---
title: 'YouTube Analytics Explained: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Beginners'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=vJWaYMzpGjc'
video_id: 'vJWaYMzpGjc'
date: 2026-06-21
duration_sec: 0
---

# YouTube Analytics Explained: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Beginners

> Source: [YouTube Analytics Explained: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Beginners](https://youtube.com/watch?v=vJWaYMzpGjc)

## Summary

In this episode of Coffee With Cannell, the host explains how to analyze YouTube video performance using 10 key analytics metrics. He emphasizes the importance of data-driven decisions to improve future videos, covering metrics like audience retention, traffic sources, and revenue.

### Key Points

- **Love Data** [0:04] — To have a successful YouTube channel, you must fall in love with data and measure what gets improved.
- **Compare to Typical Performance** [1:01] — The first analytics is how a video compares to typical performance, shown by a gray line (typical) and blue line (current video), plus green arrows for views and watch time.
- **Subscriber Gain/Loss** [2:03] — Check if the video is gaining or losing subscribers; one video on the Think Media channel gained 759 subscribers.
- **Key Moments for Audience Retention** [2:33] — The audience retention graph shows where viewers lose attention or skip, helping improve future content. Average percentage viewed matters—over 50% is good.
- **Real Time Views** [3:50] — Real-time views show how the video is performing every two days (e.g., 4,365 views) and top traffic sources like browse features (home page).
- **Traffic Sources** [5:42] — Under the reach tab, check traffic sources (e.g., browse features at 73%) and impressions leading to watch time. Click-through rate (CTR) and watch time influence YouTube recommendations.
- **Click-Through Rate** [7:30] — Good CTR is over 10% (viral videos at 15-16%). This video had 2.7%, which is low, but the average view duration of 7:21 compensated.
- **Average View Duration** [8:42] — Average view duration is a key metric. This video had 7:37 average view duration, which led to high recommendation. Typical performance on the channel is 3:53 to 4:30.
- **Average Views Per Viewer** [10:37] — Under the audience tab, this metric shows how many videos a viewer watches after discovering one. Bingeable content (like short, entertaining clips) increases this number.
- **CPM and RPM** [13:20] — CPM (cost per mille) is $23.64, RPM (revenue per mille) is the actual earnings after YouTube takes 45%. CPM and RPM depend on niche, audience demographics, and content topic.

### Conclusion

By analyzing these 10 metrics—including subscriber impact, retention, traffic sources, and revenue—you can make data-driven decisions to create better videos and grow your channel.

## Transcript

- Welcome back to the
Coffee With Cannell show.
We're gonna be talking
about YouTube analytics.
If you want to have a
successful YouTube channel
you have to fall in love with data.
I really believe that.
What gets measured gets improved.
In this video I'm gonna
be sharing 10 analytics
that I look at once the
video has been published
so I can understand how it performed
and how I can make data-driven decisions.
So that my next video is
hopefully my best video
and I can get more
views, more subscribers,
and even earn more money
because I'm paying attention to the data.
You got to just press Record.
So let's get straight into it.
What you do as you go
into your YouTube studio
in the back end.
And one of the ways you can get
to a specific video is just do a search.
I'm gonna look up a video
called Amazing Home Office Design Ideas.
When you search it
you can click the little
analytics graphic right here
and it takes you straight
to the video analytics.
This video, we're gonna be
talking about 10 analytics
that we look out on a specific video.
And number one is how
does this video compare
to my typical video performance?
You can see this in a couple
of ways right here on screen.
You can see this little
gray line and the gray line
is how the video typically performs.
And if I hover on that
that's how the video typically performs.
The blue line is showing that
this video is outperforming
the typical performance.
Additionally, it gives you
a green arrow right here
and a green arrow here
on views and watch time
to say that this video
is getting 62,000 views.
Then more since published
so far and on watch time
and you can click that
to get another graph.
You can click through
these tabs right here.
It also is up so this video is crushing.
That's the first question I asked,
like how is this video doing
compared to a typical video?
Now this video was doing
well kind of from the start
but I've noticed a trend
that videos are breaking out.
Sometimes it takes a month, 30 days
sometimes 45 days, 60 days.
And so what's been interesting
is you have to have patience
do the right things, good title titles,
good thumbnails, good content.
And sometimes it takes a while
for a video to break out.
The second question is,
is this video gaining
or losing subscribers?
In this case this one video
has grown the Think Media channel
by 759 subscribers so far.
A lot of times, sometimes going live
sometimes pointing out a video
that doesn't really
resonate with your audience
might actually have a
minus subscribers there.
You wanna pay attention to that.
And sometimes you still
may be okay with it
because over time it might
lose subscribers at first,
eventually gained them later
but you should be paying attention.
How's this content resonating
my current subscribers.
Number three, what are the key moments
for audience retention?
Now, this is a very powerful graph
that actually shows where the content is.
Maybe losing attention if
it's holding attention,
it shows you spikes.
Notice this it says two spikes.
So these two spikes right here
are probably people scrolling
through because what
this video ultimately is,
is a compilation of three
different office tours.
It's my office tour, by
the way, if you're looking
for some home office
upgrades and you're looking
for kind of how we do our home offices
you've got my office,
you've got Heather Tours
on the Think Media team's office.
Then you have Omar's office.
So maybe someone starts watching.
They kind of get bored.
They skip to the next one.
And there's also chapter.
So people can find their
way and skip through.
That one of the big things here is again,
key moments for audience retention,
and I'm asking myself,
"Hey, on my next video,
how can I potentially do better?
And what can I learn?"
Average percentage viewed matters.
If you can get over 50% of the people
finishing a video that
can be a great thing.
Or if you can crack
seven, eight, nine minutes
that also can be very powerful.
This is a 30 minute video
so it's a much longer video
and it is being massively recommended
by the YouTube algorithm right now.
So it is definitely performing well.
Number four is
how is the video performing
in real time views?
On the right side of the screen here,
we're now looking at real-time views.
Every two days this video is
getting around 4,365 videos.
And in the last 60 minutes,
this video has gotten 98 views.
We're on the right side
of the screen over here
I'll go full screen and zoom in.
So you can see it maybe a little better.
On the right side real-time views.
Browse features is the top traffic source.
That means that this video is
being shown on the homepage.
Little bit of YouTube search,
a little bit of external
a little bit of suggested
but browse is really
the main traffic source.
So when this video shows
up on people's home pages
the thumbnail is very clickable.
The topic is maybe interesting
and so long as it gets clicked on
and then people spend seven
minutes of their time.
On average watching this video
the video continues to be recommended.
And so super powerful.
Now we're gonna get into the
next few tips in a second
but today's Coffee With Cannell
episode is brought to you
by our brand new limited
time Think Masterclass.
This is a updated class
that's only available
for a limited time, and
I'm actually gonna be going
into how I use one simple
YouTube strategy to turn $130
into over $19,323
with a single YouTube video.
Link in the description down
below if you wanna register
I haven't really shared
this anywhere in this depth.
And if you like these 10 tips on analytics
I'm gonna be specifically going super deep
on how to earn money from YouTube
not with YouTube AdSense.
I'm gonna show you how I spent $130.
What I did after that,
when it comes to YouTube
and creating a video and exactly
how that investment generated $19,323.
It's gonna be super fun.
And so if you wanna register for that
link in the description down below
and let's keep going with
our YouTube analytics tips.
Number five is what are
the traffic sources?
So now up top here
you've were on the overview
page of a single video.
And in a future video, we'll
talk about channel analytics
reviewing your analytics
for the 30 days, 90 days
where does the reviewing
10 analytics of one upload
about 40 days after the video came out?
So now I wanna know this
is the overview page.
I'm gonna click on reach here.
This is gonna give me some new data.
The next question I'm asking number five
is what are the traffic sources?
So as I scroll down
there's this really
important graph right here.
Where are the traffic sources?
We discovered that browse features
73% of the views are coming
from browse features.
If I hover over this little i
it tells me what the traffic source is.
And so this traffic source
is homepage home screen views
also subscription feed and
other browsing features.
So great, so this video
is really generating
from traffic sources.
Furthermore, on this right side here
it's actually really
powerful to see impressions
and how they lead to watch time.
76% of these impressions have come
from YouTube recommending my content.
Now, how do you influence that?
It says you can increase the chance
of YouTube suggesting your content
by increasing your click-through rate
and your view video watch time.
So click through rate is a little low 2.7
but the average view duration,
the video watch time,
is seven minutes and 21 seconds.
So YouTube is like, man,
that's a lot of time on platform.
We're gonna recommend this video.
So I like to check my traffic sources.
I like to see where
impressions are coming from.
And I like to look at
the click-through rate.
Now back up top here on the reach tab
of a single video inside of my analytics
I'm clicking on
impressions-click through rate
and you can actually see
as the video has been
released day after day
what kind of click-through
rate has it been getting?
And it's been 2.8, 3.1.
You know, a good click-through
rate is over 10%.
If you can get over 15
or 16% and hold that
you basically have a
viral video on your hands.
Now this might be a
niche topic a little bit
with home office design ideas
maybe the length that's
kind of intimidating
to click on a 30 minute video.
So really if your
click-through rate is high
and your average view duration is high
then you're gonna have
a banger on your hands.
You're gonna hack the YouTube
algorithm and blow it up.
If one of those two things is high
you're also gonna blow it up.
So that's what I like to definitely see.
What's the click-through rate?
What can I learn from next time?
I think the thumbnail
is pretty phenomenal.
I think that the title is also very good
but the topic may not have
been as widely interesting
to our subscribers.
And here's the interesting thing.
Like if you got a breakout video
like this blue line right here
that looks like it's not gonna stop.
I mean, live with it like that's great,
but always asking, man how
can I make that higher?
And in my opinion topic would be probably
the biggest influence of that.
Not necessarily title and thumbnail
'cause I think both of those are strong.
Number seven, I'm gonna ask
what's the average view duration?
We've asked that, but we're gonna go
to the next tab over that's engagement.
And we have our total watch time hours
10,800
watch time hours.
And I wanna encourage you
naturally this was released
on a level large channel
that already had big influence.
It took a long time to
build that influence.
You gotta start before you're ready,
start messy, start posting videos
and build your channel
one subscriber at a time.
But I think this also shows the power
of even just one video.
If you wanna get monetized,
get a thousand subscribers
get 4,000 hours of watch time.
This one video has
accomplished that result
and it's also 30 minutes long.
So remember you're always one video away
from potentially reaching
your next YouTube goal.
And if you put out the right
video at the right time
with the right title
and the right thumbnail
with the right content,
then you can see incredible things happen.
So next though, I wanna ask
about average view duration.
This is a huge metric.
Like the two big levers
are click-through rate
and average view duration.
This one has three minutes and 31 seconds
more than usual, as
far as the performance.
And you actually can
see the gray line here
of my typical performance on
the Think Media YouTube channel
is around three minutes and 53 seconds
to about four minutes and 30 seconds.
And then the pink line is
how this video is performing
and how much time people
spend watching this video.
So again, this is the metric.
If you're curious, man, how
do I hack the algorithm?
This is the metric on this
video that led to the result.
People are spending seven
minutes and 37 seconds
of their hard one time
hanging out on this video
not why watching the
expanse on Amazon prime,
not watching Queen's gambit on Netflix,
seven minutes and 37 seconds.
And that's average view duration.
Some of course are spending longer
and that's holding the
average viewer that clicks
on this video is spending that much time.
So huge metric that you wanna think about
how do I increase that?
And let's get to number eight.
So now we're gonna click audience
and this one's not talked about a lot.
But this one is the
average views per viewer.
See it says right here, the
average views per viewer.
So the average views per viewer
is the average number of times
a viewer watch this particular
video in this period.
So the question I'm asking is
how many videos is the
average viewer Watch?
This is just off this video.
This is one that I want to increase
and that can really help your channel.
What does it mean?
It means that if somebody
clicks on one of your videos
do they watch a second, a
third or fourth of fifth?
Do they stay on your
channel and watch 10 videos?
If you can increase that
average views per viewer number
it really can be a game changer.
In this case, people barely watch two.
And if they find this video
maybe their mindset may be suggested,
maybe getting distracted,
maybe ending their viewing session.
They're not necessarily
binging a whole bunch
of different videos, a way to
see how this really works well
would be like one of my
favorite YouTube channels
called Daily Dose of the Internet.
They have a couple of smart
things going for them.
One, their YouTube videos are very short,
three, four minutes.
Two, they really pull fair use
content from a lot of places
and they consolidate like
really entertaining clips.
Three, they're kind of
just pleasant, entertaining
low mental fatigue, watchable videos.
But also because they're short,
I oftentimes play one on my smart TV
when we're making dinner or something
and then suggested to me as a
second, third, fourth or fifth
because maybe it takes 25
minutes to prepare dinner.
So we watched like five or six of them
and they're just super entertaining.
It replaces the old ones
'cause it comes out daily.
So I wouldn't be surprised
that their average view per
viewer is like five views
or 10 or a lot more.
So to me, that is are you creating content
that somebody could
watch one video, love it,
and then want to do a bingeable
session on your channel?
Be like, that was awesome and
they wanna watch another one.
In some cases, Think Media
creates searchable content.
One problem, one answer type of content
and the viewing session might end.
But whatever possible, if you can create
kind of bingeable viewing sessions,
that can be super powerful.
And that is a metric
that I like to look at.
If you're getting value
smashed like we're gonna get
into the last three tips here.
Number nine is what is my CPM?
So we can see now we're
gonna click the revenue tab.
We're studying one video
and we're going through
these 10 questions.
I like to ask about every video.
What's my click-through rate?
What's my average view duration?
What are the traffic sources?
How are the real times views doing?
Now we're talking about money.
So what is the CPM?
So the CPM of this video
is $23 and 64 cents.
Now this is remarkable because
if you want to make money
from YouTube ads, you know,
a lot of times the average
CPM is one to $5 on YouTube.
So this means how much you're gonna make
CPM stands for cost per mille and mille
or mille is a Roman term for a thousand.
And it means that if ads
play, you're gonna make 2364.
Now a huge misconception though,
is that as not how much
money you actually keep
that is the total amount of
money earned by the video.
But YouTube takes 45% of that
and you keep 55% of that.
Your RPM is a much more accurate number.
That's exactly how much money you earned.
This number also could be pushed
up because of super chats,
which could be a lot if you were doing,
if you were getting super chats
or people that are kind of tipping you
'cause they're grateful for your content.
This is essentially tells me
that every a thousand monetized views
and what do I mean by monetize?
Well, maybe an ad doesn't play.
Maybe somebody has an ad blocker.
It actually, the ad has to be playing
and seeing you could scroll down
and see that skippable
ads are the main source
a little bit of bumper
ads and a few other things
but the main ones, the bumper
ads and the skippable ads.
But all that to say is
number nine, what is my CPM?
And number 10, what is my RPM?
I like to know how much
money is a video earning
not just how much has it earned so far.
This video is generated at the time
of recording this $881 and 60 cents.
But how much money is this compared
to maybe another video on my channel?
And the way you influence this,
it has a lot to do with
topic and audience.
What country is your audience watching in?
How old is your audience
and what is your audience's mindset?
Is it professional audience?
Is it business owners,
real estate investors,
venture capitalists, entrepreneurs,
small business owners,
the creator economy,
like what is it?
Or is it like kids that want to, you know,
14 year olds that wanna watch cat videos?
It can affect how much
advertisers are willing to pay
to get in front of your audience.
Secondly, though, it's really topic.
So home office design ideas
talking about maybe tech,
home office versus a pranks channel
or maybe a gaming video or something else.
These are the types of things that cover,
that affect your CPM
and therefore your RPM.
So for certain cases, you
may want to create videos
about strategic types of topics.
Some of the highest CPM niches are things
like real estate,
investing, personal finance,
a tech is kind of in the middle.
It's not one of the high ones,
medical, a lot of medicine, doctors,
biohackers, health tips that
can be a high CPM niche.
And then you experiment over time
and you wanna of course, stay
on brand, stay in your niche.
But the selection of what
niche you have on YouTube
could be influenced by your ambitions
when it comes to earning money
from your YouTube channel.
And also the one-off topics.
For Think Media, we help
people with the best tips
and tools for building their
influence with online video.
This is obviously the gear and tech side.
How do you build out your home office
and your battle station?
And we've noticed that sometimes
when you talk about money
it usually drives your CPM up.
If it was like how to
make money on YouTube
that might be a little bit higher.
And then maybe something
else that is just something
about software, although
software is pretty high as well.
And so all of that are
really good questions to ask.
And when I'm asking that, I'm also curious
how much money has this video generated?
You know, to look at one
other video on the channel
there is this video right here how to get,
this was actually a live stream,
but it was how to get
1000 subscribers fast
on the Think Media channel.
And you can actually see
the power of one video.
This video has generated
almost a million views
25,000 new subscribers, $16,591.
And we can see the CPM was $33.
And again, the RPM is
usually about half that
$17 and 76 cents.
So not only is it higher
but then you multiply that
by the views over time.
And that's a pretty good
amount of money earned
from just this one video.
So if you got value out of this video
hit the like button,
and I want to remind you
that today's Coffee With
Cannell is brought to you
by our brand new exclusive web class
where I'm gonna be breaking down
how I use one simple YouTube strategy
to turn $130 into over
19,323 with a single video.
Now I'm actually not really
talking about AdSense.
We just showed you CPM and RPM.
This is not that, this is actually
other monetization strategies
connected to some smart YouTube strategy.
You're gonna love if you wanna watch this.
It's where I go a little bit deeper.
It's an hour-long free class.
Link in the description down below
or you can just go to thinkmasterclass.com
to be a part of the training
and go to that website to register.
(upbeat music)