This documents my experiment monetizing youtube videos that I have posted on instructables.

**UPDATE**8/30/2013***
I got rid of all the ads on my youtube video because they are just so irritating.
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Step 1: Do Something Silly and Post a Video

Hula hoop video in an instructable:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Supa-Hula-a-very-big-hula-hoop-made-from-plastic-/

Older instructable with electric video:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Electric-Pickle-Lamp/

Step 2: Setup a Google Adsense Account

You will need to setup an adsense account with google.

This was surprisingly complicated, google seems to use every form of internet identity verification, including depositing a small amount in your checking account and having you verify the value, and physically mailing a letter with a pin number on it.

Adsense - pays you to show adds - this includes banner ads you can put on your webpage and the advertizing on youtube.

Adwords - charges you to display adds

Step 3: "Monetize" the Video

Once you have an adsense account you can "monetize" your youtube videos.

Overlay in-video ads - these are the banner adds that show up on the bottom of the video, and are not too bad.
TrueView in-stream ads -- these are the terrible commercials that show before the youtube video

Step 4: Views GraphResults -- Views

In yotube analytics you can look at a bunch of parameters.

Here are the views for a hula-hoop video that I put in the first step of an instructable.

The spike in views corresponds to when I added this video to an instructable.

Step 5: Earnings Graph

The earnings graph corresponds closely to the view graph.

Step 6: Pickle Video Views

Here are the views for an older video I had also included in an instructable. You can see that this got a bump in views when the hula-hoop instructable went up.

Step 7: Pickle Earnings

Here is the amazing thing -- this pickle video somehow earned several dollars with only a few views. I am guessing that this is from people actually clicking on the advertisement.

Step 8: Total Views for July

Here are the combined veiws for the July test period. The main time that there were views was when I published an instructable with video.

Step 9: Total Earnings July

The total earnings for July follow the views. Again there are a few major spikes of fold-able money.

Step 10: Final Earnings in Adsense

Here is my adsense account showing the earnings from you tube. You have to have at least 100$ to actually get the money, so it may take along time before I can confirm that I actually got money from youtube.

**follow up***
In the months following this post, the monthly earnings dropped to about 6cents. I decided it wasn't worth having all the adds and turned them off. 8/30/2013
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also - this is a link to my cell phone bill from Ting mobile -- not sure if there is a whole instructable here...
http://smartnerdweaknerd.com/blog/?p=277