YouTube Analytics

Viewership: How Do I Build a Large and Loyal Audience?

1. Know Who Your Viewers Are

Understanding your repeat viewers enables you to more confidently create content they’ll love and come back for time and time again. Does the current age, gender, and location of your viewers match up with your ideal target audience? If not, you may consider recrafting your content and promotion strategies to attract the audiences you want most.

Key Reports:

• Subscriber Views (web only) - Filters reports to display just subscriber data from web users.
• Demographics - Provides directional insights into audience age and gender.
• Geography - Shows which countries your viewers are from.

Sample Report Uses:

• Tailor your channel design, content style, thumbnails, etc to appeal to your core audience demos.
• If your content is performing well in a foreign country, consider transcribing and enabling captions.
• Track changes to your channel’s audience demographics over time so you can continue providing viewers with the most relevant and engaging content possible.
• Select the “Show Only Subscriber Views” box at the top of the page to better understand subscriber demographics and viewership patterns.
• Be mindful of potential nuances like children logging on using their parents’ accounts, because such user behavior can affect demographics data.

2. Know Where Viewers Are Finding Your Videos

Understand which traffic sources and playback locations drive the most views to your content and look at the associated watch time for each source. Sources that drive a disproportionately high amount of watch time indicate an engaged audience (see “Average View Duration” in the image below). This metric should influence your blog outreach and social media strategy.

Key Reports:

• Playback Locations - Shows YouTube pages and embedding sites where viewers watch your videos.
• Traffic Sources - Shows external sites and YouTube features linking viewers to your videos.

Sample Report Uses:

• Increase viewership from YouTube Search and YouTube Suggested modules by creating effective titles and descriptions, captivating thumbnails, and engaging content.
• Increase viewership from the “YouTube Guide” by frequently and consistently uploading content that your audiences crave most.
• Examine the “Embedded Player on Other Websites” report under Playback Locations to learn which sites are promoting your content. Consider reaching out to these sites for cross-promotions and/or collaborations.
• Select the “Show Subscribers Only” checkbox on the Traffic Sources report to see viewership trends from your channel subscribers.
• Check the “Average View Duration” column on all traffic reports to determine which sources are driving viewership with the highest view duration (a great indicator of viewership quality).

3. Know What Makes Viewers Come and Go

Understanding how audiences interact with your content can help uncover invaluable patterns, and empower you to create more engaging content. Videos with low audience retention rates are far less likely to be surfaced in Search and Suggested placements on YouTube, so create a viewing experience that causes audiences to watch as much of your video as possible. Do you know why audiences watch certain videos to the end, while abandoning others within the first few seconds?

Key Reports:

• Absolute Retention - Shows which parts of your video people are watching and/or abandoning.
• Relative Retention - Shows audience engagement compared to other videos of similar length.

Sample Report Uses:

• A rise in the Absolute Retention graph means viewers are re-watching that part of the video; a dip signifies that viewers are skipping forward or abandoning the video altogether.
• Significant dips in Absolute Retention within the first 5-10 seconds can indicate unmet audience expectations. Make sure your thumbnails and titles accurately represent the actual content.
• Use audience retention patterns to inform possible changes to future content topics, styles, pace, length, and/or packaging.
• Assess “Average % Viewed” and “Average View Duration” for specific videos to identify which content types are most likely to drive high watch time.

4. Know How Many Videos Each Viewer Consumes

Understanding what causes viewers to enjoy multiple videos per visit can help you work smarter, not harder. Because engaging existing audiences is easier than attracting entirely new ones, it’s important to extend the viewing session for viewers you have. Do you know which days viewers are most likely to visit your channel, and which videos they enjoy watching most?

Key Reports:

• Views - Shows overall viewership trends and which videos are driving those views.
• Views vs. Unique Cookies - Shows how many average views are consumed per visitor.

Sample Report Uses:

• Identify days that your audience is most active; repeated weekly viewership peaks may suggest the best days to upload new videos to your channel.
• Consider focusing or putting creative spins on themes and topics that have performed exceedingly well in the past.
• Increase Views per Unique Cookie by suggesting additional videos your viewers might like via engaging playlists, end cards, and call-to-actions.
• If your Views graph is spiky and erratic, check the “Subscription Feeds - Uploaded” traffic source under the “YouTube Guide” report to determine if your upload schedule might be responsible.
• Compare specific video performance by examining the multi-line and stacked area viewership graphs.
• If overall Views are growing and/or a certain video has gone viral, consider adding subscribe annotations to convert those viewers into a loyal community.

Engagement: How Do I Increase Audience Engagement?

2. Know How Effective Your Annotations Are

Annotations are a powerful way to engage viewers and direct them to continue watching more of your videos. Viewers have lots of videos to choose from on YouTube, adding and optimizing annotations on your videos can help keep more viewers on your channel and convert them into long-term subscribers.

Key Reports:

• Annotations - Shows click-through (CTR) and close rates for all of your annotations.

Sample Report Uses:

• Optimize annotation placement and duration to achieve the highest Click Through Rates (CTR) possible while simultaneously reducing Close Rates.
• High CTRs mean viewers are clicking on your annotations.
• High Close Rates mean viewers don’t find the annotations useful, so consider modifying or removing low performing annotations to improve the viewing experience.
• Monitor annotated end-cards that promote other videos and compare CTRs of the given choices to learn which videos and/or thumbnails attract the most clicks.

3. Know How Fans Interact With Your Videos

Understanding which videos your audience interacts with most can help you craft more successful content and promotional strategies. Examine Likes, Dislikes, Comments, and Sharing on standout videos to understand what type of content resonates best with your audience.

Key Reports:

• Likes & Dislikes - Shows how many viewers give your videos a thumbs up or down.
• Comments - Shows how many comments are left on your videos.
• Sharing - Shows how many times viewers share your videos and where.

Sample Report Uses:

• Determine how many Likes and Comments per View various videos generate to inform what types of content you should consider creating in the future.
• Read your community’s thoughts on highly Commented videos and consider addressing, incorporating, or otherwise referencing them in future videos.
• Determine which videos your audience is most likely to share and increase the number of Shares via in-video calls-to-action.