Tales of a 15-Year-Old YouTube Makeup Artist

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Hello there, and welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Today's story comes from Melbourne, Australia, one of my favorite cities in the world. And this story features an Australian teenager who posts makeup tutorials on YouTube. We're calling it "Tales of a 15-Year-Old YouTube Makeup Artist." And you might wonder, is there money in posting videos on YouTube about makeup?

Well, there's a product, makeup. There's an audience, teenagers and young adults in this case. So naturally there are ways to make money bringing one to the other. Our star of the day is named Sarah. She gets paid through ad commissions, product sponsorships and even direct makeup applications in her home.

And as you might have guessed from the title, she is just 15 years old. If you've ever wondered how vloggers can get paid by posting videos on YouTube, well, I will tell you in just a moment. Let's say thanks to our sponsor and then we'll put on some makeup. [Music]

Side hustle school is all about encouraging people to pursue financial freedom. For most teenagers, however, this pursuit isn't quite top of mind just yet.

They're still going to school, living at home and trying to figure out what algebra has to do with anything. Obviously the answer to that one is nothing at all. In many ways, Sarah Fritz is your typical teenager. She goes to school, lives at home in Melbourne, Australia and probably has a better grasp on mathematics than most other students her age. That's because at just 15, Sarah's side hustle equates to real money from YouTube.

This YouTube journey began back in April, 2015 with her older sister, Amy. Their videos featured makeup tutorials and general teenage commentary. Sarah had the bigger passion for makeup artistry. So one day that December, she sat down in front of the camera by herself and recorded a video that was close to her heart. She called it 13 year old cake face.

It was a response to people who kept telling her she was too young to wear makeup and that she wore too much makeup, that it was caked on. She'd been experimenting with some other videos of her own. Before cake face, she posted a tutorial on her everyday makeup look, a demonstration on how to get the perfect smoky eye, which by the way is something I've spent years mastering. Can't believe she got hers down by age 13 and a review of her latest shopping excursion to the US. People watched and liked the videos and some of them even subscribed to her channel.

But the cake face video was a huge turning point because that video would go on to surpass one million views just six months after uploading it. That was the moment when Sarah and her family realized this passion could be profitable. At first it was just an escape, a distraction. But now her content is a distraction for over 140,000 followers across Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Snapchat, and of course YouTube. But what would she do with all these followers?

How would she monetize? To figure that out, Sarah and her dad first looked at the analytics behind their channel, which anyone can see when you make a YouTube channel and people start watching your videos. Based on the demographics, which were mostly female between the ages of 13 to 30, they were able to get a general idea of who was out there. Then they signed up to be a YouTube partner and connected their account with Google AdSense. How does that work?

Well, once a YouTuber links Google AdSense to their channel, they make 68% of the overall ad revenue. YouTube generally charges advertisers when a viewer watches 30 seconds or more of their ad. And those costs usually come out around 10 cents to 30 cents per view. Unfortunately only 15% of viewers will actually be counted as a paid view since so many of them take advantage of that nice skip now option at the beginning of many ads. So without getting into too much detail, here's one quick example.

If you have a thousand views to your video and 15% of those viewers actually watch the ad, then you'd have 150 paid views. At 18 cents per view, that would come out to approximately $27 charged to the advertiser. And as the content creator, the person making the videos, you'd get a 68% cut of that, averaging $18 per 1000 views. So by that logic, a video that Sarah does that gets 60,000 views, for example, like one she did that highlighted her makeup collection, that could potentially bring in around $2,300. But a video that truly takes off and becomes viral could bring in more than $30,000.

Still, depending on your demographic and their ad viewing habits, since a lot of people skip ads all the time, $18 per 1000 views can be on the higher end of the spectrum. If that sounded confusing, the short version is, the more people who watch the videos, the more Sarah gets paid. She says that most of her ad revenue falls in the $500 to $2,000 a month range. Not bad for less than 20 minutes worth of recorded content. And that's not all, because when it comes to monetizing YouTube channels, ad revenue can be just a drop in the bucket compared to other options.

What are those other options? Well, the most obvious one is sponsorships and product promotions. Those are perfect for a makeup artist like Sarah. So these days, Sarah's dad is fielding sponsorship and collaboration requests that come in almost daily. In addition to money, these offers usually include free product so that Sarah can demonstrate it to her viewers, as well as a discount code for those viewers.

She generally charges around $150 per product placement or review on YouTube, or $250 for a dedicated video review. She'll also carry that sponsorship over to Instagram posts as well, where she charges $50 each. And the third way that Sarah makes money, as the views racked up, Sarah's masterful eye for application brought in some local requests. People wanted her to do their makeup. This is a win-win because as part of the process, they'll come to Sarah's house, and she'll also film any of those sessions and then post them online.

So those makeup applications are bringing in an additional $500 a month, as well as giving her an opportunity to practice her skill. The majority of Sarah's earnings go right back into the business, including new brushes and makeup palettes and new equipment for recording videos. Everything she has, from the Canon camera she uses to record and the iMac she uses to edit and post to YouTube, she bought herself. When she was getting started, she also already had all the makeup she wanted to use in her videos. So what's coming up next?

Well, Sarah's goal is simple and unwavering. She wants to be a full-time YouTuber and professional celebrity makeup artist. And it seems she's well on her way. Remember, Sarah is just 15 years old. In Australia where she lives, she's not even old enough to get her learner's permit.

So these days she's keeping a balance between school, makeup clients, and posting on her social channels. In one of her tutorials, her mom pops in to ask what she's doing since it was after 10 p.m. on a school night. Sarah's mid-blush stroke response was, "Well, I decided to make a video. I told people I'd post it up, so I had to finish." With her successful YouTube channel, those sponsorships, a growing list of makeup clients, and an active community of followers, Sarah is securing that financial freedom we love to talk about here on Side Hustle School.

She's also starting well ahead of her peers, not to mention many people much older. So maybe some of the rest of us need to catch up. So here's an interesting fact. Sarah's passion is for makeup artistry, but in Melbourne where she lives, it's common for schools to have a no makeup policy. Some schools allow the use of concealer in mascara, but her school's policy is pretty strict.

So many of Sarah's first clients were friends who were attending a school formal with her. So they were really excited about the chance to wear makeup, and they wanted it to be done well. We also asked Sarah, "Why do you think your channel's been so successful?" And she says, "I think it's because teenagers can relate to my life and the things that I enjoy. Mostly, I'm not afraid of what others think. I'm unapologetically me." So congratulations to her.

I always love highlighting teenagers and high schoolers, other young people who are adapting, and not just adapting, but actually creating this new economy that we're all living in. As I said, people like Sarah are ahead of many of us, so it's great to see people like her posting these makeup tutorials and getting paid thousands of dollars a month. So if you're interested in that industry, or you just want to see what she's doing, be sure to take a look at her YouTube channel, or maybe her social channels, which of course we will link up in the show notes. Those show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/507. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you'll come back again tomorrow. Another episode coming up tomorrow. Crazy how that works. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.