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YouTube Analytics: The Ultimate Guide to Your Channel's Stats

YouTube Analytics: The Ultimate Guide to Your Channel's Stats

Are you a content creator or a YouTuber? Are you racking your brain to find ways to get more views? Do you have a marketing strategy or know your exact number of subscribers?

If you can’t answer all these questions, it might be time to look into YouTube Analytics. The stats in this often-underused corner of YouTube could be the difference between failure and success for your YouTube channel.

However, YouTube Analytics might not be the most intuitive data system. That’s why we’ve created a short guide to help you analyze your channel's stats and develop the most effective strategy possible. Let’s jump right in.

What Is YouTube Analytics?

Whether you know it or not, the YouTube Analytics page is one of the most important pages for your YouTube account. Basically, YouTube Analytics tools provide you with detailed metrics about your channel’s performance, from how much watch time you’re getting to what your audience’s demographics are.

Many YouTubers consider themselves to be creative types. This might make them averse to a page with so much data and graphs. But all that information — if you know how to interpret it — can tell you exactly how to get your videos and channel to perform much better.

To find valuable analytics data, open your YouTube channel page in a web browser and click the profile button at the top right. Then click “YouTube Studio” from the dropdown menu and select “Analytics” on the left side of the page.

Why Is YouTube Analytics Important?

Of course, you don’t have to worry about YouTube Analytics. If you just want to have fun posting videos on YouTube, that’s great! But if you’re serious about becoming a gaming influencer, a full-time streamer, or a successful online presence, you need to analyze data to plan for growth.

YouTube has one of the most robust analytics platforms. With YouTube Analytics, you’ll have a wealth of information about your channel at your fingertips. This level of specificity can help you create better content, find an audience, and leverage this social media algorithm to work for you.

If you already have great content and a good work ethic, a consistent posting schedule and content plan can take you to the next level. A well-crafted content strategy could be the difference between a small career and becoming the next YouTube sensation.

Your creative instinct can help you know what to post, but YouTube data can help you know when to post it, how to market it, and how to refine your content strategy. It can even give you fresh ideas on what YouTube videos you should post next if you’re in a creative rut.

All that to say, the data is on your side. On the internet, people leave comments that can bring you to your highest highs and your lowest lows. YouTube Analytics can cut through the noise and provide clarity so you can post the best content for the best chance of success.

What Are the Main Components of YouTube Analytics?

Before you develop a video content strategy, you need to know what data you’re looking at and how to find it. Let’s take a quick tour through YouTube Analytics and check out all the features this incredible site has to offer.

Overview
First up is the Overview section. Here, you have a ton of useful information. On the front page, you’ll see a simple graph that shows you a real-time update of your sub count and a graph measuring your video views, watch time (in hours), and subscribers over a set amount of time. This can give you a general look at your channel’s recent performance.

Now, if you click the “Advanced Mode” button at the top of the screen, you’ll be taken to a page with far more details and data. This section lets you customize graphs based on several performance metrics, including:

  • Content
  • Traffic source
  • Geography
  • Cities
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Date
  • Content type
  • Playlists

As you review this data, it’s important to keep track of what content you post when you see spikes and what you post when you see large dips. Look into what works and what doesn’t so you can determine what content connects with your audience.

Another important feature to explore is at the very bottom of the page. This is your impressions and impressions click-through rate. Your impressions are the number of times your videos’ titles and thumbnails were shown to a viewer. The click-through rates track how often people click on your videos after seeing them.

As a general rule, you should put time and effort into thumbnails and titles. It’s the first look people get at you, so you must grab their attention and get clicks to turn into subs. Many YouTube creators develop a video thumbnail and title before they even know the content of the video. It’s that important!

As a result, impressions and click-throughs are some of the most important YouTube metrics for the YouTube algorithm. You must track them if you want to improve over time.

Content
Next, we have the content page. On this page, you can find more detailed information about your videos and their performance. Let’s discuss how to use YouTube Analytics’ content section.

At the top, you’ll see another graph that shows overall data trends, such as number of views, impressions, and average watch duration. This data is super useful, but if you scroll down, you’ll find “Key moments for audience retention.”

Audience retention refers to how long your average viewer stays engaged with your content. It’s perhaps the most important engagement metric for your channel. YouTube wants viewers to stay on YouTube and keep watching ads so they can profit. Therefore, if your content keeps people engaged, YouTube will promote your content to a wider audience.

The key moments section tells you significant moments in your recent videos where audience retention took a dip or spiked. Click on these moments, go back, and watch them. Try to figure out why people lost or gained interest. Do you need to change anything about your content going forward?

Naturally, more people will click away as the video goes on. However, you should shoot for about a 55% to 60% retention rate after the first 30 seconds and a 30% retention rate by the end screen. You don’t have to get there right away, but those are favorable metrics to the algorithm.

While here, you should also check out your average watch time. Again, YouTube wants to keep people on the app for long periods of time. So, click on an individual video in the content list and see the average watch time. Keep track of these trends from video to video. More watch time equals more monetization!

While in the Content section, scroll down to “How viewers find your videos” and hit the YouTube Search tab. This button will pull up a list of what people type into the YouTube search bar before YouTube shows them your videos.

This list can indicate how well the algorithm understands your channel. If this list has phrases that relate to the content you make, you’re good. If you see some outliers toward the top of the list, there may be a problem.

Click on the problem items to see which of your videos are the culprits. It might be a good idea to steer away from that type of content in the future — or, if the problem is really bad, delete some of the videos that mess up your YouTube search data.

Audience
Your audience sustains you, so it’s vital to know who they are, how they think, and what types of content they like. That’s where the Audience tab comes into play.

On this page, you can see how many returning vs. new viewers you have. You can also see how many unique viewers you receive and get a detailed look at your subscription count.

But the juicy data is further down. For starters, you can see when your viewers are on YouTube. It’s essential that your videos get good engagement right after they’re posted, so posting at times when your viewers are more active can improve performance.

You can also see demographic info about your audience, such as age, gender, geography, and language. With this data, you can intuit what type of person is drawn to your channel.

This section even lets you see what other content your audience is watching. You can see top videos from other creators that your viewers engage with the most. This data can spur creativity and help you cater to your target audience. Understanding your audience’s taste will only benefit your channel in the future.

Inspiration
Finally, there’s the newest feature: Inspiration. This tab is simply a search function that utilizes AI to help you generate ideas for content creation. The AI learns from your searches and analyzes trends across the platform to help find ideas that work for your channel. Of course, these ideas won’t all be perfect, but they’re a great starting point if you’re in a creative dry spot.

Search a term related to the content you want to make and watch the AI go to work. It will feed you a couple of title ideas to get the juices flowing and even bring up popular videos related to your search term. Then, it will show you the top search queries for the topic that you typed in.

If you’re ever in a rut, try Inpsirition to shake things up. That way, you can continue to post high-quality videos consistently.

What Are the Most Important Channel Stats?

Whew, that was a lot of info! Let’s do a quick review.

The YouTube Analytics page can clue you in on key metrics that the YouTube algorithm considers when it pushes your content (or doesn’t). If you work to adjust your content to boost these metrics, you may see your channel’s success skyrocket.

The main metrics to consider are:

  • Click-through rate
  • Impressions
  • Audience retention
  • Average view duration
  • YouTube Search cohesion
  • Demographics

Analyze your channel's performance along these dimensions to identify weak spots and adjust your content strategy. It might seem like tough work, but it’s how the pros do it. If you want to be the next Mr. Beast and Markiplier, this is how it happens.

How To Develop a Content Strategy

So you’ve got your data; now it’s time to make a plan. Every content strategy looks different based on your channel size and video analytics. There’s no perfect template, but here are some guidelines you can follow to help you begin strategizing for your channel.

Identify Your Audience
Ask yourself what type of person you want to watch your videos. Who are your biggest fans? What are they interested in? Who is your target audience?

Now, look at the data in the Audience section. If it doesn’t align with your goals, adjust your content and branding to better fit the person you’re trying to reach. If needed, research your target audience to understand them as best you can.

Find Inspiration
Look at what other creators are doing. Find a creator who’s successfully doing what you aspire to and get ideas from them. Dive into their comment sections to see what people are saying about their content.

Remember the YouTube Search list we talked about? Watch other videos that come up for your target search queries. Go to the Audience section and watch the videos and creators your Audience is watching.

Plan Your Content
Once you have video ideas, schedule them out. Write scripts, schedule your posts when you know your audience will be online and put effort into eye-catching thumbnails and optimized titles. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Adjust as You Go
YouTube Analytics isn’t something you check every once in a while. You should religiously check your data to evaluate the status of your plan — at least every week. If there’s a dip in your retention rate or a spike in your sub count, you need to know about it so you can act.

Focus on the key metrics in the bullet points above. If you make your content with them in mind, you can improve.

Leverage Channel Stats for More Success

Knowledge is power in the world of YouTube. Using YouTube Analytics, you’ll have a leg up on the competition. The algorithm may seem fickle and unpredictable, but at the end of the day, it’s a computer program working with data. If you boost your stats, the algorithm will notice.

So check out your YouTube channel analytics and make adjustments. It’s a grind, but it should be fun and lead to success if you play your cards right.

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