This company felt shady. I’ve got screenshots.

I always thought getting offered to do a sponsored YouTube video meant I had “made it” on YouTube. Unfortunately, sponsored YouTube video offers can also be shady deals that you should avoid, as I learned. 

From the very first moment I opened the email offering a sponsored YouTube video, I had doubts. Ultimately I ended up saying no. Now, I’m glad I listened to my gut. Here’s exactly why I rejected doing this sponsored YouTube video.

1. There was no information about the sponsored YouTube video in the initial email.

Look at that email below. I can only glean two facts from it: one, they want me to do a sponsored YouTube video, and two, they can offer me money. But nothing on the course itself, why they thought my audience was a good pick, what the benefits for me are, or even how they found me.

Why did Thomas send me such a pared-down invite? I can think of two reasons.

One (and this one is a little conspiracy-brain, so bear with me), they subscribe to the psychological belief that once you get someone to say yes to something, they’ll say yes to other things you ask. Thomas here lined me up with an easy yes, in the hopes that when I asked for additional information, a second yes would be easier for me.

The second is that he’s sending out dozens of these and it’s more cost-effective for him to send out tons of generic emails rather than personalized asks. 

Neither gave me a particularly good feeling about doing this sponsored YouTube video.

2. There was no sell for me - other than cash.

When I asked Thomas for more information, he let me know this was a course to sell stuff on Amazon. I was left scratching my head. My YouTube channel is all about making a living by writing, so the fit wasn’t at all close. 

I’ve done a YouTube interview with someone who sells a similar course, but when they reached out to me, they immediately provided ideas for how this could be a good fit for my audience. It felt very clear that they’d done their legwork and really felt like the information they could offer would be interesting and relevant to my YouTube subscribers. 

Thomas’s ask for a sponsored YouTube video did not provide any kind of information about how he felt the interview would be good for my channel. The only thing he had to offer was money, as he reiterated in the email above. Remember, he didn’t offer a budget, and he expected me to actually take the time to complete the course OR pretend I had. 

Maybe a year ago, some cash would have been enough to get a yes from me, but now that I’m well on my road to establishing my brand, I can’t imagine throwing it away on a sponsored YouTube video that has absolutely nothing to do with what I do. 

3. The sponsored YouTube video examples had 10,000s of views…. and tons of angry comments.

Perhaps in a bid to further convince me, Thomas’s email above listed a few examples of sponsored YouTube videos. They had three things in common: the creators were small, the view number was disproportionately large, and the comments were overwhelmingly bad.

It felt like Thomas was trying to promise a lot of views (and a lot of money in ad revenue) for my relatively small YouTube channel. And to further cement my conviction that I was the wrong fit for this type of video, just a quick scroll down to the comments revealed what viewers felt about the videos:

Both these factors led me to feel like I should absolutely, under no circumstances, do a sponsored YouTube video for this organization. But I wanted to really cover all my bases, so I decided to do a final bit of investigation: I checked out the website.

And boy, it was shadier than an umbrella’s shadow.

4. The website was ultra-sketchy.

My whole brand is my very best attempt at being honest, transparent, gimmick-free, and believable. It’s probable that I miss out on opportunities because of my dedication to this — I won’t say things like “watch till the end for my BIG reveal” or “doing this one thing guarantees money, fame and happiness.” I hardly ever mention my products or services, and I underpromise and overdeliver. I’m not a salesperson.

I’ve written before about my hatred of those “free information” webinars that are just thinly-veiled sales attempts. That’s why the website was so jarring to my sensibilities, because it had just about every prey-on-human-psychology trick in the book.

It was full of bright color, popups, even loud noises, weird slider gimmicks. I almost needed to lie down after subjecting my eyes to the website for a couple of minutes.

I know I might be in the minority here, but I feel like if you really need Exclamation Points! and Capital Letters! and Shocked Faces! and Flashing Banners! on your website to sell your course, then the value of the course isn’t evident in and of itself. There isn’t just one right way to sell, but this website was so counter to my beliefs and my brand that I couldn’t imagine doing a video on it.

And there was my answer: no, I would not be doing a sponsored YouTube video for this company. From the initial email all the way to the scheming website, I didn’t want to associate myself with them. My final remaining question is why on earth Thomas thought I would be. Surely my style of sales must be as anathema to him as his was to me. Perhaps I’ll never know. 

When you’re just starting out as a freelance content creator, the temptation is almost overwhelming to be everything for everyone. But the faster you learn what you’re good at, and what you love doing, the more successful you’ll be. Conversely, if you try to be successful just by chasing the dollar bill sign, you will probably crash and burn.

Overall, this offer for a sponsored YouTube video was weird from start to finish:

• Hardly any information was offered to start.

• The only valuable thing in it for me was some unspecified amount of money, not the audience fit.

• The reception had been overwhelmingly poor in the examples offered to me.

• Their brand and mine were antithetical opposites.

I ended up saying no to this offer to do a sponsored YouTube video, not because I’m above doing sponsored YouTube videos, but because there was a complete and utter lack of fit or effort on their end to appear valuable to me. For content creators, if you field similar offers, trust your gut. 

No matter how tempting it is to hustle for any money that could come your way, the most valuable thing you have is your brand — don’t give it away for a few hundred bucks.