YouTube Analytics is a powerful tool. It helps in tracking and monitoring various metrics of the videos and channel. These metrics/ reports can offer detailed insights about the videos, overall performance, audience preferences, etc.
However, understanding these metrics can be overwhelming for the creators.
Here is the detailed information on each metric that can help you amplify YouTube’s success and growth.
#1. Watch Time
This is a key metric for YouTube’s success. It implies the total number of minutes viewers spend on the videos.
It is an important metric as high watch time signals to the YouTube algorithm that your videos are engaging and worth promoting, so as a result, the algorithm pushes them into the search results and recommendations.
In the watch time report, creators can see the total watch time accumulated for the videos and the rank of each video on the basis of watch time. They can also group the YT videos on the basis of style, theme, and length of the video.
Watch time directly influences the visibility and growth of the channel.
#2. Average Percentage Viewed
While watch time is important, the average percentage viewed provides a more refined insight. It represents the percentage of each video that can average viewer watched.
It evaluates the ability of the video to hold the audience’s retention till the end. This metric can be utilized by creators to identify the gaps and refine their content strategy.
If the YouTube algorithm finds that your video keeps the audience engaged and interested, then it rewards it with higher rankings. This crucial metric is available in the watch time report.
#3. Average View Duration
This metric is calculated by dividing the total watch time of the videos by the total number of video plays and replays.
This metric is available in the watch time repost and analyzes the ability of the video to hook the viewers.
If the video fails to properly engage the viewers, they will leave your videos in a short span of time, leaving your channel with poor watch duration.
#4. Audience Retention
This metric shows the percentage of people who watch and drop off at each and every segment of the video.
YouTube algorithm favors videos with high retention rates and pushes them higher in the rankings and search results as they can captivate the audience.
Audience retention can also help you plan your future content, as the most engaged segments of the video can be your upcoming video topics.
Simultaneously, segments showing sharp declines can help you understand what bores your audience, and you can eliminate such topics in your upcoming videos.
With sufficient data, you can create a YouTube audience retention report. It will encompass two graphs-
#5. Rewatch
It implies the amount of times viewers re-watch certain segments of the video.
If a good percentage of viewers rewatch a particular section, it means the segment has compelled the viewer to rewatch as it is of their interest.
This metric can be found in the audience retention graph, and soaring curves in the graph can represent re-watches.
#6. Engagement
Likes, dislikes, comments, and shares contribute to engagement and play an essential role in YouTube’s success. This metric can be found in the YouTube interaction report.
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Comments depict the emotional impact of the video on the audience
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Whereas shares show the value and trust of your brand/ content in the eyes of the audience.
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Likes and dislikes help in understanding the topics that cater to your audience’s interest.
Videos with high engagement rates lead to broadened reach, easy discoverability, and enhanced visibility.
#7. Impressions- Click Through Rate
Impressions measure the visibility of your thumbnails, whereas CTR measures the effectiveness of the videos that encourage viewers to click and view them.
A higher CTR implies an attractive Title, description and thumbnail and a topic relevant to your audience’s interest.
A high CTR and low engagement can be misleading. So, it is always preferable to analyze this metric with view duration and average percentage viewed.
However, a low CTR rate with high engagement can imply a small group audience that is immensely engaged with the video.
#8. Unique Viewers
This metric represents the number of viewers who view your video over a specific period of time. Thereby providing information about your actual audience size. This metric is useful for analyzing subscriber engagement.
If unique viewers lag behind the subscriber count, it implies low engagement by subscribers.
Creators can boost subscriber engagement by encouraging them to set up notifications for new videos.
This metric can be found in the Reach View and Audience tab in YouTube Studio.
#9. Views per unique viewers
This implies the number of times an average viewer watches your video. This indicator gauges viewer engagement and whether it entices your audience and motivates them to rewatch it.
Videos with high views per unique viewer are your hot topics, and making videos on them can help you enhance your view count, watch times, and subscriber count.
#10. Playlist Engagement
Playlists help in organizing and easy consumption of the videos, increasing watchtime and viewer engagement. YouTube Playlist reports offering valuable metrics- views per playlist start as well as the average time in the playlist.
If these metrics are poor, try creating playlists with high-retention videos.
#11. Card Clicks
Cards are interactive panels that encourage viewer actions like – subscribing, watching another video, or moving to another site.
CTR of cards showcases what action your viewers prefer while watching the video and can help you decide the position of the card, leading to enhanced watch time, traffic, etc.
Analyzing the card clicks can help decide the duration, timing, and placement of future videos.
#12. Viewership Types (Age, gender, etc)
In the YouTube demographic report, creators can see the type of viewers that see their videos, including their age, gender, etc.
This report can help gain detailed information about the engaged audience and target audience.
If you are not reaching the intended demographic, you can use this metric to reach the intended audience by creating content that catches their interest.
#13. Traffic Sources
This is a metric that can help optimize the YT campaign and strategy for elevated visibility and engagement.
Traffic sources report displays how viewers found the video and which sources have the highest watch time and views.
Traffic sources include- social media sites, recommendation sections, embedded sites, search, homepages, etc.
#14. Subscriber Growth
Subscribers are your fans; they are a key metric as they receive notifications of your new videos and help in attracting more viewership. As more subscribers mean more viewership and more watchtime.
YouTube subscriber report showcases the videos, time and place where you lose or gain new subscribers.
This insight can help you create more videos on topics that resonate with your subscribers. Thereby boosting watch time and ranking.
#15. Keywords
Within the YouTube reach report (under the Traffic source report), one can see numerous queries that guide the viewers to the video.
If these questions vary from your topic, you can update the videos to address the gaps and include the keywords in the meta description, etc.