The 3 Metrics That Actually Matter on YouTube

[00:00] Let's talk about statistics. There are a

[00:03] lot of statistics and a lot of figures

[00:05] and a lot of just noise when it comes to

[00:08] YouTube. And when you're new, a lot of

[00:10] these statistics, they don't have enough

[00:13] meaningful data in them or enough

[00:14] statistical analysis information. They

[00:17] don't have enough content behind them to

[00:20] actually be useful for you. So, let me

[00:23] show you a few of the items that you

[00:25] should be focusing on to make sure you

[00:27] understand what they are. because when

[00:29] you're young and you're small, these are

[00:32] the numbers that really mean something

[00:33] to you and we will go over some detailed

[00:37] content of what they are so that you

[00:39] understand which ones are important.

[00:41] Okay, I have picked a random video here

[00:44] off of my solar channel for us to use as

[00:47] an example. This video is a greening

[00:50] video that that I publish about every

[00:52] six months, every three to six months

[00:54] because it continues to perform. So each

[00:56] time I produce it, it has this nice

[01:00] steady slope of views and it continues

[01:02] to grow and grow and grow the entire

[01:05] time that the video is out. But it is

[01:07] the perfect statistical analysis to

[01:09] understand how things are going. So

[01:11] let's talk about few things that are

[01:12] very very important. The first one I

[01:15] want to look at is over here under

[01:16] reach. If we come over here under reach,

[01:19] you'll notice there's this item here

[01:21] called impression click-through rate.

[01:24] The impression click-through rate is one

[01:26] of the most important things that you

[01:28] can work on. And this is a combination

[01:31] of your thumbnail and your title,

[01:33] getting people to respond to it and

[01:36] click into your video. If they don't

[01:38] click on it, there's no chance of them

[01:41] staying and watching it because they

[01:43] never went there. So, this is where

[01:45] you're going to want to focus your

[01:46] efforts at it. First is making sure that

[01:48] your thumbnail and your title are of a

[01:54] significantly

[01:56] that that your thumbnail and title get a

[01:59] large enough percentage here in the

[02:01] click-through rate. Click-through rates

[02:02] can vary based on different types of

[02:04] content and different types of channels.

[02:06] Some of my channels, the click-through

[02:08] rate can be as small as three and 4% and

[02:11] be very successful. On my solar channel,

[02:13] I like to see it between six and 10%.

[02:16] That is usually high for other channels,

[02:19] but for this channel, it happens to be

[02:21] on my YouTube channel, the channel

[02:23] you're watching now, I can have two to

[02:25] 3% and it be quite high for that type of

[02:28] content. And it really does depend on

[02:30] the type of content that you have. My

[02:32] suggestion is is that as your channel

[02:35] grows, you strive for four to 5% at

[02:38] first. If you see that you can easily

[02:40] hit four or 5 percent, change that

[02:42] number and watch for a little bit

[02:44] higher. I usually watch for this number

[02:47] to be at that six or 7%. You'll see that

[02:50] there are spurts here in the middle that

[02:52] are 12%. There'll be long patches where

[02:55] it's even higher than that. And then

[02:56] there'll be some patches where it's a

[02:58] little lower than that. But it's

[02:59] important that you understand this is

[03:02] for every um hundred people that it sees

[03:06] 6.3 of them are going to click on it. So

[03:09] 6% of the people click through to see

[03:12] this and this is one of the most

[03:13] important things that you should

[03:15] understand about statistics. Now let's

[03:17] move on to average view duration. This

[03:21] is the second most important thing that

[03:23] you can that you can understand. Once

[03:25] you have them going into this

[03:27] click-through rate, then you're going to

[03:29] want to go into the engagement tab and

[03:31] look at this average view time from over

[03:35] here. This average view time is the

[03:38] amount of time once they click on a

[03:41] video. How long do they stay and watch

[03:43] it? Now, it will as your channel gets

[03:47] more and more mature, you'll see that it

[03:49] puts this shaded area in the background

[03:51] to show you approximately

[03:54] where that particular video should be

[03:56] peaking based on its experience and

[03:59] based on algorithm tests knowing this

[04:01] type of audience should respond like

[04:03] this. This type of audience should

[04:04] respond like that. As you can see here,

[04:07] this varies widely in the background,

[04:09] suggesting that the algorithm is running

[04:13] multiple test after test after test on

[04:15] your content to see if it really fits

[04:18] the entire uh the entire scenario where

[04:22] here I overperformed a little bit. And

[04:25] then we come down here and I may have

[04:27] been close to underperforming, but

[04:29] overall this video continues to get

[04:31] hits. But you'll notice that it almost

[04:34] always is in the overperforming position

[04:36] and not down like it is here in the

[04:38] underperforming position. Uh this being

[04:41] the current time right now, it most

[04:44] likely is not actually underperforming.

[04:46] It's just that number hasn't

[04:47] statistically gone up yet. So this is

[04:50] average view duration. Your goal for

[04:53] average view view duration is this is

[04:55] when you keep people watching your

[04:57] video. This is about your editing. This

[04:59] is about the appealing of the content.

[05:01] This is about providing the value and

[05:03] arranging your video where you have that

[05:05] hook at the beginning. You have that

[05:07] content in the middle that has the uh

[05:10] what they're trying to accomplish and

[05:12] how to accomplish it. And then you have

[05:14] that satisfying end that says here's how

[05:17] that you've accomplished all this. This

[05:19] is how you succeeded. All right. The

[05:23] third item that you should keep an eye

[05:25] on is impressions. Now, impressions

[05:30] is this number here under the reach tab.

[05:32] Impressions is basically used with in

[05:36] conjunction with the impressions

[05:38] click-through rate. But impressions is

[05:41] the number of views that you'll see that

[05:43] some videos when they die, they die with

[05:46] large number of impressions and some

[05:48] with low number impressions. And it

[05:50] really depends on how far along in the

[05:53] algorithm that you got. Here we've only

[05:55] got 10,000 impressions after a period of

[06:00] uh how many days do we have here? After

[06:02] a period of 21 days, but we've got a

[06:05] wonderful uh review rate. If I go look

[06:08] at a different video and let's say that

[06:10] I scroll down here to uh let's say this

[06:14] one here,

[06:17] you'll see here this one died right

[06:19] about there. the impressions. If we look

[06:22] at it, we've got 9,000 impressions, but

[06:25] only 400 views. So, it's very important

[06:29] that they burned all those impressions

[06:31] up right here. We already had 7,500 of

[06:34] those impressions. This video was doing

[06:36] fantastic at first and then it just

[06:38] died. My suspicion is is that the that

[06:42] we had a very decent rate here and then

[06:44] you can see it went down. So what you're

[06:46] looking for is the uh we were very close

[06:50] to underperforming in the entire time

[06:53] that it was considered typical for this

[06:55] one. Whereas on the other one and you

[06:57] can see here we were underperforming

[06:59] almost the entire time on average

[07:02] duration. So these all go hand inand

[07:05] those number of impressions is a symptom

[07:07] of how this performance the average

[07:10] duration performance was doing. These

[07:13] are the three most important ones. But

[07:18] the average click-through rate and the

[07:20] average view duration directly inputs

[07:24] directly impacts the amount of

[07:27] impressions that you get which in turn

[07:30] feed a higher the higher the percentage

[07:32] feeds more and more people to your

[07:35] thing. If you focus on only those three

[07:39] elements, subscriptions and likes, they

[07:43] do contribute to it. And I don't want to

[07:45] discount them to say don't look at them

[07:46] at all. But what I am going to say is

[07:49] that those first three are much more

[07:51] important here in the in the early

[07:52] stages. You want to make sure that if

[07:54] you're getting that other types of

[07:56] subscribers and likes and secondary type

[08:00] signals that that a video is popular,

[08:02] that's wonderful. But if you don't get

[08:04] those impressions, and without those

[08:06] impressions, you're not going to get the

[08:07] impressions if you don't have the

[08:08] click-through rate. And the

[08:09] click-through rate is not going to

[08:10] continue if uh you're if if you don't

[08:13] have the view time, if you don't have

[08:15] the view time, then you're not going to

[08:16] get more impressions. So, those are all

[08:18] go hand inand and they're much more

[08:20] important than anything else. And those

[08:21] are the three. Forget all the other

[08:23] statistics. Focus on those three and

[08:26] you'll start seeing some improvement.

[08:27] and focus on your your thumbnail and

[08:30] your title first to get those

[08:32] impressions and then focus on your

[08:34] retention to make sure you can keep

[08:36] people there. It's not necessarily about

[08:38] fancy editing. It's about having good

[08:40] rewarding content that you can get from

[08:42] it. So, in in the the moral of the story

[08:46] here is make sure that you're you're

[08:49] appealing to them to get them to click

[08:51] on something. Make sure once they click

[08:52] on it that you're keeping them there and

[08:54] that you're watching them. And if that's

[08:56] not happening, go back and re-evaluate

[08:58] what you're doing. Go back and and look

[09:00] at why are they not clicking on them.

[09:02] And most of all, on the ones that do

[09:04] work, go back and figure out what is

[09:06] different about them and start making

[09:08] your other videos match them more

[09:09] closely and make sure that you you do

[09:11] that. The simple fact is is that there's

[09:13] too many metrics out there. If you focus

[09:16] on these three, you are going to see

[09:18] massive improvements in what it is on on

[09:21] what your channel can do, how well it

[09:23] performs, and you will start to see some

[09:25] real growth. And then you can start

[09:27] worrying about some of those other

[09:28] matrixes later on as you go through the

[09:30] process. My name is Matt. I run three

[09:33] different channels. I use the experience

[09:35] for my solar channel with over 20,000

[09:37] subscribers and my first video about to

[09:39] reach a million views in conjunction

[09:42] with my build unbound channel which is a

[09:44] channel about building and and designing

[09:47] things and creating new things and

[09:49] putting things up and putting things

[09:51] together and standard maintenance from

[09:52] day to day. I use those experience to

[09:55] help you with this channel and show you

[09:58] what I'm going through on those channels

[10:00] so that we can grow together and we can

[10:02] have a better YouTube experience. I hope

[10:04] you like this type of content and if you

[10:06] do, please like this video or better yet

[10:10] even subscribe so that you don't miss

[10:12] the next one and I'll see you on the

[10:13] next video. Thanks for watching.