---
title: 'YouTube Analytics That Matter Most'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=qoDWnnc9pKQ'
video_id: 'qoDWnnc9pKQ'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 455
---

# YouTube Analytics That Matter Most

> Source: [YouTube Analytics That Matter Most](https://youtube.com/watch?v=qoDWnnc9pKQ)

## Summary

In this video, Nick explains which YouTube analytics are most important for channel growth, focusing on metrics that indicate viewer response and content value. He covers thumbnail click-through rate, audience retention, subscriber growth, playlist adds, shares, and overall engagement.

### Key Points

- **Thumbnail Click-Through Rate** [0:36] — The first metric to focus on is thumbnail click-through rate (CTR). It measures how effective your thumbnails are at getting people to click on your videos. YouTube's average CTR is between 3% and 10%, so aim for the higher end or above.
- **Audience Retention Reports** [1:46] — Audience retention shows how people respond to your content. Look at total percentage viewed and total watch time. Longer videos that accumulate more watch time are better for channel growth.
- **Subscriber Growth** [2:49] — Monitor overall subscriber growth and identify which videos generate the most subscribers. A high view count but low subscriber gain indicates viewers aren't finding enough value to subscribe.
- **Playlist Adds** [3:44] — Playlist adds indicate personal value. If viewers add your videos to playlists, it shows they find enough value to want to watch them repeatedly. This can guide you to make more similar content.
- **Shares** [5:13] — Shares are often overlooked but important. They indicate that viewers find your content valuable enough to share with their networks, leading to more exposure and session times on YouTube.
- **Overall Engagement** [5:56] — Comments, likes, and other engagement metrics show that your content is interesting enough to prompt interaction. YouTube is a responsive system; more engagement leads to more promotion.

### Conclusion

Focus on metrics that measure viewer response: thumbnail CTR, audience retention, subscriber growth, playlist adds, shares, and overall engagement. These indicate how well your content resonates and drives YouTube to promote your channel.

## Transcript

- I'm gonna tell you what
YouTube analytics to focus on
if you're wanting to grow
your YouTube channel.
And we're starting right now.
(upbeat hip hop music)
What is going on, my name is Nick.
Welcome to another video.
If this is your first time here,
and you wanna learn how
to grow your channel,
make videos, and all types of
other YouTube related stuff,
start now by subscribing
and clicking the bell,
so you don't miss anything.
So I get this question all the time.
Nick, I wanna grow my YouTube channel,
but I don't know which
analytics to look at,
to make sure that I'm
doing the right thing.
So I'm gonna cover that
for you, I'm gonna tell you
exactly what it is that
you need to make sure
that you're focusing on,
and I'm gonna tell you why.
The very first thing that
you need to make sure
that you're focusing on,
is your thumbnail click-through rate.
And the reason that this is so important,
is because your thumbnail
is the first point
of contact that you have
with your current viewers,
and with new viewers.
So your thumbnail and your
title are extremely important.
So paying attention to
your click-through rate
and your thumbnails is
going to let you know
how effective your thumbnails are.
How effective are your
thumbnails at bringing people
into your video content?
And I know you're wanting
to know, hey Nick,
what's a good number to go for?
YouTube says that between
three and 10% is the average,
so you want to try to go
for the higher version of that, or higher.
So, if you're getting like a 1% or a 2%
or like a 1.6 or whatever,
then you want to look at your thumbnails,
just be honest with yourself,
look at your thumbnail,
say, yeah, I might have
spent a lot of time on this
but people just for whatever reason,
they're not responding to it
so I need to make some experiments here
and I need to figure out what
I can do with my thumbnails
in order to get people to
respond to my thumbnails.
A really cool tool to use for this
to make sure that you're
making effective thumbnails
is called TubeBuddy, I'll put a link to it
down in the description below
but they have an A/B testing feature
where you can actually test
thumbnails against each other
to see which ones the most effective.
Make sure you check it out
in the description below.
The next thing that you
should be paying attention to
in your analytics is your
audience retention reports.
Your audience retention reports
are going to let you know
how people are responding
to your content because you might think
that you're putting out the
best videos in the world,
your family, your friends,
everybody might think,
hey, this is great but then you go
into your audience retention reports
and you can actually
see how people in mass
are responding to your content.
So your audience retention
reports are gonna let you know
hey, how good is my content?
Is my content decent?
Is my content great?
Does my content suck?
Look at your audience
retention reports objectively
and take the data.
It doesn't matter what you think,
it matters what that data tells you
in terms of how people
are actually responding
to the content that you're putting out.
Now with the audience retention reports,
you want to keep an eye on
the total percentage viewed
and you'll want to keep an eye
on the actual total watch
time that you're generating
because let's say for example
that you're putting out videos
and you're getting a
minute worth of watch time
because they are two minute videos,
well, if you're putting out a video
that's 10 minutes long and
you're getting five minutes,
then those videos are
accumulating more watch time
for your channel which
ultimately is a bigger win.
The next one that you want to focus on
inside of your analytics is
your overall subscriber growth.
Now I know that it's important
to not get caught up in the numbers per se
but if you're not
generating any subscribers
but you're generating a lot of views,
that tells you that yeah,
people are coming in,
they're watching your stuff
but they're not finding enough
value there to subscribe
and to want to keep coming back.
Another thing that you wanna look at
when you are looking at
the amount of subscribers
that you're generating is you want to look
at the specific videos that are generating
the most subscribers for you.
And if you want to fine-tune this,
I actually built a calculator
because a lot of people are asking me,
hey Nick, how do you figure out
your view to subscriber
ratio and all that stuff?
I actually built a calculator.
If you go to viewstosubs.com,
then you can actually calculate this in
if you don't wanna do the math.
And I know that subscriber
growth thing is kind of obvious
but I just wanted to
mention it and explain
why that particular metric is important
because it lets you know the value
that you're bringing to other people.
Another metric that is important
is how many playlist
adds that you're getting.
Now this isn't something
that's gonna trigger anything
or anything like that but the
reason that this is important
is because this lets you
know how much personal value
that you're bringing to people.
So if you're putting out content
and people are adding
it to watch later lists
or they're adding it to
playlists for themselves,
that lets you know,
hey, people are finding
enough value in this that
not only are they subscribing
but they're actually wanting
to watch these particular
videos more and more
and another thing that
that's gonna tell you
is that's gonna say when you
can start clicking into those
is that's gonna say, hey,
if people are finding value
in these particular videos
and they're adding these
to playlists a lot,
maybe, just maybe, I should
make more videos like that.
Now when you're looking
at that information,
what you wanna think about is
you wanna think about okay,
this video, is it generating
a lot more subscribers
because it's gotten a lot more views?
If so, maybe I need to
make more videos like this
to get more views and subscribers,
or if you have a video
that's generating subscribers
at a higher rate but it
hasn't gotten all the views
that some of the other videos have gotten,
then in that case, you
can look at that and say
okay well, if this one's
generating more subscribers
at a higher rate, might
be your subscribe ratio
that I mentioned a minute ago,
if this one's generating
subscribers at a higher rate,
then how can I remake this
video or make videos like it
that maybe I could go for
more difficult search terms
or maybe I could try to do another way
that I can present this so that I can try
to get more views on this particular topic
because it's generating more
subscribers at a faster rate.
Another one that's
important to keep in mind
when you're looking in your
analytics is the shares.
A lot of people overlook shares
and they're like, oh well,
shares aren't important
but in reality, shares mean
that your content is so good
that the people that
are watching your videos
find enough value in it that
they're willing to share it
with other people on the internet,
be it their family, their
friends, their followers,
whoever, that they're
finding that much value
in what it is that you're doing
that they are willing to
share it with their networks
with their people that they know.
And of course, the more that
your stuff is shared out there,
that's the more session times
that are gonna be started on YouTube,
that's more people that
are gonna be exposed
to your content, that's
gonna start bringing
more people in and all that stuff.
So shares are definitely
an important thing
to keep an eye on when it
comes to your YouTube metrics.
And of course the overall engagement
that you're getting on
your channel also matters.
Now, some people are like,
hey, comments don't matter
or likes don't matter and all that stuff
and it's not something that
is going to make YouTube say
oh well this video got a lot of comments
so let's just show it to
everybody, it doesn't work that way
but what it does do is it tells you
that what you're making
is interesting enough
or the people are opinionated
enough or whatever
to where they are gonna take that effort
to go and they're gonna sit there
and they're gonna type in their computer
and they're going to make that effort
to interact with what
it is that you're doing
and if you look at it,
if you back up everything
that I've said so far in this video,
you know, we've got the thumbnails
which tells you how people respond
to what it is that you're doing,
we've got your watch time which tells you
how people respond to what
it is that we're doing,
we've got your playlist
which tells you how people
respond to what it is you're doing,
shares, how are they responding,
the overall engagement on your channel,
how are people responding to
what it is that you're doing,
the reason that these
particular ones are important
is because YouTube is a responsive system
and the more people are
responding to your content
in all these different ways,
the more YouTube is gonna
promote you out on their platform
because you're keeping people on the site,
you're keeping people
interested in your content,
you're keeping people engaged
with what it is that you're doing,
they're responding to your content.
I made a video about how to generate
more watch time on your channel as well
because that's one of the things
that YouTube is judging us on,
I'll put a link to that at the
top of the screen right now
so you can check that out.
It talks about adding the right
stuff to your descriptions
and where to use cards
and where to use playlists
and not use playlists
and that kind of stuff.
Really cool, so make
sure you check it out.
And if you wanna learn more
about growing your channel,
making videos and all types of
other YouTube related stuff,
start now by hitting
the round subscribe icon
so you don't miss anything.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.