- If you've ever been confused by your click-through rate,
or you don't know how to interpret what it is
that you're seeing, or you don't know what's good,
or what's bad, or what to even think
about your click-through rate,
this video is going to demystify all of that for you,
and by the time we're finished,
you're gonna have a very good understanding
of your click-through rate and how to look at it
when you're looking in your YouTube analytics,
engaging that against the performance of your videos.
And we're starting right now.
This video is part of my subscriber Q & A series
where I answer your questions about YouTube.
Today's question comes
from Rebekka Roe from Simple Finance.
Rebekka says, "I have a question
about click-through rates and the algorithm.
I've always thought that I have a bad click-through rate
because I average about three to 5%.
However, my most recent videos also have an average
of 5.7%, not that much higher,
and has brought in over 1,000 views in the first two days.
My other videos average 40 to a 100 views in that period.
So is it not really the click-through rate
that matters as much?"
And then she has some additional information there and says,
"My question is, should I pay more attention
to the click-through rate and try to improve my thumbnails,
or should I just keep making my videos
and wait for YouTube to find the right audience
for my other videos as well?"
So first, thank you, Rebekka, for that question.
So when it comes to the answer to this,
instead of just telling you from my experience,
I'm actually gonna show you what YouTube has to say
about the questions that you have,
so that way you're getting your answer
from their official documentation.
So here in the YouTube help pages,
they have the question of how do I know
if my impression click-through rate is high or low?
What YouTube says is,
"Impressions click-through rate measures
how often viewers watch the video
after seeing a registered impression on YouTube."
If you're new to YouTube,
an impression is when they show your video
to somebody on the platform.
"It likely represents a subset of your channel's total view,
since not all impressions are counted in this metric,
such as those on external websites or end screens.
Impressions click-through rate will vary
based on the type of content, audience,
and where the YouTube impression was shown.
Keep in mind that your video thumbnails are always competing
against other videos, whether on the homepage, "Up Next,"
or on the watch page in search results,
and even in subscription feeds."
So what they're saying right there is
when you publish your videos, that you are competing
with pretty much everything
that YouTube thinks is a good fit for your viewers.
So when you are looking at your click-through rate,
it varies just based on the other videos
that you're competing against there as well, so if a bunch
of other videos are kind of taking the traffic,
then in that particular case,
even though you could be getting impressions there,
you could just be getting beaten out
by all the other videos that you're competing with
at that point in time,
even if your click-through rate is a little bit higher.
Now, if you wanna know what's good when it comes
to your click-through rate,
here's what YouTube has to say about that.
"Half of all the channels and videos
on YouTube have an impression CTR that can range
between 2% and 10%."
The thing that is the most important to remember here is
that your click-through rate,
you need to make sure that you're looking at that
compared to the impressions that you're getting.
So for example, if you get a 100 impressions on a video,
and you have a high click-through rate on that,
well, in that particular case,
it's only been sampled to a 100 people,
and based on how YouTube works, out of those 100 people,
those are the most likely people to enjoy your content.
That's why YouTube is showing it to them first.
That's also why when you are publishing your content,
you'll see a higher click-through rate
when you first publish your video,
and then it can start falling down from there,
not always, but that's extremely common.
Now, the next thing I wanna bring to your attention is this.
YouTube also says that, "New videos or channels,
like those less than a week old, or videos
with fewer than a 100 views can see an even wider range.
If a video gets a lot of impressions,
such as if it appears on the homepage,
it's natural for the CTR to be lower.
Videos where most of the impressions are from sources
like your channel page may have
a higher click-through rate.
Ultimately, it's best to compare CTRs
between videos over the long term, and keep in mind
how their traffic sources will affect click-through rates."
Now, if you're new to YouTube,
this might sound like a bunch of gibberish,
because they're talking about traffic sources,
and click-through rates, and impressions,
and all these things,
but what your traffic sources are is on YouTube,
they have a handful of different pages
where you're gonna pull most of your traffic from.
So that's gonna be homepages,
it's gonna be suggested videos,
and it's gonna be YouTube search.
So when you go into your traffic sources report
in your YouTube analytics,
those are three of the options that you're gonna see.
But you're also gonna see external,
you're going to see channel pages and things like that.
So when you are looking at your click-through rate,
make sure that you're not looking at this particular part
of your analytics for your click-through rate.
Instead, what you want to do is for the video
that you're looking at the click-through rate,
you actually want to click into the video,
and then go into the analytics for the individual video,
and then from there, you want to go into your advanced mode
of the analytics, then into your traffic sources.
And once you're in there,
then you're actually going to see
how your videos are performing
in all of the different pages of YouTube,
which gives you a lot better insights
on your real click-through rate.
And here's another really important thing that YouTube says
about your click-through rate
and trying to raise your click-through rate.
"Avoid trying to increase your CTR using thumbnails
or titles that are clickbait.
YouTube will recommend a video
to viewers if the video is relevant to them
and if the video's average view duration indicates
that viewers find it interesting.
Clickbait videos tend to have low average view duration,
and therefore are less likely to get recommended by YouTube.
You can tell if your thumbnail is clickbait
if it gets a high CTR, but low average view duration,
and lower than expected impressions."
Now, that part is extremely important.
So they don't go into the nuance of it here,
but here's what that actually means.
So when YouTube is serving your videos
to people on their platform,
the only thing that the system is wanting,
or the only thing that YouTube wants is that
when they present your videos to people,
if it's something they're interested in,
then they click on it, and they come in
and they have a good experience with your content.
So YouTube is trying to keep viewers satisfied,
and keep them on their platform by showing them
the right content at the right time
that they're most likely to engage with and enjoy.
Because of that, it's important to make sure
that when you are looking at your click-through rate,
you're not just looking
at the click-through rate number itself,
but you're also looking at the watch time
that's being generated from your video.
So when you are looking at the effectiveness
of your thumbnail, what you actually wanna look at is,
of course, you wanna look at the number
for the click-through rate compared
to the impressions that it's getting,
because the impressions part is really important,
but you also wanna look to see
how those impressions led to watch time.
So for example, if somebody's interacting with your content
and they're leaving quickly, just like that message
that I just showed you, then YouTube's going to deem it
as a non-satisfactory experience.
However, if somebody clicks on your video,
and your video matches their expectation,
they're more likely to watch that video
for a longer period of time,
which then tells YouTube that they're enjoying your content
and that you're not misleading people,
which is giving them what they want,
and in return, they're going to give you what you want
as the content creator, which is showing your videos
to more people that are also likely to enjoy it
and have that great experience.
And another thing that you want to think about when it comes
to your click-through rate and how it relates
to the watch time that you're getting
on the videos is when somebody is looking
at your thumbnail and your title from the outside,
the only information they have
about your content is what they're seeing right there,
so that expresses the topic of the video
to them and whatever it is
that they might experience in the content.
So because of that, you have to make sure
when you're putting your thumbnails together and your titles
that you are ensuring that you're building
the right expectation for what it is
that they're going to get inside of the video.
And when you do that, it's going to create
a much better experience for your viewers,
which then is going to help YouTube again recommend it
to more and more people.
So what you wanna think about, Rebekka,
and anybody else that's dealing with this is
when you are looking at your click-through rate,
especially when you're comparing it to other videos,
you need to make sure that you're also considering
the impressions that it's getting and the watch time
that's happening on those videos as well,
in terms of the actual watch time and the percentage viewed,
because those are also a reflection of the experience
that people are having and if it's satisfactory or not.
And when you're comparing videos,
another thing that you wanna make sure you're thinking
about is, okay, if I have a video that's getting
a 5.7 click through rate after, let's say,
1,000 impressions on YouTube homepage,
and then I have another video that has
a 6% click-through rate also on YouTube homepage
with 200 impressions, even though it might look
like that 6% is going better,
it has a lot fewer impressions,
which means it's been tested against fewer people,
so because of that, it's easier to keep that number high,
whereas you've had 1,000 impressions on the 5.7,
which makes that one a stronger click-through rate,
because it's been shown to more people,
and more people have responded positively to it.
If you wanna learn more about YouTube and see other videos
in this series, click into this playlist right here.
And if you want your question answered,
make sure that you reply to my community posts
when I do post the option there to ask your question
for these particular videos.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.