Unbanning a healthcare YouTube channel: +$60 thousand in monetization in 5 months

On March 8, 2023, the YouTube platform suspended the ability to publish content for two weeks, which could have seriously damaged the channel’s reputation and financial situation.

Our client’s channel has a special approach to content. It not only informs viewers about current health issues, but also maintains an active community where people aged 35+ can find advice, support, and understanding. The channel’s main revenue is generated not from monetizing views, but from the sale of goods and services recommended in the video. This business model ensures a high level of trust between the channel and its audience.

Work on unbanning a YouTube channel

The project started with an analysis of the initial state of the client’s YouTube channel. The first quarter of 2023 (from January 1 to March 31) was defined as the starting point for evaluating the effectiveness of our strategies. Here are the key indicators for this period:

• Number of views: 13 million
• Time spent watching: 447.3 thousand hours
• Subscriber growth: +67.5 thousand.
• Revenue: $11,072.54

It was found that all traffic to the channel was organic, with the main contributors being 62.5% from the Shorts feed and 13.7% from the content selection feature on the home screen.

Stage 1: Problem analysis and strategy planning

After receiving a channel ban, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the situation and developed a recovery strategy. As soon as a YouTube channel receives a strike, YouTube automatically cuts off organic impressions through the homepage and recommended videos. Since the channel was banned from publishing content for 2 weeks, the only option was to re-optimize and work with old videos. In addition, one of the main tasks was to select the types of content for the future that would not cause repeated blocking.

Stage 2: Optimizing existing content

We used the lockdown period to experiment with content. The team went through the entire video archive, updating covers, descriptions, and keywords for older videos, some of which were over 10 years old. This drew attention to older videos that were of high quality but not getting enough attention.

Stage 3: Analyze the results and adjust the strategy

Thanks to content optimization, old videos started gaining views, and the channel received a new stream of organic traffic. New subscribers who joined the channel actively watched old videos, which helped increase the total number of views and revenue.

Let’s look at the statistics for the period from January 1 to March 31:

We’ve noticed that the number of new subscribers gained from full-length videos is higher than that from short videos, known as Shorts. This indicates that the audience is more interested in the detailed content presented in long videos.

We noted the fact that although loyal viewers in the past mostly watched Shorts (as this feature was a novelty that did not exist in 2012-2013), subscriptions grew more efficiently through full-length videos. This means that our loyal viewers who were initially engaged through Shorts have shifted to older videos after we re-optimized our content and actively worked with the Community feature.

We used the Community feature to increase interest in older videos by posting messages inviting people to watch specific videos. For example, we focused on a video from 2018 that hadn’t received much traffic before. This approach not only revitalized the old content, but also helped to attract a new audience and increase the number of subscribers.

After we optimized the old content, YouTube began to recommend our videos more actively. This contributed to a significant increase in the number of views and, accordingly, led to an increase in channel revenue.

We saw a significant increase in the number of views of our videos. The Shorts and new videos we published attracted much more attention than before. Some of our videos reached 1 million views, as viewers who were accustomed to the old content actively switched to watching the new videos.

Between April 1 and August 31, we noticed that the content selection feature became the main source of traffic for our channel, while previously this role was played by the Shorts feed. This means that our videos have started to appear more often on the YouTube home screen. The platform noticed the increased interest in our videos and intensified their recommendations through the content selection feature, as well as included them in the list of recommended videos.

These changes led to a significant increase in our revenue. All this became possible thanks to our activity and efforts after the channel was temporarily blocked and we were forced to look for new approaches to its development.