What's up everyone?
Welcome back to my channel.
In today's video I'm gonna teach you how to read the five key YouTube Analytic tools so
that you can grow your channel faster.
Now, you're watching this video because I'm assuming you really wanna crack the code on
your YouTube Analytics in order to make the best decisions for your channel.
Well, what I'm gonna be doing differently today is that, instead of outright giving
you the five key tools, I'm actually gonna share with you the five questions that each
tool can actually answer in order to help you grow your channel a lot faster.
But, before I begin, if you have not already, make sure you download this free seven-page
YouTube optimization guide that I created just for you in order for you to have a full
checklist to make sure that your channel and your videos are fully optimized before you
even upload them.
So, again, make sure that you download it.
I'll put the link in the comments section and the description box below so that you
can snag it.
All right, so the first question that your YouTube Analytics can answer is “How can
I improve my watch time?”.
Now, as you may or may not know, watch time is the number one key metric that YouTube
evaluates content creators on, meaning the stronger your watch time, the more likelihood
that YouTube will actually push out your videos and your channel into other people's recommended
list and their suggested list as well.
I mention a lot about watch time in this video right here, so make sure you watch this video
after you finish watching this one in order to get the full picture.
But what you need to know is that watch time is so incredibly important for content creators
because it means that you're actually creating engaging content that's allowing your viewers
to stay on the platform for longer.
And that's why YouTube will favor your channel if you have the ability to allow your audience
to stay on and be engaged for as long as possible.
Now, again, I mentioned a lot of different ways to increase your watch time with this
video that I posted not too long ago.
However, the key tool that I wanna share here is your audience retention report.
For those of you who have already watched my step-by-step tutorial on how to read your
audience retention report from this video, then make sure you skip ahead to this timestamp.
But for those who actually have no idea what audience retention report is and how to read
it, then you'll definitely need to keep watching because I'm going to share my screen and break
down step by step how you can leverage this key tool in order to improve your content,
and therefore increase your watch time.
So, audience retention is going to tell you a number of things.
It's going to tell you your average view duration, so with all of my videos my average view duration
is about five minutes and 48 seconds.
And also the average percentage viewed, so for my video in the last 28 days, on average
people finish about 40% of my videos.
Now, obviously this is going to be different for everyone depending on the length of your
video.
If you have a one-minute video and everyone watches the one minute of that video, your
average percentage viewed is obviously going to be 100%.
The longer your videos are, the smaller this percentage most likely will be.
But anyways, what I actually really wanted to show you is you can actually look at your
audience retention report per video.
I'm gonna go on my Gain Instagram Followers Organically video, this one is my most popular
video to date, so let's take a look.
Once you get into this report, you're going to see the audience retention report for this
specific video.
And there are two tabs here.
The first one is Absolute Audience Retention, and the second one is Relative Audience Retention.
What Absolute Audience Retention is, is basically it's looking at the specific video and telling
you at what point in the video do people start dropping off.
Relative Audience Retention, on the other hand, shows you how your video compares to
other videos on YouTube of a similar length.
For example, for my video, this one specifically on how to grow Instagram followers organically,
in the beginning sections of the video I'm actually performing above average compared
to other videos of a similar length.
As you go through, I perform average, and then near the end I'm more leaning towards
below average, near the 13-minute mark.
This is kinda cool to see how you compare to other people on YouTube for a similar length
video.
But what I really wanna focus on is Absolute Audience Retention.
This one is a very key tool that you can leverage when you are looking at your analytics and
when you are trying to understand how you can improve from your videos.
This really tells me when people are dropping off in the video.
As you can see here, a lot of people have dropped off near this beginning, and there's
a little dip here.
When I click on this dip, it'll redirect me to the exact point in the video, so that I
can understand where exactly I went wrong.
In this mark here, I just watched the video myself, it's showing me that my intro was
a little bit too long.
My introduction was about two minutes long, and naturally people were just dropping off.
Now, that's something that I need to note for the future, and I actually have noted
for the future, and now this is why for a lot of my videos I keep my intro really short,
so that I can preserve my watch time and encourage people to watch more of my video.
The second thing that you wanna note is actually look for peaks within your graph.
Any time that there's a peak, that means that people are actually going back to rewatch
a portion of your video.
There's a peak here which shows that people were actually rewinding back to this particular
scene within my video, which is me showing the different hashtag sizes.
So this makes a lot of sense.
Not only this, if you actually look here, there starts to be a little bit of a dip again,
at this 13-minute mark.
And when I watched this video, this is actually when I conclude the video.
So naturally when I am concluding the video most people are exiting out, and this is what
this graph is telling me.
So what are some key takeaways when you are looking at the audience retention report?
The first takeaway is that if you see major drop-offs at certain points of your video,
really pay attention to why people are dropping off.
Are you talking for too long?
Are you stuttering?
Is your intro boring?
Is the tip bad?
So on and so forth.
And when there are people that are re-watching certain scenes of your video, really ask yourself
why.
Was there a really interesting infographic?
Were you playing B-roll?
So on and so forth.
These are really interesting things to pay attention to when you are looking at your
analytics report.
So that's why I really wanted to show you audience retention, because this one is one
of my key favorite features when I look at my YouTube Analytics and when I want to understand
how I can improve my videos and my watch time.
All right, so the second question that your YouTube Analytics may be able to answer is
“What type of content should I post?”.
Now, it is inevitable that at some point in your content creation career, that you're
actually gonna run out of ideas naturally.
Well, to help you with that, I'm gonna share my screen and teach you how to read your traffic
sources in order to get inspired with potential content ideas that you can use for your channel
in the future.
All right guys, so now what we're going to do is we're going to go to Analytics and then
go all the way down to Traffic Sources.
Traffic Sources is one of my favorite analytic tools specifically to understand how exactly
people are finding my videos.
Now, as you can see with my channel, a lot of people find my videos through Suggested,
which is amazing, and also through browse features.
But if you are someone that is already creating content and you want to understand what else
you can be posting about in terms of content, you can click on YouTube Search, which means
that you wanna understand how people are finding you on YouTube through the search bar.
If you click on My YouTube Search, you'll see that a lot of people find my videos through
searching “how to get followers on Instagram”.
What you can do, and this isn't the case for everyone, but it is worth looking at in order
to just understand what types of opportunities you might be missing.
I'll give you a very clear example.
Boom, right here: “how to get more likes on Instagram”.
This is really interesting, and maybe I should create a video about this actually, but it's
really cool to understand how people are finding me and what types of titles or what type of
content I can actually pursue that I haven't already.
Even though in my data a lot of it is already about Instagram, I'm finding little nuggets
of wisdom that I actually wouldn't have thought of if I did not look at this data.
Anyways guys, I hope that, by sharing the traffic sources, that it really helps you
capitalize the data that you get in YouTube Analytics, and hopefully it'll inspire some
future content for your channels.
Now let's go on to the next tip.
All right, the third question that your YouTube Analytics can answer is “How can I improve,
or should I improve, my thumbnails and my titles?”.
In a moment I'm gonna share my screen and teach you how exactly you can read your impressions
and your click-through rate to answer these questions.
Keep watching.
All right, so if you actually wanna learn if your thumbnails or your titles can be optimized
further, what I really like doing is actually trying out the studio beta within the Creator
Studio.
As you guys know, YouTube is working on a new and improved Creator Studio.
However, it's not done yet.
But what I noticed is that it's actually really helpful in understanding your impressions
and also your click-through rate, so I'm gonna show you exactly what that looks like.
Once you get into your Studio beta, you wanna click Analytics.
Then once you're in your analytics, you wanna click Reach Viewers, and here it'll show your
impressions and your click-through rate.
Now, a question that I get a lot of times is “What exactly is impression?”.
Impression is basically the amount of times that your video is shown to someone.
That's not necessarily meaning that they're clicking on it, but it's just a matter of
how many times it shows up on someone's page, or how many eyeballs you're getting.
On the other hand, what impression click-through rate is, is basically, of the amount of times
that your video is shown, how many people actually clicked on that video.
In this context, what it's telling me is that my videos have been shown about 14 million
times, and only 3.4% of that 14 million actually converted into watches.
What you can do to take this a little bit of a step further is actually look at it by
video.
What you'll wanna do is you wanna click on Overview, choose one of the videos, let's
say I'll choose my Instagram video, that's really popular.
And then it'll show me the data within this video.
I'll hit Reach Viewers again, and it shows me that this video specifically, Organic Instagram
Growth Hacks, had 10 million impressions.
And, of those 10 million impressions, 3.5% of people actually converted into watching
that video.
So my click-through rate is at 3.5.
Let's compare this to another video that's on my channel.
Right here we have my Why I Quit My Job video, and when I actually look at the impressions
I have about 453k impressions, and my click-through rate is about 6.7%, meaning that this video
actually was a lot more attractive to people, and they were more willing to click on it.
Maybe that was because of the title, maybe it was the nature of the subject, maybe it
was the thumbnail.
What I want to get at you guys is that, when you are evaluating the thumbnails or the titles,
you also wanna look at your click-through rate.
A really great example of this is actually testing titles and testing thumbnails, and
seeing what converts better.
Because at the end of the day what click-through rate is telling you is that people are compelled
enough, by just looking at either your thumbnail or your title, to actually click on it and
watch the video.
This is a really great analytical tool for you to gauge the effectiveness of your thumbnails
and titles specifically, or even also certain topics that are within your channel.
The fourth question that your YouTube Analytics can potentially answer is “What time should
I post my videos?”.
Now, personally for me, I'm a firm believer that you should choose the times and the dates
that you can ensure that you can stay the most consistent on, especially within that
24-hour time period.
Because, like I said in my previous videos, in order for the YouTube algorithm to favor
your video a little bit more, there needs to be as much engagement as possible within
the first day of that YouTube video being uploaded.
So, yes I'm gonna share my screen and teach you how you can really use the analytics to
understand your post times, but I also do wanna advise you that, as long as you can
stay consistent and active during the days and the times that you choose to post, you're
good.
But if you wanna just take it a little bit step further and really leverage analytics
to choose your post times, then keep on watching.
Now we are going back to the old Creator Studio because I want to teach you how to read your
demographics.
When you go on your analytics you want to click the Demographics tab right here, and
what the Demographics tab is going to tell you is your audience.
But what we wanna know specifically to answer our question is when exactly should we be
posting.
I did tell you that the most optimal time that I personally believe you should be posting
is the times that you feel you can be the most consistent.
But again, if you wanna take it a step further, you can also use analytics to gauge around
what time you should be posting.
So, what we're gonna do here is we are going to click on Geography.
When you click on Geography, what you'll be able to see is all of the different countries
that your audience belongs in.
But if you wanna take it a step further, you can click this icon right here, which is the
map icon, and then you'll start seeing a map.
This is something that's really helpful if a majority of your audience is in the United
States, like for me.
If I actually click on United States, what it's going to show me is where and in which
state my audience is in.
How this helps me with determining what time zone to post in is that if I see that the
majority of my audience is in the west coast, then I'm gonna favor a west coast time zone.
If, for example, a majority of my audience is in the east coast, then maybe I'll favor
an east coast time zone.
This is something that's really cool, especially if a majority of your audience is in the United
States.
What I notice is that, if you're from Canada or a different type of country, it's not gonna
give you that much detail.
So this is definitely really beneficial if your audience is in the U.S.
However, regardless if they're in the U.S. or not, let's say by reading your analytics
you notice that, I don't know, India actually takes up a huge percentage of your audience.
Then you might wanna favor that time zone instead of North America, let's say.
This is really helpful to understand when exactly you wanna post and favoring what time
zones.
Finally, the fifth and last question that your YouTube Analytics can answer is “Where,
or what platform, should I be promoting my YouTube videos on?”.
Now, something that I tell my clients, and that my mentors told me, is that it takes
a platform to grow a platform.
When I first started on YouTube, I was heavily promoting my YouTube videos on Facebook and
on Instagram.
But at the time I didn't really know how to read my YouTube Analytics.
That's why I'm gonna show you how you can identify which platforms are the best use
of your time, I guess, to promote your videos to the right audience in order to drive traffic
to your channel.
As always, I think you know the gist by now, I'm just gonna show my screen so that you
can have a really clear idea of how this works.
All right guys, so the last question that we want to answer with YouTube Analytics is
“What platform should I focus on when I am promoting my YouTube videos?”.
Of course, this is something that you're gonna need to experiment with in the beginning,
but later on you'll be able to actually collect data to ensure that your efforts are maximized.
What you do is you wanna go back to your traffic sources, scroll all the way down, and actually
click on External.
What external means is essentially, of all the traffic that you're receiving, how much
of it is coming from external, such as Pinterest, Facebook, your website, so on and so forth.
When I look at my traffic sources, a lot of them are actually coming from my own website.
The reason for that is because every week I send out a newsletter that drives traffic
to my website, which then drives traffic to YouTube.
The next one is Facebook, which is really interesting for me because I actually focus
a lot of my efforts promoting on Instagram.
So this tells me that Facebook is actually a little bit more effective in terms of the
platform I should be focusing on when I am promoting my videos.
Google Search is one as well which is really interesting.
And, interestingly enough, I have WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google, Telegram.
These are really interesting data for me to understand.
Let's say LinkedIn, instead of being at the end of my external traffic, it was actually
ranked higher, then I would definitely change my promotional strategy to post more on LinkedIn,
let's say.
So again, this is a really great way to understand where your traffic is coming from and how
you can really focus your promotional efforts, especially after you've experimented for a
while to really test which platforms are worth focusing more of your time on, and which platforms
aren't really performing.
And that's it, guys.
Those were the five key questions that so many content creators have, and how exactly
you can answer those questions using your own YouTube Analytics for free.
If you enjoyed this video, make sure you thumbs-up and you also hit the notification bell and
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As always, I hope you guys have a great day, I hope you guys have a great week, and I hope
you guys have a great life, and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye, guys.