Do We Know Who Succeeds on Udemy?

I'm relatively new to Udemy, and I'm realizing that it's going to be challenging:

1. My focus is topical (climate change) - not skill-based or personal development like most of Udemy

2. Much of the traffic I drive to Udemy ends up being a "Udemy Promotion." Buyers just don't understand that if they wait 24 hours, or go to my landing page and click from there, or skip my link and just go to udemy.com and then search for the course, that I as the instructor end up with peanuts.

3. My courses, which actually contain a great deal of value if you're interested in climate change, end up being so severely discounted than I as the instructor end up with peanuts.

4. One of my courses is on Udemy business, but the vast majority of Udemy Business students never actually watch the course, so no monetization there.

I'm not looking for a debate or a pity party vis a vis the points above. But I am really curious who is successful on Udemy.

a. What fraction of courses generate 50% of instructor revenues?

b. What course topics generate 50% of instructor revenues?

c. What fraction of courses generate 50% of Udemy Business minutes watched?

d. What course topics generate 50% of Udemy Business minutes watched?

I suspect these and similar questions are very hard to get answers to in terms of really understanding the "how and why" of who's successful on Udemy, but thought it was worth asking.

Comments

  • MichaelPog
    MichaelPog Posts: 992 rolemodel rank

    @MarkTrexler757
    I completely understand that as a new instructor you would want to know all this, but my question to you would be:

    What would you do with this information?

    And also:

    My bet that technical and leaders courses are the bulk of UFB's revenue.

    When it comes to topic breakdown on the market place, you have the market place insights tool by the way.

  • A good question. Just seems like it would help develop the best Udemy strategy.

    And thanks for reminding me re Market Place. It really puzzles me though, telling me that # of climate change courses and student demand for climate change is "high" and in 78% percentile of searches. All of those numbers seem very odd to me given Udemy's focus, and the fact there are a total of 31 courses on climate change.

  • MichaelPog
    MichaelPog Posts: 992 rolemodel rank

    I don't know if 78% is very helpful, but seeing the top 5 courses revenue and the number of courses is really what you need.

    I see you're already at the top.

    And given that one of your courses is on UFB you already know the demand for that there, no other data will give you better insight.

  • Sorry but can you tell me what is UFB ?

  • Udemy for Business. Companies pay Udemy a fixed fee for all their employees to have access to a subset of Udemy courses judged most appropriate by Udemy. There is no way for instructors to get their courses into Udemy for Business; it's a decision made by a team within Udemy.

  • I lost the link to the list of UFB courses. It's here somewhere in the forum in recent questions. It's mostly IT certifications and some people management courses. Try to get that list and if your expertise is outside it then we are at the mercy of the market mood and coupons.

    Edit : https://teach.udemy.com/ufb-priority-topics/

  • Thanks for pointing us to that list. I will note that the list doesn't include my UFB course, so I don't know how complete it is. Although I see now that it's a list of topics as opposed to individual courses. Would be great to know which actual courses are in UFB.

  • Was surprised to see "sleep" as a high-priority demand in UFB so checked the marketplace and found this gem of a result from the search algorithm! (Check the number of ratings in both)

    Screen Shot 2022-08-31 at 12.12.37 AM.png

  • Maybe dropping a mail to the instructor support id might get you more information. Or just raising a support ticket might help you reach the right person.

  • Thanks for clarifying