After graduating from university, Mark decided to travel for food. He ended up in Thailand where he met his wife. Together they are based in Bangkok, Thailand. He was born in Phoenix Arizona and has lived a large chunk of his childhood outside the US. He spent 1 year in France, 3 years in DRC in the jungle and 8 years in Kenya. He then went to the US after high school to study Global Studies at Arizona State University.
The channel has over 8.5 million subscribers as of 2021 and has accumulated over 1.9 billion views so far. It is able to get an average of 1 million views per day from different sources. This should generate an estimated revenue of around $8,000 per day ($3 million a year) from the ads that run on the videos.
YouTube content creators based in the US, UK, Canada and Australia generally get paid $2 – $12 per 1000 monetized views after YouTube takes its cut. Monetized views usually range from 40% – 80% of the total views. All these are influenced by several factors like the device played on, time of the year, the location of the viewer, ad inventory, how many ads there are on a video, how many people skip the ads, type of advertisement, ad engagement, type of content, etc. The cost of an ad view is based on an auction between advertisers based on views. Advertisers have to bid a minimum of $0.01 per view.
There is also a program known as Google Preferred where deep-pocketed companies can target ads on the top 5% most popular content. The ad rates here are higher than normal. Apart from ads, YouTubers also generate extra from YouTube Red viewers who pay a monthly fee to view premium content on YouTube plus watch videos without ads. Here they get paid based on watch time on their videos. The longer the viewers watch their videos, the more money they earn.
Mark Wiens makes extra income from his blog he owns called Migrationology. There he makes money through ads and Amazon Affiliate links. He also has an eBook called Eating Thai Food Guide.
Naples and Sardinia: Pizza and an Exceptional Sense of Italian Food
