Monetization & Income

Learn how to start & grow high-leverage revenue streams.

With simple systems & a focus on providing value

it's easy to unlock new income streams.

Making money online is often considered a sleasy, taboo topic – but it certainly doesn’t have to be. With the right approach, you can maximize value for your audience & clients while creating sustainable, recurring revenue streams that grow your business long-term.

Here's the resources you need to start building your monetization strategy!

Where would you like to start?

How to
Make Money with YouTube

Discover the key income streams available, and how to build your unique strategic revenue mix.

How to
Scale Your Income with Systems

Once you've set the foundations, discover the tools to automate & scale your income.

In each section below, we’ve included a ton of tips & resources to help you get results fast, along with links to any gear, software or other products & services we’ve tried, tested and recommend. Where available, we use affiliate links (more info here) when linking to these products & services and may earn a commission.

1.
Learn how to

Make Money with YouTube.

There are plenty of ways to generate income with YouTube that don’t just rely on YouTube advertising – and many can be far more lucrative as well! In this section we’ll look at the key revenue streams available and how you can build your unique revenue mix, no matter which stage you’re at with your channel.

Here’s what we’ll be looking at in this section:

Revenue Streams

Starting Out: Ways to Make Money

Discover the key revenue streams available and how to build your ideal long-term revenue mix, whether you’re already a YouTube star or just starting out.

The key revenue streams

and deciding your revenue mix!

One of the most powerful benefits of YouTube is the long-term organic traffic it’s possible to generate from each upload. With the right approach, as your channel grows and you build your library of optimized content, that evergreen traffic has the potential to open up some incredible new high-leverage revenue streams (often referred to as ‘passive income’).

As with everything worth doing though, building scalable, automation-driven income streams takes time and work! It certainly doesn’t happen overnight, so it’s important to achieve a revenue mix that balances your long-term income goals with your short-term needs.

To do that, it’s useful to think of different income streams on a spectrum from low to high leverage. Check out the graphic below to see where some of the most common revenue streams sit…

Common revenue streams, from low to high leverage.

To help you plan the right revenue-mix both now and into the future, let’s start with clarifying exactly what we mean by ‘low-leverage’ and ‘high-leverage’… 

  • Low-leverage Income:
    Generated from activities that directly require your time or resources in a way that limits you from doing other things. It’s typically much easier to generate low-leverage income in the short-term, but difficult to scale once your time/resources reach maximum capacity.
    Examples: Regular employment, consulting/contracting on an hourly or project basis. 
  • High-leverage Income:
    Income streams that, once established, are not limited by your time & energy. They generally take upfront time and effort to setup, but require far lower input to maintain and grow relative to the income they generate. This is what most people refer to as ‘passive income’ (… they just forget to mention the upfront work part, or how to get there!)
    Examples: Digital/physical product sales, YouTube advertising revenue from your video library, affiliate income from your YouTube traffic.
Your Revenue Mix

There’s no denying it. Building truly sustainable, high-leverage income streams takes time and work! The good news is, with the right approach it’s certainly possible to get there much faster – and this page is designed to help get you there.

Start low & aim high (leverage).

When you’re first starting out, you’ll likely have an overwhelming focus on low-leverage income. That day job or consulting work is exactly what will keep you going, while you work to move up the leverage spectrum & build higher-leverage income streams.

With consistent work, as you continue to build & grow over time, your revenue mix will skew further & further towards the high-leverage end of the spectrum.

Let's Get Started...

Now you have an understanding of the potential revenue streams available, it’s time to chart out your goals – and start a plan to get you there. The focus of this page is to help you get started!

Revenue Streams

Making Money with YouTube

Discover the top ways to make money on YouTube, and how to get started – no matter your channel size.

How to make money with YouTube

Now you understand how powerful high-leverage income can be (and how important low-leverage income is in the short-term!), it’s time to dive into the different income streams we’ve found to be most effective with YouTube!

START HERE...

How to Monetize YouTube Videos (+ TOP Ways to Make Money on YouTube!)

To kick off, check out this overview of the best ways to generate income from your YouTube channel long-term – including our top revenue streams at Primal Video!

Next...

Starting with a small channel?

Once you’ve checked out the video above to understand where we’re headed long-term, jump into this one for a look at the revenue streams most suitable for newer, smaller channels – and how to get started.

And finally...

Let's look at long-term 'passive' income.

The term ‘passive income’ gets a bad wrap. It’s too often thrown around as a sleasy sales tactic to get clicks, sell courses, or attract people to the latest ‘get rich quick’ opportunity where the only person getting rich is the one selling you on it.

What many people call ‘passive income’, we call ‘high-leverage’ – and it certainly IS a real thing… But what most people don’t mention about ‘passive income’ is that there’s absolutely nothing ‘passive’ about getting there.

High leverage income (income that DOESN’T require your direct input or time to generate & scale) requires a critical mass of automation and scale. It’s not rocket science, and it’s really doesn’t have to be difficult! But it does take work and commitment to get there.

In our opinion though, for those who put in the hard yards & stick it out – the rewards and freedom it provides are more than worth it.

In this video we focus on the best ways to grow real long-term ‘passive’ (high-leverage) income, including some of the key tips & systems we use to automate our passive income streams here at Primal Video.

Revenue Streams

Affiliate Income Strategies

Harness the power of Affiliate Marketing to add a new high-leverage income stream that scales with you as your channel grows.

Maximizing affiliate revenue

Affiliate income is an incredibly powerful revenue stream available to channels of any size – so you can start laying the groundwork from day 1 and scale your income as you grow. It’s such a big part of our business at Primal Video and there’s some awesome tools & tactics that can easily multiply your results, so we decided it deserved it’s own section!

But first – let’s address the elephant in the room…

Unfortunately, Affiliate marketing tends to get a bad wrap. It’s often associated with sleazy marketing tactics, annoying coupon sites, and worst of all – unethical reviewers making recommendations based on the highest commissions, rather than the best products.

It certainly doesn’t have to be that way though! And that’s absolutely NOT what we’re taking about here. Affiliate marketing should always be a win-win-win for everyone…

  • A win for your audience, who are looking for the best products/services to meet their specific needs and seeking an expert opinion to short-circuit the research process;
  • A win for the companies with great products/services you use and genuinely recommend; and
  • A win for you, allowing you to receive an extra stream of (high-leverage) income just for connecting your audience with the products/services that you know will best fit their needs.
Always make sure your affiliate marketing is win-win-win. Always focus on adding value to your audience, never the commissions. We recommend many products with no commissions over those with high-paying affiliate programs, because we know that’s what’s best for our audience.

Now, in the rest of this section we’ll dive into the what, why and how of affiliate marketing – including the key tools and tactics we use here at Primal Video to automate & maximize our affiliate income!
1. How to Start Affiliate Marketing

Beginners Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Learn how to start affiliate marketing and build sustainable passive income the SMART way, step by step in this complete guide to affiliate marketing for BEGINNERS!

2. 5 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
5 Affiliate Marketing MISTAKES Beginners Make (that lose $$$!)

5 Mistakes New Affiliates Make!

Here are 5 BIG affiliate marketing mistakes many beginners make that can cost a ton of revenue and time in the future!

3. Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon Affiliate Marketing

We’re big fans of Amazon’s affiliate program here at Primal Video, but getting started isn’t very straight forward… So here’s everything you need to know!

Maximizing Amazon Affiliate Earnings

 Now that you know how to get started with Amazon affiliate marketing, here’s 6 easy ways to MAXIMIZE your earnings!

amazon affiliate program
2.
Learn how to

Scale Your Income with Systems.

With the right strategy and systems you can maximize your income streams, automate many otherwise manual tasks, and build a scalable, sustainable business for the long term. In this section we cover the strategies and tools we recommend to get you started!

Here’s what we’ll be looking at in this section:

Systems & Automation

Systems to Scale Your Income

With some simple systems & automation, it’s much easier to maximize your income and build a sustainable business long-term.

Tools to grow your business & income

Once you’ve determined a revenue mix that meets both your short-term requirements & long-term goals, it’s time to start implementing systems to help you scale your income streams. In this section we’ll cover the tools & strategies we recommend to automate & amplify your results!

START HERE...

6 Things to Buy that will Make You Money & GROW Your Business!

6 Tools to Make More Money!

Let’s kick off with this video, covering 6 of the key tools and strategies we recommend implementing upfront to accelerate your results, and set you up with a solid platform for the long-term.

Introducing: The Power of EMAIL!

Don’t believe the hype… Email is most certainly not dead. In fact, with all the noise of social platforms – it’s more powerful than ever for communicating directly with your most loyal & engaged followers, and building a truly sustainable business.

Leveraging platforms like YouTube to generate organic traffic is incredibly powerful – but it’s important to remember that these platforms are not within your control. They can change the rules at any time, and those changes have the potential to take your loyal subscribers with them.

Sure – YouTube is certainly one of the most stable platforms, especially when compared to Facebook & Instagram (remember Facebook pages USED to reach people? Then groups… and messenger?!) – but you don’t want to rely solely on YouTube. It’s important to get those loyal subscribers off YouTube onto a platform YOU control, in case the rules change for the worst…. and there’s currently no better option than email.

The leading email marketing services have grown far beyond the glorified newsletter-sending services they used to be… These days, the right email platform will become the hub for all your marketing & business automation, including CRM, landing pages, and powerful automation-builders that let you systemize your entire business & maximize those high-leverage income streams!

Why (and HOW) to Build an Email List!

In this video we cover why it’s so important to build your email list, and the proven strategies you can use to turn your viewers into subscribers, completely on autopilot!

BONUS Resource:
3 Steps to Build an Email List Growth Engine with Video!

Learn how to convert your online videos into an organic lead-gen & email list growth engine, and build the entire system in just 3 simple steps with this free workshop!

Access the Free Workshop

Now that you understand the power of email platforms and why they’re essential to converting your YouTube channel into scalable, sustainable, automation-driven online business – how do you decide which email platform is best for you?

We’ve tested a TON of platforms, even running Primal Video on many of the leading options over the years, and from all of that testing we’ve narrowed our recommendations to two email marketing services that do the best job for most people.

The Best Email Marketing Software...

Check out this video for a review of the three leading email marketing platforms we recommend and who we recommend each of them for!

Best Email Marketing & Automation Software in 2023!
The Email Marketing tools we recommend...

ActiveCampaign

With a TON of automation options and a list of features that leaves most other platforms in the dust - ActiveCampaign is our top recommended email marketing platform for the majority of users. Despite the huge range of options, the interface is intuitive enough to get up and running quickly, with the power to scale into all the more advanced automations you might dream up in future as your business grows.
Try ActiveCampaign

Bento

Bento is hands down the most powerful email marketing & automation tool we've come across. It's the tool we're currently using and it's changed how we run our business! It takes a completely new approach to email that allows for next-level flexibility and incredibly streamlined processes to help scale your business. It's quite advanced, so would suit someone who's tech savvy and has felt limited in other email marketing software.
Try Bento

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an incredibly simple to use email marketing platform, perfectly designed for its target market of bloggers & creators. It's easy to pick up and supports basic automations, BUT if you're looking to do much automation be aware its functionality is very limited compared to ActiveCampaign. We recommend it to those who would consider themselves more "tech averse".
Try ConvertKit

Tools & Resources we Recommend...

In this section we’ll cover some of the other awesome tools we’re using here at Primal Video to streamline our processes and maximize our revenue streams.

Of course, we practice what we preach and use affiliate links wherever they’re available for resources we’ve tried, tested & recommend anywhere on this page – meaning we may earn a commission or reward if you use these links. For a recap on how to maximize your affiliate revenue, check out the Affiliate Marketing section above (or if you’d like to see our full affiliate policy, just click here

1. Managing Affiliate Links

Thirsty Affiliates

Affiliate Link Manager (WordPress)

Monetizing through affiliate programs? Thirsty Affiliates is a wordpress plugin that lets you easily create branded redirects. It has a ton of other analytics and features, but the big one is you'll have prettier links to share and only one place to update should any of your affiliate links change in future (... happens more than you'd think!)
Try Thirsty Affiliates

Geniuslink

  Affiliate Link Manager

Geniuslink is an affiliate link manager that packs in some extra 'smarts' to help you easily capture potential lost revenue! When a user clicks your link, it automatically detects their location and routes them to the best purchasing page for them. We use it for all our Amazon links, but it also works for other major affiliate programs like iTunes, Microsoft and more.
Try Geniuslink
2. Courses & Digital Products

Kajabi

All-in-one Marketing Platform

We use Kajabi just to host our digital courses and products, but it can also host your entire website, landing pages, email list, and it now also packs in marketing automations! Kajabi is an amazing 'all-in-one' option for anyone that wants to sell digital products and courses, with everything you'll need to start creating, marketing and selling.
Try Kajabi
3. Websites

Kajabi

All-in-one Marketing Platform

If you're planning to sell digital products & courses, then Kajabi's included page builder is an awesome option not just for your landing pages - but your entire website! Kajabi is fully hosted and supported, so if anything goes wrong you have Kajabi's awesome support team to fall back on, and there's a ton of great off-the-shelf templates to choose from.
Try Kajabi

Wordpress

Advanced Website Platform

Wordpress is a powerful tool for building amazing websites. It's super customizable & supports a huge range of 3rd party plugins. Don't be fooled by the 'free' price tag though... That flexibility DOES come at a cost - with more moving parts & maintenance, (like hosting, themes, plugin updates...) compared to 'all-in-one' platforms like Kajabi. That said, we run PrimalVideo.com on WordPress and absolutely love it. Our suggestion: if Kajabi does what you need, go that route!
Try WordPress

Interested in WordPress?

Here are our recommended hosting & plugins...

Hosting

SiteGround

WordPress Hosting: Best to Start!

Super affordable WordPress hosting platform with 24/7 support and great features! Excellent for getting started & scaling up. We first hosted PrimalVideo.com here, and easily upgraded as we grew.
Try SiteGround

Kinsta

WordPress Hosting: Best to Scale!

Kinsta is more expensive, but you get the most advanced optimizations & someone to do the dirty work if your site gets compromised.
Try Kinsta

Theme & Page Builder

Elementor

WordPress Page Builder

Incredibly powerful 'drag-and-drop' page builder you can install on almost any WordPress theme.
Try Elementor

Astra

WordPress Theme

Fast, super optimized and packing a ton of features - this is the WordPress Theme we use as a base for PrimalVideo.com (and it works great with Elementor page builder!)
Try Astra

BONUS Resource

Have you seen our Resources page? It’s got a complete list of all the latest gear, software, tools & resources we’re using and recommending right now.

see all our recommended Tools
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