- Dan Shaba and John Nonny are musicians turned comedians who run two Facebook pages together.
- Their videos have become viral Facebook sensations. Some have over 100 million views.
- Here's how much money they make from Facebook's in-stream ad program.
When John Nonny and Dan Shaba — the creators behind the Pun Guys and John Nonny pages on Facebook that together have 6 million followers — are recognized in public, fans typically refer to them as "YouTubers" or "TikTokers."
"They never say, 'Those are those Facebookers,'" Shaba told Insider.
But while the duo from Ontario have significant followings on TikTok (860,000 followers) and YouTube (501,000 subscribers), Facebook is their primary platform. And it's where they make the most money.
After crossing paths as musicians, Shaba and Nonny found themselves collaborating on something new: comedy. Known for punny memes and quick do-it-yourself and prank videos, the two have figured out what works on the Facebook news feed and how to navigate what is trending on the platform.
And that's how they keep their earnings pouring in. Similar to YouTube and its Partner Program, Facebook pays eligible creators a percentage of ad revenue on videos.
The money wasn't always there. When Shaba and Nonny started posting on Facebook in 2016, there wasn't a model for ad-revenue sharing.
"It was very difficult to make money," Shaba said. "The only way was to do brand deals and those sorts of things, which wasn't really sustainable for the long term."
In 2017, Facebook started rolling out its own in-stream ad program. To qualify, a page must have 10,000 followers, 600,000 minutes of total watch time in the past 60 days, and at least five active videos. That's a higher bar than YouTube, where creators need 1,000 subscribers and 240,000 minutes of watch time.
Facebook is what works best for Nonny and Shaba's content.
Today, their videos, which they upload several times a week to their two accounts, regularly garner at least 1 million views. On average, 1 million views pays about $1,000, Shaba said. Sometimes, a video with about 1 million views can earn upward of $1,500 depending on the CPM rate, or cost per thousand views, Nonny added. (Insider verified these earnings with screenshots of their Facebook creator studio.)
YouTubers often earn more money than that for a video with 1 million views, but those videos are typically longer and can have multiple midroll ads. The YouTuber Jade Darmawangsa, for example, told Insider last year that she earned $3,600 for a video with 1.2 million views, but that video was 10 minutes long. Shaba and Nonny's videos are usually about three minutes long.
Earnings start to plateau once a video hits 50 million views
When a video hits 50 million views, earnings start to drop off a bit, the two said.
For videos with about 50 million views, the duo's earnings fall between $40,000 and $50,000.
A video with over 100 million views can earn the pair between $80,000 and $100,000, they said. But their videos reach that threshold only three to four times a year — "if we're lucky."
(Insider verified these estimates with screenshots of their creator studio dashboard.)
How Facebook differs from YouTube and TikTok
Nearly all the videos posted by the Pun Guys have running times of 3:02 or 3:32. The reason is pretty straightforward: To see the highest payouts, videos typically need to be around three minutes long, Shaba said.
But if a post is any longer than that, it may not pop off: Short videos on Facebook do well because people aren't coming to the app to sit down and watch videos like they are on YouTube, Nonny said.
While there's no minimum-length requirement on YouTube, most videos go over 10 minutes to optimize ad revenue through multiple ad breaks. Meanwhile, on TikTok, videos are often no longer than 60 seconds.
Partially because Facebook videos have to grab the attention of someone who didn't necessarily plan on tuning in, they have a reputation for being clickbait and teasing "gotcha" or mind-blowing endings that keep viewers watching until the very last second.
It's something the pair has to balance, Nonny said, especially in making sure viewers don't drop off before the ad break.
"There's a fine line between being straight-up corny and bait-y and just trying to make your videos where it's entertaining enough where they want to see the climax," Nonny said.
Update: This post was edited to clarify the qualifications for Facebook in-stream ads.
