Should You Pay A Freelancer on Fiverr to Promote Your YouTube Videos?

I have had my YouTube channel since 2014. I uploaded my first video in 2016 and since then, I have sporadically uploaded 54 videos. However, after completing my Master's degree, I had more free time and wanted to try and grow my YouTube channel and so, I read all the advice out there, most of which seemed to tell creators to be consistent. Taking this advice, for the last six months, I have uploaded one video per week on the same day and at the same time.

However, despite all my efforts, I still only had 63 subscribers. I had tried everything from social media promotion to watching countless videos on how to make better videos and how to promote your videos. However, nothing was working. I did a Google search on “how to promote your YouTube channel” and I noticed that there were people on Fiverr that would promote your videos for less than £5.

I was sceptical. Who wouldn't be? All these people claiming that they can promote your videos organically, which means no bots or click farms. Some of them charge less than my daily Starbucks coffee. I carefully looked at all the reviews on Fiverr and chose two freelancers that had the most positive reviews.

Freelancer Number 1 — Fiverr Score 4.8 (1k+ reviews). Total cost £9.

Prior to paying for this service, the video that I chose to promote had 55 views. I will refer to this as Video 1.

Freelancer number 1 offered, creative marketing solutions to grow your brand. They do digital marketing services, video production services and SEO. Their methods of promotion are through Website Inframe Embedding, Google Adwords PPC campaign, social media pages having a 10M+ audience over different social media platforms.

They cannot guarantee numbers. However, they state that they will promote your video, get more traffic and exposure and that you will surely get a good boost to your video. The service offer a 100% delivery or Money back guarantee. No questions asked

Freelancer Number 2 — Fiverr Score 4.8(854 reviews). Total cost £5.70.

Prior to paying for this service, the second video that I chose to promote had 76 views. I will call this one Video 2.

This freelancer also claims to organically promote your videos through the following channels: Iframe embedding, Web 2.0, niche related playlists, promotion on pages and recommended and related videos. Again, they provide customers with 100% Guaranteed Work or Your Money Back.

I had now paid my two chosen freelancers. Both stated that the turnaround would be a few days. If you want quicker results, you can pay a little extra for expedited service. However, both freelancers started working on my video promotion the same day and I could already see that my video views were increasing.

The next day, Video 1, that previously had 51 views now had 576 views. Video 2, which had 76 views now had 851 views. I also gained 9 subscribers overnight. The two videos have also got 30–40 more thumbs up than they previously had. I wondered if I could find where these views were coming from and so, I did a Google search.

When inputted the title of my video into Google, the first record of the search was my video on YouTube and also my blog, where I have published a blog post to accompany the video. I could not see any other external promotion for my video. This made me think that these new views, likes and subscribers may not be organic as the freelancers claimed.

When I looked at my YouTube analytics, Video 1 received 95.2% of views from suggested videos on YouTube. Video 2 received 90.6% of its views from other YouTube features. When I took a closer look at the analytics, I noticed that these new views, that I had paid for were not views at all, they were just clicks on my videos.

The top two performing videos in my analytics were the ones for which I used Fiverr for. However, the average view duration is 6.8% on Video 1 and 3.7% on Video 2. Videos with organic views and no promotion received an average duration between 30–45% and YouTube tend to favour videos that have audience retention of over 50%. I thought that by using this service, I may have harmed my channel rather than helping it.

I wondered if that was now it, would my videos get any more views? I went onto my Fiverr account and both orders still said ‘in progress’ So I waited another day. The next morning, Video 2 had 1,118 views and 36 likes and Video 1 had 586 views and 43 likes.

Another day passed. When I looked on my channel analytics, Video 1 now had 1128 views and 42 likes. I had also gained more subscribers. Video 2 had jumped to 1138 views and still 36 likes. The watch time had also doubled to 22% and my views had increased to 197%.

Two days later, when I looked at my channel analytics, Video 1 had views removed by YouTube and went from 1128 views and 42 likes to 1102 views and 36 likes, which would suggest that that the views and likes are from bots and click farms and are not organic as the freelancer promised. Three days later and the views and likes have now stopped. This is another sign that the views were not organic.

If you are looking to reach that 1000 subscribers mark and 4000 watch hours for YouTube monetization, I would not recommend using these freelancers. Indeed, they both delivered what they promised in a roundabout way. However, if I am going to be critical, they increased the clicks on my videos and not video views. Even though my analytics summary shows that views have increased by 167%, the watch time is only up 11%, which means that the watchers are either just not sticking around, or that they are from bots.

Overall, I think that it is pretty safe to say that the majority of the freelancers on Fiverr that claim to organically promote your YouTube videos, in fact, do not do organic promotion, they may use some organic promotion along with bots and click farms. Would I recommend using one of these services on Fiverr? No, just let your channel grow on its own. It may take a lot longer. However, YouTube does not like bot views and subscribers and so, it may have an adverse effect on your channel in the future.