You become eligible for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), but you also need 4,000 public watch hours in the past 12 months. Both requirements must be met simultaneously.
Focus on your click-through rate (CTR) and average view duration. Improving these two metrics signals to YouTube to recommend your content to more people.
No — engagement rate matters more. 1,000 highly engaged followers are worth more than 10,000 passive ones for sponsorships, sales, and algorithm reach.