Transcript:

Gareth Leonard (00:00):

that’s the YouTube Journey you have to be ready to make no money you have to be ready to get kicked in the stomach every day with a new problem it’s entrepreneurship

Ross Borden (00:08):

what has it been like building a YouTube subscriber list of 700,000 people

Gareth Leonard (00:13):

Basically, YouTube is the greatest revenue model. Out of all of the socials on YouTube, you get consistent revenue. It’s the only platform that someone will do this. And I think this is a huge key for creators. The more authentic your journey and your mission, the more it’ll resonate with people

Ross Borden (00:50):

This is creator, the podcast from Matador Network. I’m your host Ross Borden, and I believe creators are the future of all global advertising. So join me as I sit down with top creators to hear about how they got started, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the tips you need to become a full-time creator. Hipa back with another episode of Creator the podcast. Today we have Gareth Leonard, old time friend of mine. Personally. I was, dude, I was trying to think when and where did I even meet you? I know it was a really long time ago and probably at some sort of travel blogging conference 15 years ago,

Gareth Leonard (01:30):

And I don’t know how much you want to dive into this, but it was actually Toronto in Toronto. Toronto. It was a Toronto conference. And I won’t say the name of the conference, but I met you as you were trying to create a mutiny over the entire conference and take over the conference. And I was like, who’s this guy? And I was good friends with the Diamond pr, give them a shout out, diamond PR and Jody Diamond. And that

Ross Borden (01:55):

Was when

Gareth Leonard (01:56):

First started doing these press trips and things like that. And she was like, Gareth, you got to meet Ross and you were just running around. I want to take over all of this, I’m going to take this. I

Ross Borden (02:08):

Literally, yeah, I was pissed. I got canceled a day before my speaking engagement because he said, he’s all your suitcase in my show. And I was like, what is suit casing? What are you talking about? We’re just like, we just got the team here chopping it up with people. And yeah, I moved, I did my talk anyway, moved it across the street to a bar, did a whole promotion video, filled up the bar, did my talk. Anyway, yeah, that was a really funny, that’s hilarious.

Gareth Leonard (02:37):

That was my first interaction with you. And I said, okay, this guy, I like this guy, I like this guy’s energy. I like where he is going places I have similar energy in terms of just trying to make things happen. And when that first meeting happened I said, okay, this is someone I’m going to be friends with for a long time. I have a feeling. And sure enough, here we are.

Ross Borden (02:54):

Alright. So yeah, we met in Toronto. Who even knows when that was, how long ago that was. But for those who don’t know you for as long as I have, tell us about yourself. We’re going to get into your origin story. I was actually watching that amazing reel you made about your whole story, so we’ll get into all that. But who are you? Where do you live? What do you do?

Gareth Leonard (03:16):

Yeah, so I’m Gareth Leonard. I started back in 2009, one of the OG travel blogs, it was called Tourist to Townie back then. A terrible name in retrospect. And the goal was to just travel abroad for one year. So my goal was to live in Argentina for one year and learn the language, get a local job, meet local people and try to immerse myself in a foreign place. And in the states, a townie is someone who sits at the end of the bar and knows everybody and has a story about everybody. And that was kind of the idea was to go against the grain of most travelers who are just counting countries and counting places. And I wanted to say I haven’t been to very many countries, but let me tell you, I can tell you where the best back street is to get an empanada in Buenos Aires.

(04:07):

I can tell you where the bodega is on the back streets. And I wanted to have a deeper understanding what place, and that really is how it started is one year was the mission and it was just to be in this foreign place. I’m from a very small town in upstate New York of about 6,000 people. I had very limited outside influence in my life. We would take, I grew up with a single mother and I would play basketball and baseball and we’d take some skiing trips. That was the extent of it in Vermont. So it was about five or six hour drive away. We’d go camping and that was it. That was my taste of the outside world. So when I had the opportunity, I said, I’m going to jump on this and go and try and travel for a little bit and learn something beyond me.

Ross Borden (04:55):

What was that first year in Argentina and how long did you stay? And then how did that translate to this kind of thesis that you have about not just going to every country or going into every city for three or four days, but really staying super long and integrating with the culture and actually learning the place firsthand?

Gareth Leonard (05:17):

And it really comes to the timing that I was able to do it because in 2009, 2010, there really wasn’t much in terms of social media opportunities. And now for creators, you can scale and monetize so much quicker than I could. I started with the blog and it was at the very beginning. And so what I would do to make money online first I had a bartending job in Argentina, so that was,

Ross Borden (05:43):

I saw that in video. I liked the vintage footage,

Gareth Leonard (05:47):

The old school footage. And so that was the first idea was really in order to immerse myself, I wanted a in-person, a physical real life job, not just something online or behind a computer. I wanted to be connected with people and the best way to do that is to work alongside them. And so my thought process was never to be a creator. It was truthfully very selfish. I left for a year because I needed it. I need a year to open my eyes to the world. I needed new perspective, I needed some personal growth and some self-awareness. So many things that come from traveling abroad and living abroad. More importantly because they run parallel the creator world and the travel world is a parallel universe where you can be a creator and go to every country in the world, but you never really know the place you go and you film and you make your content and then you leave that place. And that is what I try to avoid at all costs because you look back at that and you realize I’ve had all this content and all this thing and all these tangible pieces of evidence that I’ve been to the place, but without truly knowing or having these experiences. So it started with the blog and then I was able to monetize the blog a little bit. And

Ross Borden (07:08):

This is writing like an old school blog where written blog, right? Not,

Gareth Leonard (07:13):

Yeah, I started with a written travel blog and I was able to sell banner ads and text links and that kind of stuff. At the very beginning, bought a couple of extra blogs to scale the sale of text links and banner ads and then over the course of a year, and you ask, how was that first year? It was a beautiful and maddening experience because of my goal to live in this place and immerse myself only in Spanish speaking people, only in native people. Where were you in Buenos Aires the whole time? Yeah, in Buenos Aires. Yeah. I focused in Bueno Aires and traveled a bit, but then I wouldn’t allow myself, I had rules going into it because this was a mission for me. And so the rule was no expat bars. And when you’re struggling to learn the language, it is very easy to get yourself into these comfortable situations. But the whole goal was for one year is to get out of my comfort zone and then with that authenticity of what the mission that I was on. And I think this is a huge key for creators to the more authentic your journey and your mission,

(08:26):

The more it’ll resonate with people and the more true to the content you are and the more vulnerable and the more real you are, the more real it’s going to get. And my journey was real. It was a struggle and I showed people that struggle. I wish I would’ve videoed more, but it was in written form that I showed that struggle of I don’t understand anybody. I got fired from my bartending job probably three times and I didn’t understand, so I just kept coming back the next day. So there was nobody in the bar that spoke English and they still took you

Ross Borden (09:03):

Back. They’re like, all right, yeah,

Gareth Leonard (09:05):

Just here.

Ross Borden (09:06):

It was just here again, they probably felt sorry for you.

Gareth Leonard (09:09):

So that’s the journey that to take away from the two things in that is to immerse yourself in a place to get out of your comfort zone and everything beautiful and everything disastrous happens outside of your comfort zone, which ultimately leads to growth no matter what. Then the second thing on that is, as a creator, if you can take a nugget away, it is a true authentic journey pushes through all the noise, and now there’s so much more noise and in order to push through the noise, you see it. You see people that break through and they’re on these authentic journeys, whether it’s I want to visit every country in the world, whether I’m on a mission to eat the best food in X, y, z, it’s people with a mission that breakthrough.

Ross Borden (09:53):

But I like the note about being vulnerable and showing the struggles. And I know in that video, I think there’s sort of filming yourself the first night and you’re like, well, fuck, I got here and now I don’t know what to do. This is pretty lonely and scary. So when you first got to Argentina, were you even planning to make content and report on this mission, or was it just like, I’m just trying to make this 5K last for as long as I can and stay here as long as I can?

Gareth Leonard (10:24):

Yeah, I knew I wanted to document what was going on, but it was really for friends and family back home because everyone doubted that I would live there for a year. Everyone doubted how, because this was beyond anything friends or family have ever done. The furthest place my friends go is Florida for a week vacation, and that’s the truth. And so I was going to document this and say, Hey, I want to show you guys that there’s a different way of life, but I didn’t know was doing it. I was making it up as I was going that first night in the hostel. I put my bags down, I just press record. And I am so thankful I did because it was one of the most vulnerable and real moments of the travels. And I tell everybody that’s trying to create or be a creator is the hardest when you’re going through the hardest times and shit’s really a struggle, that’s when you should film.

(11:17):

And I just went through some medical stuff and it was a battle and I started filming because I knew one, it’s a way to cope with your own. If you’re like, I need to film this, you start thinking of other things, but also it resonates with people. People can really connect with the fact you showing up to a hostel in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, you can’t understand what anybody’s saying. You’re on a whim, you have zero contacts, $5,000 in your name and you’re like, shit, what did I just do? I get goosebumps now just thinking about it because it’s real.

Ross Borden (11:53):

And I think it’s a good point because so much of travel and even travel creators, travel content made by creators is pretty inauthentic for the most part. Most people are showing the highlights when everything’s perfect and you’re having the incredible meal. But yeah, I think it’s a really good lesson, even if you don’t plan at first, to actually use the content on your channels to always turn the camera on yourself in the shittiest moments when things are hard or uncertain. So I think that’s a good takeaway.

Gareth Leonard (12:24):

And that’s a part of YouTube as well, right? YouTube allows that and there’s so much of push. I mean obviously Instagram and travel are go hand in hand now and all the beautiful things and they get the views and all that stuff, but you can build a real brand if you’re willing to cut through those or even balance ’em out. I’ll do some things where it’s a beautiful view or something like that and then the next video will be a struggle. So some kind of a balance is helpful.

Ross Borden (12:50):

So you were monetizing by selling banner ads and text links that is old school old and I love it and a horrible way to make money and trust me, I’ve been there too in the early days of Matador. So we, you’re in Argentina, do you start actually breaking even and being able to live, or did you go home and then work for a while and get more money and then go back out in the world and live somewhere else?

Gareth Leonard (13:17):

So in between Argentina, I went home for two months for friends’ weddings. I was starting to travel and all my friends were starting to get married. So I went home for a couple weddings after a year. And it wasn’t until I moved to Columbia next that I met other friends that were saying, you can start selling entire posts, you can start doing this stuff. So it was really my second year that I had enough readers on the website that I could start leveraging it and I’ll tell everybody, if you want to do something, expect yourself a year or two to not make any money from it. So I was really scraping by in Argentina in that first year. I was working six nights a week at one point, making between 30 and $50 a night from 7:00 PM until 3:00 AM

Ross Borden (14:04):

That’s so funny that you say that. I was down there with friends, we were climbing mountains in South America and living in Telmo Buenos Aires

Gareth Leonard (14:13):

And

Ross Borden (14:14):

We’re like, couldn’t believe how cheap it was. And we had a little money left over from the climbing mission. We were total dirtbags sleeping in tents

Gareth Leonard (14:21):

And

Ross Borden (14:22):

Cooking with cooking stoves and camping on the side of the road. And then we got there to Argentina, came down off Aconcagua into Mendoza and we’re like, A bottle of wine is one US dollar and baby beef steak, it’s five inches tall. The best steak I’ve ever had is $3. It’s so crazy how cheap it is. And then when we did start running out of money, we’re like, shit, we got to get jobs. And we worked in this very similar place where go in check in as Ros with horrible Spanish at the time, waiting on tables. It turned into a club at night and we left at 5:00 AM after cleaning up and we would get 18 or the equivalent to 18 US dollars.

Gareth Leonard (15:05):

Sounds

Ross Borden (15:05):

About right. This is why it’s so cheap because literally impossible to make money here.

Gareth Leonard (15:08):

Crazy, crazy. And then so I would just scrape by and hope for the best. And then yeah, about at the end of that year. So what I did do in Argentina was my first real move and kind of savvy online move is I was recommending local tour companies. So local, I had enough Argentine content, enough Bueno, sase content that I reached out to all the tour operators in Argentina. And this is something that small creators can do that they don’t realize. And it’s a great way to make money before you have a big following. Let’s say you’re just huge in San Diego, you can reach out to local San Diego companies and say, Hey, give me 10% of everybody I bring you and give me a promo code. So that’s what I did at first. So that was my first taste of like, okay, I can do this. I can find a way to hustle this. And then it became the hotel calculator dot coms, the now defunct travel website, search finders all came and they said banner ads and text links and that kind of stuff. So that’s when it started picking up.

Ross Borden (16:12):

Where did you live in Columbia and what was that second year, I guess? Are they one year each? These missions?

Gareth Leonard (16:20):

Columbia was six months. It’s funny, a lot of these missions were based on weddings back home. I said, I do want to travel the world, but I don’t want to be the guy that just forgets his friends. And there’s so many people like that. Oh, I don’t stay in touch with my friends and I have a good friend group at home. So I wanted to be the guy that was traveling, but I also wanted to be the guy that my friends back home knew that if they needed me, I’d be there. And that was something that was really important to me from the beginning. So it was actually in Argentina, I had Colombian roommates and they said, you should do this again and you should do this in Colombia. And I said, alright, I like that idea. So after Argentina, I was so in love with the life being out of my comfort zone, trying to learn Spanish, everything about Latin culture, and I said, I want to start creating a five year plan. So I had a one year plan, and now this is my five year mission. So it was five different countries and I had a goal in each of those countries, something that tied me into the culture in Columbia. Next, the goal was to learn how to salsa dance. I would go and I took salsa, I took Spanish in the morning, salsa lessons in the afternoon, and then I’d go salsa dancing at night. That would be

Ross Borden (17:37):

Where is this Cali or Meine? Okay.

Gareth Leonard (17:41):

Yeah. So I was in Meine and I had an awesome little spot in Vido, which if you know it’s right next, it’s a very local neighborhood and a really nice neighborhood. And I lived with a family, a single mother and her two boys, and I had my own little wing and it was beautiful. And then I would just go and I would do that every day. And so I was addicted to this life. And so then from Columbia it was, then I moved to Bolivia and then Guatemala. And then to fast forward the story across five years, it was five goals. It was salsa dancing in Columbia, then it was to build libraries in Bolivia. Then it was to learn how to cook in Peru. And then it was micro-financing in Guatemala. And then the fifth and final year when all this was supposed to be done was Brazil and to somehow find a job at the World Cup and that was going to be the culmination and I was going to stop and go home and start a new business. And then everything just, that’s when video came in.

Ross Borden (18:51):

Tell me about as a creator, video happens and then how does that change things?

Gareth Leonard (18:57):

Yes. Really from the jump in Argentina, we had one of those Kodak flip cams, like the original. I mean, now the footage, you can see it when I do the old school footage on. It’s pretty brutal. But the original thought was to just film and it was myself and one of my college roommates actually was like, you should just film all of this. He actually moved to LA and was doing the traditional acting route. And I said that would be the best way to do it because I really didn’t love writing. I just wanted to tell stories with a camera. And for better or worse, the blog was making money. So when the blog made money, I put the camera aside because I wanted to keep the dream alive. So in retrospect, I wish I would’ve just kept filming daily vlogs from the beginning. But then on the other side, maybe it was good that not everything was filmed back then.

(19:52):

Some experiences weren’t filmed. I needed some growth in order to get to the point where I’m at now. I can tell these stories. And so that was really a big part of it. And so it was actually in Brazil that I did my first big series. So I was hired by the tourism board of Brazil to visit all 13 of the World Cup cities. They were going to pay me, but the goal was they wanted to start a blog. And so they had me start their blog and write blog posts for all of these cities. And I said, I’ll do that while I’m doing that, why don’t I just film this as well? And so I just took a Canon S one 20 or S 95, what is it? 1 21 9 5, 1 of these small point and shoot cameras. And I just filmed alongside taking photos. They paid me $13,000, a thousand dollars a city for the whole thing. For the whole

Ross Borden (20:49):

Thing. A thousand dollars per city, holy shit. Thousand. But still, that’s a pretty epic. Did you have to book all your own travel? Your travel was included or not included in that? I would try to remember. And how did you find that opportunity other than the low money? That’s pretty dream gig right there.

Gareth Leonard (21:05):

Dream gig. And I think they paid for flight. No, no, they didn’t pay for flights. No, they didn’t pay for flights. The buses? Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of

Ross Borden (21:14):

Bus. It’s a big, big country.

Gareth Leonard (21:15):

Big country. But it was through the blog, so it was through the blog writing a bunch. I was there for a few months in Rio trying to find a job at the World Cup. And I had gotten there months. I got there in January and I gave myself a good landing point to be able to build up some sort of a network to get to the World Cup in July, June, July. So I said, if I get there in January, they’ll give me, what is that, six months, seven months to find, connect with people and make this happen? So Ture came in and they said, Hey, we like your blog. Will you make one for us on our site? And I said, sure, send me to all the World Cup cities. And they said, okay. And I said, and I want a thousand dollars a city. And

Ross Borden (22:00):

They said, $1,000 per city. And they said, okay, that’d be tough to pull off these days. This is what, 2013?

Gareth Leonard (22:08):

Yeah, 2014. Yeah, because

Ross Borden (22:10):

2014 I was there in Brazil for world,

Gareth Leonard (22:12):

And it was more money than I’d ever seen in one contract. I mean, I was making about $4,000 a month on the site, and that’s when you could sell a banner ad for a lot. You could sell a text link for a lot right before all the bloggers came in and said, wait, you’re going to give me 50 bucks for that? I’ll take it before it got super saturated so you can make a good amount of money. And I had multiple sites too, so I could spread ’em out about 4,000 and $4,000 a month in Latin America. South America at that time was killer.

Ross Borden (22:42):

That’s all I needed.

Gareth Leonard (22:44):

So it was that. So $13 came to the table and I said, shit, I’ll do it. And that’s when the video started.

Ross Borden (22:50):

And then is that when you started your YouTube channel as well? Pretty much, because I know you have 700,000 followers, subscribers on YouTube now, right?

Gareth Leonard (22:58):

Yeah. And that’s when the first real series, that’s when I saw Real Traction. I was posting stuff randomly before then how to correctly kiss somebody in Argentina with greetings. You got to kiss on both cheeks. And I had all these failures. So if you take a deep dive in the YouTube archives,

Ross Borden (23:19):

Funny videos,

Gareth Leonard (23:20):

You can see some really terrible and fun videos. I was doing, it just kind of the goal was to go against the grain from all of these travel guides, and you have some of these OG travel guides and OG travel bloggers, and they were all doing top 10 things to do in, or the best part of France is this. And I thought, that’s kind of bullshit. You went to France for a weekend and now you’re telling people everything you want them they should be doing. So that was a big part of it is how are you really giving advice to people? But if you look backwards, they were thinking much more from a business standpoint, which was a smart business play

Ross Borden (23:59):

Because yeah, like video, SEO, like top 10 lists and stuff like that

(24:02):

And those. But you took a more authentic and humorous approach then. So you launched YouTube. What has it been like building a YouTube subscriber list of 700,000 people? I always tell people when they ask for advice on YouTube and creators, I know I always say, I mean, I’ve never done it, but I’ve seen how hard it is. I’ve seen how long it takes, and I’ve seen that consistency in posting on the same day every week or posting as much as possible is critical. And then just having that mindset of I’m not stopping for anything. I’m going to keep going. And then I remember when you hit a hundred thousand and now you’re at 700 k and I’m sure a million soon. So what has that process been

Gareth Leonard (24:50):

Like? Yeah, it really comes down exactly what you said. It’s aggressive and an insane amount of perseverance because you’ll have videos that don’t hit, you’ll have audience that doesn’t resonate. You’ll have things that, it’s a constant roller coaster. And so behind everything, you have to truly love it. You have to truly love what you’re doing. You have to truly love what you’re talking about, and you have to believe in what you’re talking about and what your mission is, and you get lost along the way. And I’ve made videos where I said, what am I doing? This doesn’t fit the mission. This doesn’t fit the brand. And I’m chasing, find myself chasing videos. And I actually got to this point a couple of times, and I’ve mentioned it in videos, is one of the great trips I took recently was a Croatia trip, to give you an example.

(25:44):

And we were just going through the motions and things weren’t, I wasn’t telling really authentic stories, and it was beautiful and it was nice, and Croatia is amazing for a vacation, but maybe not to tell the stories. We didn’t get the stories that I wanted. And I find myself in this really depressed and in dark spaces, and I think of Bourdain’s Roadrunner when he is not shooting authentic shit. He finds himself in dark places, and that’s me. I definitely feel like that if I’m making stuff up or if I’m chasing what a video should be or what I think would do well, I always find myself caught into this. And that’s the YouTube journey. It’s like you have to be ready to make no money. It’s entrepreneurship. You have to be ready to get kicked in the stomach every day with a new problem demonetized for showing a pig’s head that was being cooked in Puerto Rico.

Ross Borden (26:40):

That’s tough.

Gareth Leonard (26:41):

And having to blur it demonetize for, there’s a big Comic-Con video we did two years ago and had to repost it this year because it was body painting to it. Then there’s some videos where you put it out, you work your ass off on and it gets no attention flat. And to your point, it is consistency. It’s consistency above everything else because you are following a mission, as I mentioned earlier, and you’re consistent on that mission, and it’s when you’re kind of all over the place, and I’ve had some restructuring and moving around because I want to see how this thing can scale with that. With those shifts comes new audiences, and you have to purge old audiences that are only expecting certain things from you. For example, during Covid, I did a lot of food videos here in San Diego and I got a sizable San Diego audience that was looking for food. And so then when I go back out into the world and I try to do a deep story about migrant camps in Tijuana or Native Americans in Utah, it falls flat. They’re

Ross Borden (27:48):

Like, what happened to the fish? Taco reviews?

Gareth Leonard (27:49):

Yeah, yeah. Just put food in your mouth, clown. So you had

Ross Borden (27:54):

To, so is that why you started the other channel Gareth Eats? Because you already had that developed audience and it wasn’t really, yeah, makes

Gareth Leonard (28:03):

Sense. So Gareth Eats does well, and so Gareth Eats, it’s much more of a, that’s the business side of this is I enjoy going out and discovering new places here in San Diego, and I like filming food videos is relatively easy comparatively to these deep stories that I want to tell on the main channel. I want to tell day in the life stories about interesting professions and people and cultures around the world from the Amazon tribes to drag queens in Las Vegas, to casino CEOs to barbecue shops in Kansas City. I want to tell real stories and have the freedom to do that. And so the secondary channel, which I can push advertisers to, I can have a good consistency of views because people know exactly what they’re getting that goes over to Gareth Eats.

Ross Borden (28:51):

So that’s interesting. That has, what, 50,000 followers versus your core following is 700,000, but are you saying you make more money on the 50,000 just because of the subject matter?

Gareth Leonard (29:02):

So the main channel, I take deep shots, downfield main channel, I’m going for home runs on the main channel. I’m going for a million views, I’m going for resignation. I’m telling real stories like mini documentaries. So an advertiser will come to the main channel and they’ll say, your last three videos got a million views, 30,000 views and 200,000 views we pay based on CPM. We pay based on these metrics. So because I’ve been inconsistent, because I’m trying to figure out this new voice and new mission, an advertiser would get skittish on that. They won’t take a risk on this. There’s thresholds you can do set up view guarantees and that kind of stuff. But the thing with Gareth Eats is I can roughly estimate and now it’ll be interesting, so I’ll do a lot more San Diego focused. I can roughly estimate 50 to a hundred thousand views is pretty consistent. And if you can show an advertiser consistent views, then they’re more likely to give you a consistent rate. So where I might make 20 grand off of video on the main channel, I can make a consistent five to seven grand on the Gareth Eats channel. And also if I have an advertiser that I don’t want to put on the main channel that might not fit, I can say I can give an astronomical rate on the main channel and say, but I also have Gareth Eats if you want that, and I’ll push ’em over to,

Ross Borden (30:34):

Right, push ’em towards the right direction. When you say they’ll give you a rate, maybe, I don’t even know how YouTube monetization works, but I’ve always thought it’s basically programmatic or it’s a full custom video where you’re mentoring their product or their destination in the video. But are you saying that people come across your channel and they’re like, we’re going to specifically buy advertising on your next five videos, and it’s only going to run on Gareth Eats?

Gareth Leonard (31:03):

No integrations,

Ross Borden (31:05):

Integrations like custom videos,

Gareth Leonard (31:08):

So 60 to 92nd integrations in the first X percentage of the video.

Ross Borden (31:13):

And then what’s the breakdown of the programmatic side, the pre-roll and the skippable TrueView videos.

Gareth Leonard (31:20):

And that’s something I don’t touch. That’s something

Ross Borden (31:23):

That, oh, you don’t do those at all?

Gareth Leonard (31:24):

No, I mean that’s in there. I have the AdSense dialed in and I can put them anywhere throughout the video. And that’s all CPM based as well, or RPM for me. So revenue per thousand that’ll fluctuate based on where I’m filming the video, where someone’s watching the video. That’s the other thing with us based content. To give you an example, we were talking about Russia, and I’ll give you the Philippines as example too. I made a Russia series and did very, very well, let’s say 300,000 views of video, which is pretty good for me, especially five years ago. Those would make maybe a dollar to $2 RPM versus if I make a video in the United States and I have a US audience watch, oh, because it made that, because there was a lot of Russians watching it. Same with the Philippines make a great Philippines series. The views do really well, but you’re making pennies on the dollar.

Ross Borden (32:17):

Tiny CPMs. Yeah,

Gareth Leonard (32:19):

Because you’re in front of a Filipino audience now, if you can make a US based video, or Hawaii, for example, massive CPMs, you can make anywhere between 11 to 15 in your rpm. So in San Diego, luckily is a very high CPM slash RPM because of where I’m located. And the audience is essentially an affluent part of the country, and my demographic is older skews towards men. So a very desirable audience.

Ross Borden (32:53):

And you’ve got a pretty broad following. You have a TikTok, you have an Instagram, you have YouTube, but it sounds like, I’m guessing YouTube is the lion’s share of your current revenue since you became a proper creator, has YouTube, would you say that’s very much worth it, worth the struggle crawling through the mud to build this YouTube presence? Because this is the most dependable monetization for your content.

Gareth Leonard (33:18):

We’re just diving into the Facebook. So we just got monetized on Facebook and TikTok just got monetized this week, actually just hit the 10,000 marks, so I haven’t put much attention into it to pull the curtains back. I’ve been paying three editors for the last six months for short form content. So I have all old videos on backlog, just heaps and piles of cutdowns that are ready to go, but they’re sitting because I needed Facebook and TikTok to be monetized before I release them. And so now that they’re all released, we’re going to see it. But it’s very interesting. I don’t know how deep in the weeds you want to get, but basically YouTube is the greatest revenue model out of all of the socials greatest. They have the best layout in terms of analytics. They show exactly what’s happening. They have the best return. Let’s say, like I said, you can get 11 to, we’re getting in the weeds now for those creators that want to dive in deep.

Ross Borden (34:14):

This is good, this is good. People need to hear this because this stuff matters where you’re going to put your attention and the effort to build these followings.

Gareth Leonard (34:22):

So with TikTok and Instagram, you can get indirect, a ton of indirect business. You can get advertisers, you can get brand deals, you can get famous, you can get Instagram and TikTok famous on YouTube. You get consistent revenue and you get advertisers on top of that, you get a loyal, a much more loyal audience because you think of it is the second most loyal audience that there is. Besides podcasting. Podcasting, someone will sit and listen to you for two hours, YouTube if someone sits and watches you, it’s the only platform that someone will do this.

Ross Borden (35:06):

Yeah, it’s the only platform that the landscape view. We’ve noticed that on the paid side, when we run big brand advertising, the VCR, the completion rates of the videos are, first of all, YouTube counts a view as 30 seconds. Whereas meta platforms, I think it’s three seconds

Gareth Leonard (35:22):

Still.

Ross Borden (35:23):

So there’s a lot of shitty basically worthless views in there. But I always push our advertising partners and Matador towards YouTube distribution because it seems to be a higher quality. And if it’s a long form video, the VCR is incredible compared to meta.

Gareth Leonard (35:40):

And you’ll see it now too. Meta is very interesting because meta you will explode. For example, we just had a random Egyptian breakfast hit for 2 million, and you’ll see your revenue skyrocket. The difference is the next day your revenue will be back to zero, whereas YouTube, there is a tail. Yeah, there’s a tail, and it is not as high or low. Now we’re going to play around with the idea of reposting on these platforms, which you can’t really do on YouTube, but deleting that same content and reposting it once a month, and because there’s no limits to that, now all of a sudden if another platform decides to run one of these bonuses, a KX or Twitter, and they realize, Hey, we should start monetizing our videos and give people payouts. I’ll have three years of content sitting there ready to go every single day. And now with YouTube shorts going to three minutes, there’s shifts in the market, and if you have the product ready to go, you can fill those in where the money is.

Ross Borden (36:41):

Yeah, I mean, I love that idea. Again, I think there’s so many people, especially for creators who have been around for a while, you probably just have a massive amount. I know we’re at Matador, we’ve got about 350 terabytes of video that we’re now combing through figuring out how to make new edits because we’ve been shooting all over the world for 12 plus years, man,

Gareth Leonard (37:05):

You start smart, you start packaging these up and you have ’em just ready, and you have ’em organized in seasons too. I find that to be super helpful. So when you know Japan’s going to pop off in April, so okay, let’s get everybody, get Japan content ready, and you have these listicle posts and these kind of things that you can design. Oh, that’s a great way to do it. Have you had any success? I’ll ask you one quick question. Any success with scheduling platforms? That’s what we’re in right

Ross Borden (37:37):

Now, meaning we have a bunch of assets set up and then we schedule them, or they’re telling you when to post what content?

Gareth Leonard (37:45):

No, the buffers, the medicals, the laters, the Hoot Suites.

Ross Borden (37:50):

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, for social, but not for always on video content.

Gareth Leonard (37:57):

No, for social.

Ross Borden (37:58):

Yeah. Yeah. I think our team uses all that stuff.

Gareth Leonard (38:00):

You got to let me know when, because we’re testing, we’ve tested three of ’em and they all have failed, and we’re testing Buffer now. And TikTok videos have gone absolutely silent because of scheduling. And I hope people watch this to the end because this is some real shit.

Ross Borden (38:19):

This

Gareth Leonard (38:20):

Is

Ross Borden (38:21):

Real creative. So you think that platform is noticing that it’s detecting that it’s being posted and then it’s affecting performance?

Gareth Leonard (38:30):

Yeah, big time. At least on TikTok, it’s very clear and there’s a reason for it too, right? Because what do these platforms are designed to do? They’re designed to have you be on the platform and post your stuff. And so people, there’s a lot of creators out there that are saying, there hasn’t been a good platform to do this, to schedule. I’d love to schedule out for my whole year and throw my phone in the river, but they don’t want that to happen. So there hasn’t been a great platform to push through and I’m trying to find, and we’re testing ’em out and it’s still been a pain in the ass. Really.

Ross Borden (39:06):

That’s interesting. I’m going to ask my team about that. I’ll be interesting to see the comments on this episode if other people have experienced that. So you’re back in San Diego now, you’ve got a team of editors. Do you have upcoming travels, long-term travels, like this type of stuff you used to do coming up or what’s your plan?

Gareth Leonard (39:23):

Yeah, so the goal now is I love having a home base after 15 years on the road. I love having a home base and I love being in San Diego. So the thought was, and why I hit this really big fork in the road was I want to create real authentic content, but I can’t go live in a country for six months anymore. It’s not in my cards. So how can I create real deep shit without going there for a ton of time? And this thought of a day in the life, this series, a Day in the Life series is I can go immerse myself in a place, get real stories from people and be there for a much shorter period of time. So the goal now is big day in the Life mini doc episodes. We’re talking anything from airline pilots to the Amish people, to the diamond district to public school teachers, Uber drivers, everything in between professions, cultures, everything. And then on the other side, when I’m not doing these big missions, the goal is some San Diego food and we’re working now to get a presenting partner, a local company, to be the presenting partner of the whole channel and create local awesome mom and pop shops, taco stands, and kind of travel deeper in my own adopted backyard here in San Diego. So it’s twofold on the YouTube world and then on everything else, it’s get out archived footage and really try to maximize our catalog.

Ross Borden (40:54):

Have you ever been approached or have you ever approached any of the streamers about getting your own Bourdain style show? I know it’s very difficult to do that, but have you ever gone through the steps and process because you are someone, and obviously on YouTube there are many like you, but not as many like you on reels on Instagram and TikTok where you’ve got these 22 plus minute episodes that are basically full-blown travel TV shows. Have you been through that process of I basically already have a show on YouTube. Why can’t this be a Netflix show or something on a big streamer?

Gareth Leonard (41:35):

Truthfully, I’ve gotten away from that and that’s even with conversations with you and I is like the headaches that go into it. And speaking with Mike and Mike Corey, who we both know and Ryan Van Douser who we both know, you learn that the headaches of creating from a network is the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Their budgets are decent, but I can make the same amount of money on YouTube and do it all myself. And yeah, you hit the highs and lows. The consistent income is something that escapes you in this game. It’s like, yeah, it would be nice if I just had 30 grand coming in every single month would be nice. It’d be very comfortable. But the truth is, these shows they don’t have the budgets that they used to and they don’t have nearly the reaches that I can get on a and go and do it myself and be free of any bullshit really.

Ross Borden (42:31):

Yeah, for

Gareth Leonard (42:32):

Sure. It’s a nice thing to do, and we’ve talked about this briefly, is I would love to bring in an agent or someone who could go and speak on my behalf where it takes none of my time, but to say, Hey, we have this project where you want to be a spokesperson for this. Do more hosting stuff. I would love to get into because hosting, and it’s wild to say this because we’ve done some commercial work for hosting and people are like, sorry, for such a long day I’ll host every day anything. It’s the easiest shit. Once you go through YouTube, it’s

Ross Borden (43:02):

Easy. You’re like doing this. I’m shooting from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM at night on shooting myself on these self ones.

Gareth Leonard (43:11):

Wait, I don’t have to touch this edit. Wait, you guys are going to do all the editing yourself

Ross Borden (43:15):

And just show up and have fun. Yeah, it’s big, big difference.

Gareth Leonard (43:17):

I’m you give me a 7:00 AM to midnight and I’m in hosting no matter what. And so that is one side of it that is enticing, but truthfully, I can just hire people to do that work now with editors, with videographers that I have on staff, I can just do that all myself and create my own production from it.

Ross Borden (43:36):

So Gareth, I ask everyone this question, or almost everyone I think, who comes on the show. So if you back to the travel tip. We’ve talked about being creator, talked about monetizing straight up. You’ve been a lot of places, you’ve lived in a bunch of my favorite countries. So here’s my question. If your passport only worked in three countries for the rest of your life, yes, you have to include the US if you want that to be one of the countries, which countries would you live in for the rest of your life if you could only go to those three?

Gareth Leonard (44:07):

Okay, so I have to say the us, that’s one. Japan is two, and then I would put Bhutan is my absolute favorite, but that’s what I, similar to Japan and Japan has a little bit more, I would say. Okay, I got it. US Japan, Portugal,

Ross Borden (44:30):

Okay, yeah, Portugal is very solid. Bhutan is Portugal. I get everything right. Bhuton gets honorable. Mention it sounds like. But just really quickly, because Portugal comes up a lot. When I ask a question, Japan comes up a lot. It’s on my list. Why Bhutan? I’ve never been there. It looks freaking magical. But tell us about why Bhutan,

Gareth Leonard (44:51):

I’m not going to say this publicly, but I’ll say this publicly. If I ever get into some heat and I got to disappear, it’d be in Bhutan. It’s just gorgeous. And the culture, they’re living a parallel universe. It’s Buddhist monasteries up in the mountains. It’s traditional. The people are beautiful. It’s a young king and a beautiful princess. They measure their happiness. It is so far removed from anything I’ve ever known. It’s the best parts of Japan. It’s the best parts of India. It’s deep, deep Buddhist culture. So very peaceful, very thoughtful, really good food, incredible

Ross Borden (45:28):

Outdoors, and focused on happiness. I remember that. It’s like they have the happiness index or whatever. That’s

Gareth Leonard (45:33):

Such a cool, yeah, good food, awesome people, very traditional outdoors. You got a little bit of cities and it’s just a very magical place.

Ross Borden (45:45):

Cool on my list, man. Can’t wait to go to Battan. That sounds amazing, Gareth. Huge congrats. You are truly an OG travel creator, and you are crushing it. I can’t wait to see you cross a million subs on YouTube and you are well in your way. But congrats on all the big moves, man. The long standing career, never giving up and then all these big moves forward recently is very exciting. So thank you for joining the show. Everyone. Go check out Garris content. We’ll put all the different handles in the comments there, and you can go check his YouTube. Definitely follow him on YouTube and go watch. I am telling you, it is a full mainline dose of inspiration to watch that pinned reel on his Instagram. Thank you showing where it all started. So thanks Gareth. Thanks for coming. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, creator. The podcast is produced by Matador Network. We are a leading global travel publisher focused on travel and adventure. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Every week I interview a new top creator. New episodes are released every Tuesday on YouTube, apple podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Thanks for listening.