---
title: 'The 3 Metrics That Actually Matter on YouTube'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=o9Nea7kyI3g'
video_id: 'o9Nea7kyI3g'
date: 2026-06-16
duration_sec: 616
---

# The 3 Metrics That Actually Matter on YouTube

> Source: [The 3 Metrics That Actually Matter on YouTube](https://youtube.com/watch?v=o9Nea7kyI3g)

## Summary

The video explains that new YouTubers are overwhelmed by statistics, but most are noise. The creator identifies the three most important metrics for early growth: impression click-through rate, average view duration, and impressions. He explains how these three work together and why they matter more than likes or subscribers.

### Key Points

- **The Problem with YouTube Statistics** [0:00] — New creators face too many statistics that lack meaningful data. Only a few metrics are useful for small channels.
- **Impression Click-Through Rate (CTR)** [1:15] — CTR is the most important metric. It reflects how well your thumbnail and title convince people to click. A good CTR varies by niche: 3-4% for some, 6-10% for others. Aim for 4-5% initially, then push for 6-7%.
- **Average View Duration** [3:17] — This is the second most important metric. It measures how long viewers stay after clicking. It reflects the quality of your editing, hook, content value, and satisfying conclusion. The algorithm tests your video against audience expectations.
- **Impressions** [5:23] — Impressions are the number of times your thumbnail is shown. They are a symptom of how well CTR and view duration perform. A video with high CTR and good retention gets more impressions, leading to more views.
- **The Interconnection of the Three Metrics** [7:18] — CTR and view duration directly impact impressions. High CTR and retention feed more impressions, which in turn bring more viewers. Likes and subscribers are secondary signals; focus on these three first.
- **Actionable Advice** [8:27] — First, improve thumbnail and title to boost CTR. Then, improve retention by delivering valuable, well-structured content. Analyze successful videos to replicate their patterns. Ignore other metrics until these three are optimized.

### Conclusion

For new YouTubers, the three most important metrics are impression click-through rate, average view duration, and impressions. Focusing on these will drive growth, while likes and subscribers are secondary.

## Transcript

Let's talk about statistics. There are a
lot of statistics and a lot of figures
and a lot of just noise when it comes to
YouTube. And when you're new, a lot of
these statistics, they don't have enough
meaningful data in them or enough
statistical analysis information. They
don't have enough content behind them to
actually be useful for you. So, let me
show you a few of the items that you
should be focusing on to make sure you
understand what they are. because when
you're young and you're small, these are
the numbers that really mean something
to you and we will go over some detailed
content of what they are so that you
understand which ones are important.
Okay, I have picked a random video here
off of my solar channel for us to use as
an example. This video is a greening
video that that I publish about every
six months, every three to six months
because it continues to perform. So each
time I produce it, it has this nice
steady slope of views and it continues
to grow and grow and grow the entire
time that the video is out. But it is
the perfect statistical analysis to
understand how things are going. So
let's talk about few things that are
very very important. The first one I
want to look at is over here under
reach. If we come over here under reach,
you'll notice there's this item here
called impression click-through rate.
The impression click-through rate is one
of the most important things that you
can work on. And this is a combination
of your thumbnail and your title,
getting people to respond to it and
click into your video. If they don't
click on it, there's no chance of them
staying and watching it because they
never went there. So, this is where
you're going to want to focus your
efforts at it. First is making sure that
your thumbnail and your title are of a
significantly
that that your thumbnail and title get a
large enough percentage here in the
click-through rate. Click-through rates
can vary based on different types of
content and different types of channels.
Some of my channels, the click-through
rate can be as small as three and 4% and
be very successful. On my solar channel,
I like to see it between six and 10%.
That is usually high for other channels,
but for this channel, it happens to be
on my YouTube channel, the channel
you're watching now, I can have two to
3% and it be quite high for that type of
content. And it really does depend on
the type of content that you have. My
suggestion is is that as your channel
grows, you strive for four to 5% at
first. If you see that you can easily
hit four or 5 percent, change that
number and watch for a little bit
higher. I usually watch for this number
to be at that six or 7%. You'll see that
there are spurts here in the middle that
are 12%. There'll be long patches where
it's even higher than that. And then
there'll be some patches where it's a
little lower than that. But it's
important that you understand this is
for every um hundred people that it sees
6.3 of them are going to click on it. So
6% of the people click through to see
this and this is one of the most
important things that you should
understand about statistics. Now let's
move on to average view duration. This
is the second most important thing that
you can that you can understand. Once
you have them going into this
click-through rate, then you're going to
want to go into the engagement tab and
look at this average view time from over
here. This average view time is the
amount of time once they click on a
video. How long do they stay and watch
it? Now, it will as your channel gets
more and more mature, you'll see that it
puts this shaded area in the background
to show you approximately
where that particular video should be
peaking based on its experience and
based on algorithm tests knowing this
type of audience should respond like
this. This type of audience should
respond like that. As you can see here,
this varies widely in the background,
suggesting that the algorithm is running
multiple test after test after test on
your content to see if it really fits
the entire uh the entire scenario where
here I overperformed a little bit. And
then we come down here and I may have
been close to underperforming, but
overall this video continues to get
hits. But you'll notice that it almost
always is in the overperforming position
and not down like it is here in the
underperforming position. Uh this being
the current time right now, it most
likely is not actually underperforming.
It's just that number hasn't
statistically gone up yet. So this is
average view duration. Your goal for
average view view duration is this is
when you keep people watching your
video. This is about your editing. This
is about the appealing of the content.
This is about providing the value and
arranging your video where you have that
hook at the beginning. You have that
content in the middle that has the uh
what they're trying to accomplish and
how to accomplish it. And then you have
that satisfying end that says here's how
that you've accomplished all this. This
is how you succeeded. All right. The
third item that you should keep an eye
on is impressions. Now, impressions
is this number here under the reach tab.
Impressions is basically used with in
conjunction with the impressions
click-through rate. But impressions is
the number of views that you'll see that
some videos when they die, they die with
large number of impressions and some
with low number impressions. And it
really depends on how far along in the
algorithm that you got. Here we've only
got 10,000 impressions after a period of
uh how many days do we have here? After
a period of 21 days, but we've got a
wonderful uh review rate. If I go look
at a different video and let's say that
I scroll down here to uh let's say this
one here,
you'll see here this one died right
about there. the impressions. If we look
at it, we've got 9,000 impressions, but
only 400 views. So, it's very important
that they burned all those impressions
up right here. We already had 7,500 of
those impressions. This video was doing
fantastic at first and then it just
died. My suspicion is is that the that
we had a very decent rate here and then
you can see it went down. So what you're
looking for is the uh we were very close
to underperforming in the entire time
that it was considered typical for this
one. Whereas on the other one and you
can see here we were underperforming
almost the entire time on average
duration. So these all go hand inand
those number of impressions is a symptom
of how this performance the average
duration performance was doing. These
are the three most important ones. But
the average click-through rate and the
average view duration directly inputs
directly impacts the amount of
impressions that you get which in turn
feed a higher the higher the percentage
feeds more and more people to your
thing. If you focus on only those three
elements, subscriptions and likes, they
do contribute to it. And I don't want to
discount them to say don't look at them
at all. But what I am going to say is
that those first three are much more
important here in the in the early
stages. You want to make sure that if
you're getting that other types of
subscribers and likes and secondary type
signals that that a video is popular,
that's wonderful. But if you don't get
those impressions, and without those
impressions, you're not going to get the
impressions if you don't have the
click-through rate. And the
click-through rate is not going to
continue if uh you're if if you don't
have the view time, if you don't have
the view time, then you're not going to
get more impressions. So, those are all
go hand inand and they're much more
important than anything else. And those
are the three. Forget all the other
statistics. Focus on those three and
you'll start seeing some improvement.
and focus on your your thumbnail and
your title first to get those
impressions and then focus on your
retention to make sure you can keep
people there. It's not necessarily about
fancy editing. It's about having good
rewarding content that you can get from
it. So, in in the the moral of the story
here is make sure that you're you're
appealing to them to get them to click
on something. Make sure once they click
on it that you're keeping them there and
that you're watching them. And if that's
not happening, go back and re-evaluate
what you're doing. Go back and and look
at why are they not clicking on them.
And most of all, on the ones that do
work, go back and figure out what is
different about them and start making
your other videos match them more
closely and make sure that you you do
that. The simple fact is is that there's
too many metrics out there. If you focus
on these three, you are going to see
massive improvements in what it is on on
what your channel can do, how well it
performs, and you will start to see some
real growth. And then you can start
worrying about some of those other
matrixes later on as you go through the
process. My name is Matt. I run three
different channels. I use the experience
for my solar channel with over 20,000
subscribers and my first video about to
reach a million views in conjunction
with my build unbound channel which is a
channel about building and and designing
things and creating new things and
putting things up and putting things
together and standard maintenance from
day to day. I use those experience to
help you with this channel and show you
what I'm going through on those channels
so that we can grow together and we can
have a better YouTube experience. I hope
you like this type of content and if you
do, please like this video or better yet
even subscribe so that you don't miss
the next one and I'll see you on the
next video. Thanks for watching.