This video documents an experiment where the YouTuber purchased 5 million YouTube views using six different methods to determine their effectiveness and cost-efficiency in achieving YouTube success. The experiment analyzes costs, analytics, and overall results, comparing various view-buying strategies.
Bot Views (Regular Views): Highly against YouTube's guidelines; risks video deletion. Cheap (e.g., $26 for 10,000 views), but provides little to no organic growth or engagement. Very low ROI.
Click Farm Views (Real Views): More expensive than bot views (e.g., $52 for 10,000 views), still yields minimal organic growth. Views are from real accounts but lack engagement and viewer loyalty. Low ROI.
YouTube Promotions (Beta Feature): Relatively new, easy to set up within YouTube Studio. Costly ($100 for 1,580 views and 240 subscribers). No noticeable impact on organic growth. Moderate ROI in terms of subscriber acquisition.
Google Ads (Instream & In-Feed): Most advanced promotional method. Very expensive ($88,000 for 5.4 million views). Instream ads (skippable) are cheaper but less effective due to user friction; In-feed ads are more expensive but show the video directly within the user's feed, thus increasing engagement. Minimal impact on organic growth. ROI varies depending on targeting and ad type.
Overall Findings: While purchasing views is possible, organic growth via the YouTube algorithm is significantly more valuable. None of the methods tested significantly boosted organic viewership. The most cost-effective method for subscriber acquisition was YouTube's promotion feature.
