Countries ranked by YouTube CPM / RPM for content creators

In the last installment, we analyzed the best ad formats with the highest CPM for YouTubers. One important takeaway is that the CPM varies across countries.

CPM for any media including YouTube varies by country, which depends on the currency and price local advertisers are paying.

Basically, the more the local advertisers are paying, the more the publishers (in this case YouTube creators) can earn from the ad revenue shared by the media owner.

So, which country has the highest CPM on YouTube? The answer will be revealed soon here!

What about ad revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) for YouTube content creators? As Google / YouTube demands 45% of the ad revenue, you can estimate the balance of CPM revenue is reserved for YouTubers.

Here’s how we retrieved the data, we check our own YouTube channel and compile a list of 94 countries that contributed the views in the past year, from 12 July 2018 to 11 July 2019.

Do take note though that the playback-based CPM you are actually earning might be different from this CPM reference. The CPM rates might fluctuate from time to time too.

Top 20 countries with the highest YouTube CPM

Surprisingly, Maldives ranks #1 with the highest YouTube CPM in the world at USD15.47, which is almost 3 times of the United States, and almost 12 times of Malaysia!

Is advertising cost in the Maldives really that high? Can someone enlighten this?

Look, who ranks second? I bet many don’t even heard of Guadeloupe, a French overseas region, is an island group in the southern Caribbean Sea.

Here’s the full list of 94 countries, ranked by CPM from high to low:

If you are a YouTube creator focusing on English content, you might want to know which are the top English-speaking countries with the highest CPM:

1. Australia: CPM @ USD6.15
2. New Zealand: CPM @ USD5.63
3. United States: CPM @ USD5.33
4. Canada: CPM @ USD4.64
5. United Kingdom: CPM @ USD4.59

Let’s filter the list to the top 5 Asian countries with the highest CPM:

1. Pakistan: CPM @ USD7.54
2. United Arab Emirates: CPM @ USD4.72
3. Japan: CPM @ USD4.60
4. South Korea: CPM @ USD3.21
5. Saudi Arabia: CPM @ USD3.09

How about drilling further into just Southeast Asian countries?

1. Myanmar: CPM @ USD2.90
2. Brunei: CPM @ USD2.59
3. Cambodia: CPM @ USD2.40
4. Singapore: CPM @ USD2.08
5. Thailand: CPM @ USD1.94
6. Vietnam: CPM @ USD1.57
7. Philippines: CPM @ USD1.49
8. Indonesia: CPM @ USD1.33
9. Malaysia: CPM @ USD1.31

Yes, you heard it right. The average YouTube CPM in Malaysia is only USD1.31, and we ranked last among the Southeast Asia countries! Note: Laos and Timor-Leste data are not included here.

That’s sad for YouTubers in Malaysia, especially if your audience is predominantly Malaysians. On the other side, this also means that digital advertising cost is relatively cheaper in Malaysia.

However, there is an option for YouTubers to produce content that appeals to the global audience, or at least to certain countries (with higher CPM).

This is an opportunity for Malaysians, who are generally savvy with multiple languages including English. For example, if most of your audience is watching in the United States, your ad revenue per thousand impressions is around 4 times (@ USD5.33) of what you can earn compared to Malaysia!

The Internet is borderless, this is something for you as content creators to ponder.