- This is a YouTuber's worst nightmare,
when someone watches one of your videos, hates it,
and never comes back to your channel ever again.
It is the black hole of the YouTube algorithm
and it's affecting more than half of you
watching this video right now.
All right, here's what you need to do
to start fixing that problem.
In the YouTube Studio analytics,
change your time period to the last full month
you have data on.
This will switch your data points
to the last 12 months of channel performance.
Now click on Advanced Mode.
Once you're on this screen,
click on the blue plus button to add a new metric.
And the one you want to add is Average Views per Viewer.
Next up, click on the Day column
to solve a performance
of your average views per viewer metric
over the last 12 months.
And this is what it shows us.
For the Vid IQ channel, average views per viewer
has increased from 1.8 in August of 2021
to 2.2 in August of 2022, or to put it a simple way,
each unique viewer is watching more Vid IQ videos.
Thanks everyone.
But why is this important?
Well, it all relates back to viewer satisfaction.
The YouTube algorithm
is always trying to maximize viewer satisfaction.
So it stands to reason
that when a person is watching multiple videos
from the same creator, they're pretty satisfied, right?
And this leads to what I'm now calling
the YouTube circle of life.
Eyecatching thumbnails combined with intriguing titles
increase clickthrough rate.
Engaging video hooks combined with great storytelling
increase watch time and average view duration,
and likes, comments and shares
all send positive signals to the YouTube algorithm,
which then tests more content with that same viewer.
If they keep completing this circle,
the average view per viewer will continue to increase,
all of which leads to you
asking a very logical and fair question.
What is a good average views per viewer number
for my channel?
Well, here's your answer.
According to this survey, two thirds of creators
have an average views per viewer figure of less than 1.5.
And what that basically means
is that after watching just one of your videos
a viewer will likely not watch another one
and that's a problem.
So make sure you stick around until the end of this video
and I'll show you the best way
to start solving this problem.
Now let's add the typical caveat.
There is no magic number
when it comes to average views per viewer
because every channel is different.
It stands to reason that certain channels,
such as variety channels, education channels,
will typically have a lower average views per viewer number
than say a personality channel, a vlogging channel.
But what you can do is benchmark where you are today
and aim to improve that over weeks, months,
in this case, years.
Now, if you want to nerd out a little bit more
over this data,
I recommend going to the Audience tab in the YouTube Studio
and checking out this panel.
It will show you which videos
are converting new viewers into return viewers,
thus increasing the average views per viewer.
As you can see, this is a challenge for us
because of the nature of education based content,
but you can drill into the data in Advanced Mode
and start adding all of those metrics I mentioned earlier,
clickthrough rate, average view duration, impressions.
This is where you can start to see a complete picture
of what represents good numbers for your channel.
Now, a couple more things to consider
when it comes to average views per viewer.
The quantity of videos you make may impact this number.
For example, let's say your AVPV
is something ridiculous like five or above.
That may suggest
that your viewers are hungry for more content,
you can publish on a more regular basis,
or if you start to make more content
and AVPV goes down,
then your viewers probably can't handle
everything that you are throwing at them.
Second of all, your average viewers per viewer number
may remain static or go up while your views go down.
This may be a result of waning interest in your video topic
or it could be seasonal changes that impact your audience,
such as going back to school.
So yeah, AVPV, like all YouTube metrics,
is not a perfect number, but it's close.
It represents both the end of a video view
and the start of the next one.
It's as close to channel session watch time
that we're gonna get, at least for now anyway.
So let's start raising this number up
and this is the easiest and most direct way to do it.
A year ago, this figure was just 1.6%.
A year later, it's now running at 8.4%.
What are we talking about?
End screen clicks.
This is one of the key stepping stones
to getting more views per viewer,
by telling them what to do next at the end of a video.
And there are two ways to do this.
First of all, have just a single end screen element.
Don't give them any choice.
And second of all,
be really intentional about their end screen.
Tell them exactly why they need to click on it
and I'll show you exactly how to do that
by obviously clicking over here.
Otherwise, spoiler alert.
- Dad, dad, come on.