With over 300 hours of video content being uploaded onto YouTube every minute, how do you determine how well your video is performing amongst all of that competition? YouTube Analytics offer content creators a high-level view into how their videos are performing while simultaneously disclosing deeper insights into how they can improve their overall channel. Successfully navigating through YouTube Analytics will empower you to establish a strategy in order to build a healthy channel that will attract more daily views and earn you more revenue. Here’s our breakdown of every YouTube report and how you can leverage the data to improve your channel’s success.

YouTube Analytics Overview

In order to access your channel’s analytics, sign into your YouTube account and enter the ‘Creator Studio’ that is located in the drop-down menu that will appear when you click on your profile picture at the top right corner of your screen. Once you are in the ‘Creator Studio’, you will select ‘Analytics’ from the left menu where you will be greeted by the Overview Report. The Overview Report provides a snapshot on how your channel has performed over the past 28 days. This data is beneficial if you are looking to get a general sense of how your channel is doing, however, it will only provide the most basic summary of each corresponding report. Please note that YouTube Analytics are also based on Pacific Standard Time, updated once a day, and have a delay of 72 hours. If you are really looking to make the most of YouTube Analytics, you will need to dive into each detailed report.

Another general report you can view from your ‘Creator Studio’ is the Realtime Report, which provides an over view on your channel’s top 25 videos and updated every 10 seconds. The report gives you an idea of how your newly uploaded videos are performing and can help predict the popularity of your videos. Similar to the Overview Report, the Realtime Report will only provide a broad sense into how your channel is performing.

On the top right of every report, there are data filters that allow you to view analytics by video, geographic location, or time frame and dates. You can also use the ‘Comparison Tool’ to add secondary filters and compare data against each other (i.e. comparing your 5 minute video to a 2 minute video to see which performed better). These tools make it easy to see whether or not your general strategy and the changes you’ve made to your videos have made a positive impact.

Watch Time Reports

Your Watch Time Reports are where you will find the most valuable analytics on YouTube. These reports break down how your different videos, as well as the quality of your videos, are keeping your audience engaged. These statistics are considered a key success metric by YouTube and are used in the platform’s algorithm to determine where your videos appear in YouTube search results and recommendations.

• Views– are the most basic measurement of your video’s success as they reflect how many times your video has been watched. Be careful, views are considered equal value regardless how long a user watched your video. They do not take in to account users that click on your content and leave immediately.
• Watch time– offers a more accurate breakdown of how your content is doing because it measures the estimated time that your audience has watched your video. YouTube has shifted its focus to place a significant value on watch time, rewarding videos that were successful at keeping viewers engaged, rather than simply attracting clicks. The idea behind this shift is to give viewers more enjoyable content and enable creators to generate more revenue.
• Audience Retention– illustrates how well your video is maintaining its audience. From this report, you will be able to see how much of each video your viewers are watching, and which parts are causing them to abandon your content. Audience retention can be broken down even further to see your absolute audience retention and your relative audience retention. Your absolute audience retention allows you to see which parts of your video are the most popular. This will give you insight into what type of content works and doesn’t work for your audience. Your relative retention rate shows how your video compares to other YouTube videos of similar length and will help you to determine which length video best suits you.
• Demographics– gives you an in-depth look into who exactly is watching your video to better market them when they go live. The report breaks down your audience by gender, age, and geographic location so that you can tailor your messaging respectively.
• Playback locations– show any pages or sites your video is being viewed on. This data separates views from your YouTube page, YouTube apps, or any website/app you embed your video on.
• Traffic sources– provides data about how your audience is getting to your video. You will allow you to see how searchable your video while determining which referral platform, like a Google Search or YouTube playlist, is gaining you the most traffic. From there you can decide how you can amplify that whether it’s through paid advertising or stronger social sharing.
• Devices– shows whether your audience is watching your video on their mobile devices or on their computers. From the information provided, you can tailor your content to fit the device. For example, if a majority of your views are coming from mobile, you may want to create shorter videos that would be better-viewed on-the-go.

Engagement Reports

Your watch time is only one part of building a thriving YouTube channel. As you begin to tailor your content based on your watch time reports, you will also want to track which type of engagement your videos are generating.

• Subscribers– shows how many subscribers you have gained and lost over a set period of time. Subscribers are important because they tend to be the users who watch and engage with your content the most. You will want to create videos that make people come back for more, so monitoring your subscriber base on a regular basis will help determine whether or not you are successfully doing this.
• Likes and dislikes– summarizes how many people like or dislike your video. The report specifically shows the net change, so it adds up the number of likes/dislikes added and subtracts the number of likes/dislikes removed. Please note that if the number of likes removed is bigger than the number of likes added then this number will appear as a negative.
• Comments– displays the number of comments your content is accumulating. Comments can be a great way for you to engage with your audience by answering questions or responding to criticism. Just be sure your responses are prompt and professional!
• Sharing– illustrates how many times your videos have been shared, and which social platforms it has been shared to.
• Annotations– provides information about how your videos annotations are performing as well as their click-through rate and close rate. These statistics will give you important information about how effective your video’s call-to-action is.

Monitor All of Your Earnings from the Vydia Dashboard

As your YouTube videos accumulate views, you will want to track how much money you are earning. By connecting your YouTube channel to your Vydia account, you will be able to view, with complete transparency, your earned revenue as well as any User-Generated claims associated with your videos. In addition to YouTube, you can also connect your Facebook, and Vevo accounts to track all of your video analytics from one centralized dashboard. Vydia’s transparent analytics can be accessed from your computer or on-the-go with the Vydia Mobile app, so start tracking your videos today!