The ultimate guide to YouTube sponsorships and brand deals
20,209
Published 2024-03-22
How do you get brand deals as a creator? How should you price your first spot? What can you do to raise your sponsor rates? In this mega-interview, I ask my agent, Nebula CEO Dave Wiskus, all these questions and more.
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🛠️ Tools My Team and I Built:
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✈️ Flylighter (The best way to capture articles and higlights to Notion) –
flylighter.com/
🎙️ Notion Voice Notes (Speech to Text) – nebula.tv/videos/thomasfrankexplains-how-to-take-p…
🧠 Ultimate Brain (My all-in-one second brain for Notion) – thomasjfrank.com/brain/
🎬 Creator's Companion (The best Notion template for creators) – thomasjfrank.com/creators-companion/
📖 10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (my free book) – collegeinfogeek.com/get-better-grades/
👥 People You Should Follow:
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Dave: twitter.com/dwiskus
Rene Ritchie (current YouTube Creator Liason): twitter.com/YouTubeLiaison
Todd Beaupré (the guy who runs the YouTube algorithm): twitter.com/hitsman
🐦 Connect With Me:
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Twitter ➔ www.twitter.com/tomfrankly
Instagram ➔ www.instagram.com/tomfrankly
Notion Tutorials ➔ @ThomasFrankExplains
Music ➔ @ThomasFrankMusic
⏱ Timestamps:
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00:00 - Intro
03:34 - Conversation starts
05:44 - The relationship between views and sponsor rates
09:10 - "Logical-Next-Step" sponsors
11:55 - Maintaining the integrity of your content
17:33 - Dave's history as a CEO and Creator
19:53 - At what point can you work with brands?
23:54 - What YouTube Studio metrics should a creator track?
28:24 - Broad-appeal vs. content-specific sponsors
32:34 - Channel trajectories: Growing channels vs stagnant channels
38:45 - Why your audience is constantly changing
41:49 - The best metric: Views from Subscribers
43:13 - Why was Thomas's rate consistent for years?
49:45 - If you can't price perfectly, price too low
53:58 - Pricing from the brand's perspective
55:35 - CPA/KPI definitions
1:02:50 - Additional factors brands care about
1:06:39 - Does brand association matter?
01:09:44 - Don't put ads at the beginning of your video
01:10:29 - Don't let sponsors take your video for their ads
01:13:30 - Should you ever let brands use your likeness?
01:16:32 - Agencies and "magnet creators"
01:28:13 - Pitfalls of YouTube managers
01:31:58 - Thomas's rules on who he works with
01:46:05 - How an MCN can take advantage of you
01:47:58 - Nebula and content ownership
01:48:44 - Criteria for evaluating an agency
02:02:11 - How to get performance data from brands
02:09:40 - Brand deals must be win-win-win
02:21:32 - Growing your network
02:23:50 - What to ask an agency when they pitch you
02:26:12 - Should agencies publish their entire rosters?
02:28:04 - Agencies should go to bat for you
02:32:33 - How to price your first spot
02:38:16 - Should Patreon be a stepping stone toward brand deals?
02:41:00 - Using affiliate marketing to get performance data
02:50:39 - Thomas's relationship with Skillshare
03:00:05 - CPM or CPA - which is more important?
03:01:00 - Should I give a brand my analytics?
03:01:43 - How should you get paid?
03:03:12 - Pre-roll, mid-roll, or end-roll?
03:04:51 - How many revisions should you do for your ad?
03:07:30 - Should you place time limits for how long ads stay up?
03:08:22 - How do you make more money from your sponsorships?
03:09:37 - What are common mistakes creators make?
03:17:50 - Where to follow Dave
03:18:34 - Business 101 for Creators
👐 Business:
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Please contact my agent at [email protected]
🎞 Additional Notes:
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💰 I'm fortunate enough to work with great sponsors who support my work, so I don't use Patreon or any other crowdfunding service. However, if you'd like to support a worthy cause, consider donating to help more children get access to a high-quality education: fundraise.pencilsofpromise.org/fundraiser/1489730
💰 Some links in my description are affiliate links, and I may earn a commission if you use them to make a purchase (at no extra cost to you, and often with special
All Comments (21)
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Probably the most valuable video I’ve watched this year so far. Thanks for recording this, guys!
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Hi Tom, I see that many people have mixed reactions on this video and just wanted to say that I am huge fan of both your channels and this was one of the best videos that I have found online talking about brand deal advice. It is honest and I am so thankful you decide to post it. Thank you!
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Thanks for this Tom! I'm watching this as I'm thinking about signing on with an agency that reached out and now I know what questions I need to be asking!
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A lot of tenaciousness Tom. One of your admirable traits. I'm proud of you.
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I own an Influencer management agency called NewYuth, and it's my full-time job to help Creators scale and build a career that lasts. This video has been very insightful for me, I watched it all the way through and took notes. Thank you so much Tom for posting this!
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This is really high value! Thanks a lot Thomas, for interviewing genius Dave Wiskus about this.
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This is such a great video. Hearing what goes on down the line is really cool.
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ONE OF THE BEST COURSES EVER! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S HERE FOR FREE !!! THANK YOU THOMAS
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Thanks for the great conversation! Learned so much.
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glad this exists. My first sponsor deal was $400. Estimated to get about 1-5k views ish at the time. That particular video got 20k views. They won cause they got a hit video, I won cause I got someone to give me $400.
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This is gold, thank you!
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I just started creating on YouTube and this video is immensely valuable to a new creator in terms of guiding my channel and obstacles to look forward to as I continue scaling my channel up.
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insane value Thomas! thanks💯💯
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Amazing business lessons, not just for creators! 💯
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Thank you for sharing that!
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Would Love to know More of your YouTube Secrets (From G.o.a.t of Self improvement Niche 🙏) Thanks For Posting this Bro 👊
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Looking forward to watch your video ☺️🌸
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Dang, I sometimes forget that Dave the agent isn’t just a Patrick H Willems character/actor 😅
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It blows my mind (but not at all surprising) how short term the thinking is for an agency not to look out for you if you're performing well for them.
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Am I the only one who's watching this 3 hour long video despite not being a creator just because this look productive to do
