Overview
The video tests six methods of buying YouTube views to evaluate their effectiveness, costs, analytics, and impact on organic channel growth, ranking each on a tier list based on key performance metrics.
Bot and Click Farm Views
- Bot views are automated, low-cost, violate YouTube's guidelines, and yield minimal organic reach or loyal subscribers.
- Click farm views are slightly more expensive, involve real people, but still result in low engagement and subscriber conversion.
- Both methods risk channel penalties and produce poor retention and clickthrough rates.
- Cost per subscriber and watch hour for these methods is extremely high, making them unviable for genuine growth.
- Most traffic was direct/external, not from YouTube's algorithmic promotion.
YouTube Promotions (Beta)
- YouTube’s built-in promotions tool allows internal ad campaigns targeting by country and language.
- For $100, the campaign delivered 1,580 views, 240 subscribers, and 300,000 impressions at $0.063 per view.
- Cost per subscriber was low ($0.41), but watch hours and retention remained poor.
- Promotions had minimal measurable impact on organic algorithm growth.
Google Ads – Untargeted Instream
- Google Ads offers more advanced, flexible campaigns, reaching 5.4 million views for $88,000.
- Typical cost per view is around $0.011, with $0.39 per watch hour, and $10 per subscriber.
- Minimal influence on YouTube’s organic traffic; no significant evidence that ads "kill" organic views.
- Audience quality is low due to limited targeting (mainly country/language), resulting in low channel value.
Google Ads – Targeted Instream
- Adding targeting by country and keywords results in higher cost per view ($0.016), $1.42 per watch hour, and $35.84 per subscriber.
- Attracts better-quality viewers, more relevant to the channel's goals, but at a premium.
Google Ads – Infeed (Discovery) Ads
- Infeed ads place videos natively within YouTube, reducing friction for engagement.
- Costs are highest: $0.06 per view, $0.95 per watch hour, with high subscriber costs.
- Useful for driving engagement, but expensive for growth.
Tier List and Comparative Results
- Bot views: Cheapest but illicit and ineffective (C or D tier).
- Click farm views: More expensive, equally ineffective (D tier).
- YouTube Promotions: Good for cheap subscribers, limited for views and hours (B tier).
- Google Ads Untargeted Instream: Cheap for views/hours, poor quality (A tier).
- Google Ads Targeted Instream: Pricier but higher-quality viewers (B tier).
- Google Infeed: Most expensive but removes engagement friction (B tier).
Key Takeaways
- Cheapest views come from bots (not recommended); second cheapest via untargeted Google Ads.
- Best cost per subscriber is via YouTube Promotions.
- None of the methods significantly trigger organic algorithmic growth.
- Organic growth via algorithm remains the most effective long-term strategy.
Decisions
- Ranked each view-buying method by effectiveness, cost, and compliance.
- Determined organic growth should remain the primary focus for channel success.