Views Are King: How Brand Deals Actually Get Sold on YouTube (ft Sam Goldberg of RAE Media)

Sam Goldberg sold out the sponsorship inventory on YouTube's biggest true crime channel. Then his phone started blowing up with creators asking who got them those deals — so he left and started his own agency. Three months into RAE Media: $2.6M in gross sales and four closed six-figure deals. He now exclusively handles brand partnerships for Legal Eagle (3.9M subscribers, ~600K views a video), Chris Cuomo at NewsNation, and Rossen Reports, and has sold for Iced Coffee Hour, Ashley Banfield, and Brian Entin across 100+ brands. What we get into: → why views beat subscribers, and how he's sold more for a 200K channel than a 30M one → the 4 things he checks before he'll represent a channel (host's face in the thumbnail is non-negotiable) → the three-video test he runs so one bad algorithm week doesn't kill a partnership → why he tells creators to give up one inventory spot for free to win the renewal → how to know when you've outgrown selling your own deals → the blue chip brands still pouring money into cable while YouTube conversions are trackable three different ways → and the creator he's hunting next Subscribe to Creator Diaries for the full interview and the rest of the archive: https://creatordiaries.beehiiv.com/