You…don’t believe it works like that? Ultimately a sponsor isn’t going to pay much if no one watches the spot. Advertising has always involved getting as much data as possible on how your ads are doing.

I don’t have any one definitive link that will tell you “this is how it works”, but I’ve picked up a few things from the various discussions I’ve seen some youtubers have.

Actually that’s not quite how it works from my understanding. Youtube is able to provide detailed metrics that can provide information like “how many people actually watched the sponsor segment?” and base the payouts on that. The payout will either be based on estimated views in advance (meaning if it’s lower than expected they’ll pay less next time) or they’ll pay after the video has been live for some period of time.