media kit for you to consider. Let me know if there’s a day and time you’re free to chat.

Kind regards,

(Your name)

6. Join sponsorship platforms

You can also sign up for websites like YouTube BrandConnect, Artbrief, Scrunch, and more to find sponsorship deals. There are countless sponsorship platforms for YouTubers and creators on any social media platform, such as Instagram.

When you sign up for these sites, you can apply to promote products or get pitched by brands directly through the platform. It’s a great way to build out your sponsorship portfolio when you’re just starting. Having good key metrics, like converting views into sales for brands, will be crucial to landing as many opportunities for yourself as possible.

7. Getting yourself in front of brands

If you’ve been thinking about how to get sponsored videos on YouTube, you need to think more about getting yourself in front of as many brands as possible. You can do this in several ways.

You can leave comments on brand social media accounts just talking about the company, its product, or the context of the video. This can be a way to build relationships with potential brand sponsors.

Alternatively, you can attend conferences or networking events to meet as many people as possible. The focus should be on building relationships rather than just handing a card. Focus on using your time with others to help people succeed.

Share your insights about life, business, social media, or your area of expertise on YouTube to help people find success in that area.

Before you start emailing brands or people you meet asking for favors, ensure you’ve enabled them countless times and have a positive relationship with them. Interacting with brands or even just ordinary people can lead to moments of uncertainty where someone knows someone, and that’s how they get introduced to you.

8. Set your rates

Setting rates for sponsorships can feel nerve-wracking. However, there are standard rates that YouTubers charge based on their audience size or their overall value.

If you own a six-figure audience size on YouTube or more minor, most people charge about 1% of their audience size. Suppose you have millions of subscribers, a network of followers on other social media platforms, and regularly receive press coverage. In that case, you’ll likely want to see a rate encompassing your total value and net worth.

When creating your rate per video or campaign, you’ll want to include the value of your audience size, the amount of effort or time you’ll spend on content creation, and your expertise in the area of your niche and YouTube marketing to deliver results for your sponsors.

There are costs associated with video creation, such as hiring an editor, paying for equipment, and using a set of recording content outside of your home.

You can ask brands if they have a budget for the campaign to determine if it’s within your range. The goal should be a mutually beneficial relationship where you get paid for worthwhile delivering the financial results the brand hopes to achieve through your sponsorship.

9. Formalize your partnership

Getting a sponsor is a big deal, and when money is involved, creating a contract to formalize the partnership is crucial. Contracts will help protect you and ensure you’ve got the payment details and tasks in writing.

Having a section in your contract regarding risk and liability is crucial. Some brands out there can have risky businesses. When promoting their product to your audience, you must ensure you’re not scamming or putting your fans at risk by promoting any business.

If a formal contract seems too big for a smaller project or sponsorship, just screenshot direct messages or emails to ensure you have everything in writing.

Avoid making deals over the phone; if it does occur over the phone, send a follow-up in writing to confirm the details in text. Keeping digital files with further information regarding sponsorships will be helpful to ensure everything goes along smoothly.

Either the creator or the brand can create a contract. Also, you can create your contract while also signing one of theirs. Just make sure everything is consistent between the two contracts.

10. Create content

Now that all the sponsorship for YouTube work is done, it’s time to create the content for your sponsor. Make content that helps sell the product or service for the brand uniquely and captivatingly. Sitting down to develop multiple unique ideas and carefully crafting the content to be original, charming, and highly converting is critical.

You don’t want to create a rushed job or a generic video about the product to sell it. It needs to look natural and authentic, but it still needs to drive results.

Eventually, when you get popular enough, you can look into creating your own merch and Sell physical products online.

In Summary

What are the types of YouTube sponsorships?

*1. Product reviews: Create video reviews of products. 2. Affiliate promotions: Earn commission for sales generated via your link.

1. Paid sponsorships: Do product placements or give brands shout-outs in videos.*

How can I optimize my YouTube channel for sponsorship deals?

To optimize for sponsorship deals, create a trustworthy brand, build an audience around a niche, and create a media kit with critical metrics. Additionally, reach out to potential sponsors and set your rates based on your audience size and value.

What are the steps to formalize a sponsorship partnership?

To formalize a sponsorship partnership, creating a contract to protect both parties and ensure payment details and tasks are in writing is crucial. Additionally, it’s essential to create engaging and original content for the sponsor.

Now that you know how to find sponsorship on YouTube, it’s time to go out there and implement these strategies to find success. If you want to build a reputable website to direct sponsors to, you can use Payhip, a website builder for digital products. You can add products to sell or even free instant downloads like media kits and more there. Sign up for Payhip to build a website today.