Youtube is a common social media platform for content distribution. Creating top-notch video content for your brand’s YouTube account is what will fuel brand growth.
YouTube has become a search engine. Not like Google, but still. It is a pretty huge deal.
After you use your engaging videos to showcase your products and services, you’d want to use YouTube analytics to check YouTube metrics.
A storm of questions takes over you: What YouTube metrics should I look at? Why do I need to check my YouTube performance?
In what follows, I’ll answer all these questions and more.
An in-depth analysis of YouTube metrics
- What are YouTube metrics
- Why it’s important to check YouTube metrics
- How to see YouTube analytics in the native app
- Youtube metrics every marketer should track
1. What are YouTube metrics
YouTube metrics are the insights you get about your content’s performance via the native analytics tool or a third-party analytics tool.
This suite of metrics offers actionable insights on how to adjust your content strategy on YouTube in such a way that you accomplish your marketing goals.
YouTube metrics are different than YouTube KPIs. YouTube metrics focus on views, watch time and subscribers.
YouTube KPIs represent measurements that are strongly connected to business goals.
On the other hand, YouTube metrics offer the data you need for KPIs, but they are not directly connected to growth trajectories.
2. Why it’s important to check YouTube metrics
If you’re wondering why it’s important to check YouTube metrics, you need to think about your goals.
With knowledge about your YouTube analytics and YouTube metrics you can better understand what type of video content works for you and what doesn’t.
Looking at numbers favours your next marketing campaign since you get to find out more about your channel performance.
3. How to see YouTube analytics in the native app
Let's not make the wait longer and jump right into it!
Here's where to get all the numbers you need.
Step1: Login to your YouTube account.
Step2: Click your profile icon in the upper right corner.
Step3: Select YouTube Studio.
Step4: Select Analytics from the left-hand menu.
Now you can choose between Overview, Reach, Engagement, Audience, and Revenue (if suitable) depending on the information you're looking for.
Here's the data you can get using YouTube’s native analytics app:
- Best and worst performing video - discover your best and worst-performing videos in terms of viewership.
- Subscriber views - YouTube's subscriber's report shows you the videos with the highest subscriber views.
- What platforms your videos are viewed on - this metric helps you know what platforms your YouTube videos are viewed on.
- The number of subscribers gained and lost - YouTube's subscriber's report lets you know when you gained and lost subscribers.How many comments, share, likes, and dislikes you received for your videos - this metric helps you know how many comments, likes, share, and dislikes your videos are getting.
4. Youtube metrics every marketer should track
Some would say the perfect YouTube strategy doesn't exist. Well, we are here to prove them wrong.
If you periodically look at the data, you keep up with all the updates, check YouTube analytics and track the most important YouTube metrics, you will not fail.
We know that all the KPIs and metrics can become a tangled situation, but we are here to clear it all for you. Let's look together at the YouTube metrics that make your online business' engine to keep on spinning.
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Engagement
Engagement is perhaps the fundamental YouTube metric to constantly look at when interested in your brand’s progress.
Engagement shows the number of likes, dislikes, shares and comments.
You can look at this important data to learn more about what your audience likes and what their opinions are about your videos.
By replying to their comments and engaging with them, being them positive or negative, you can still win over your users since they will see how professional you are.
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Traffic sources
Another key YouTube metric to rely on when analyzing your brand’s progress is traffic sources.
This YouTube metric accounts for all the other sources that feature your YouTube videos.
Your video content from YouTube can appear in users’ homepage, in the recommended section, social media posts and websites that embed your videos.
All these are traffic sources that help you increase your community, brand recognition and engagement online.
A specialized report on traffic sources will show you where your viewers come from to understand where you can spread more of your videos.
By promoting your YouTube videos on other platforms, you can gain more views.
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Watch time
Watch time is a useful YouTube metric that offers you insights about the total amount of time users have spent watching your video content.
If your videos’ watch rate is high, then YouTube will rank that video in a higher position since it managed to attract so many users.
This way, all the channels with higher watch time rates will be suggested to more people in the recommendation section and search results.
The watch time report provides the total amount of watch time your videos accumulated in a specified time span.
Also you can use this YouTube metric to order your videos by themes, length and styles.
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Impressions click-through rates
Impressions click-through rates show the percentage of impressions that turned into views. You get to see how many of those users who get to see your thumbnail actually click on it.
An impression accounts for when one of your video’s thumbnail shows up on a user’s screen.
By seeing which video has the highest number of impressions, you figure out which videos were most distributed by YouTube.
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Unique viewers
This YouTube metric shows you the estimated number of users who watch your videos over a selected period of time.
This way, you will learn who your audience is and what they appreciate about your video content.
If you notice that the number of unique viewers is lower than the number of subscribers, it means that your community is not watching as many videos as you’d assume they do.
In order to convince them to watch more videos you should ask them to set notifications for your content. This way, they will be more engaged every time you post a new video.
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Likes, dislikes and comments
Likes, dislikes and comments are part of the engagement metric, but they can also be overlooked like standalone YouTube metrics.
These metrics will make the algorithm perceive your content as valuable.
This way, your organic evolution will flourish since YouTube will be more likely to display your videos in the recommended area and search results.
YouTube metrics like comments, likes and dislikes will prove the efficiency of your content strategy.
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Average percentage viewed
This is another important YouTube video metric that allows you to see how much of a video an average viewer sees.
We have to face the truth. These days, it is harder to retain someone’s attention for too long, since users’ attention span has narrowed over time.
Everyone wants to see short videos with the right amount of information. If the video is too long, chances are YouTube users will not watch it until the end.
Every marketer’s purpose is to make users more curious about their brand, keeping their sight locked for hours with videos that really suit their needs.
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Average view duration
Average view duration is another YouTube metric related to views. This YouTube insight refers to the total watch time of your video divided by the total number of video plays (also including re-watches).
Mainly, this important metric shows you to what extent your videos are engaging for YouTube users, attracting them to spend more time on your channel.
When developing new videos for your audience, the main purpose is to make them more creative, informative and short enough to keep them interested until the end. Keep that in mind to increase the values of your video metrics.
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Re-watches
Another crucial YouTube video metric that should not be excluded is re-watches.
Users tend to re-watch your YouTube video content when they receive crucial information and maybe need more time to process it.
Before proceeding, they re-watch certain parts of a video or even the entire video to take notes or to pay closer attention to that recipe you’re explaining.
Re-watches are a good indicator that users are interested in the content you post.
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Playlist engagement
You don’t have to suffer from OCD to like well-organised stuff. To make your content more likeable or easier to access, you can categorise your videos based on themes and subjects.
This way, your viewers will know exactly where to find the content they are interested in. Playlists will not only come in handy for users on your channel, but also for you.
To make sure playlists are a go-to when it comes to your YouTube videos, you could check playlist engagement and see your audience behaviour.
It will be useful for your content strategy to look at two important metrics regarding playlist engagement, namely average time in playlist and views per playlist.
Generally, users tend to pass on to the next video in the playlist, knowing the content is related to the one they have previously watched. And this is exactly what you are looking for.
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Subscriber growth
It is clear that subscribers are your biggest fans. Some know your journey from the start, while others are new on your YouTube channel and need to be motivated to remain your faithful subscribers.
To fulfil everyone’s needs, you need to make sure your audience gets what they are looking for.
Since the moment they hit the “Subscribe” button, they have committed to watch your video content.
The highest the number of subscribers, the greater the number of notifications your YouTube channel sends.
And we all know that you will get an extra point from YouTube for this because as the number of notifications increases, so does the number of views.
Your subscribers are likely to watch all your new videos.
If you use a Youtube analytics tool, you will get a subscriber report which also includes the topics your subscribers are interested in.
You could use this info for your next video content to increase your views and engagement.
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Audience retention
Another YouTube metric you should not miss out on is audience retention. This YouTube metric indicates the percentage of viewers who watch and leave your video at every given moment of the video.
YouTube then continues to show those videos with high audience retention in the suggestions and search rankings.
Based on your audience retention, you can plan your future video strategy and improve your CTAs, the content you deliver and how dynamic your video is.
This YouTube metric will also show you what parts of your video were the most interesting and which ones were boring.
To find this metric in the native YouTube analytics app, you have to go to Analytics -> Engagement -> Audience retention.
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Demographics
Your audience is your master when you promote your brand on social media platforms.
On YouTube, you need to make sure you learn what users like and dislike and what are the trends they are following.
First, you need to find out which is the average age you’re addressing to.
If you learn more about their age groups and genders, you will know how to accustom your YouTube videos to suit their needs.
A YouTube analytics tool will also help you get insights about your subscribers’ locations to know exactly when they are more likely to watch your videos.
YouTube audience metrics will make you understand that your whole online world revolves around your community.
5. How to track YouTube metrics with Socialinsider
Socialinsider is a social media analytics tool packed with data, a complex and complete one when it comes to actionable insights for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Besides providing social media analytics and benchmarking features, Socialinsider also offers solutions for campaign reporting, competitive analysis, social listening features, cross-channel analysis and many more.
Let’s take a look at YouTube metrics and how to use these insights to craft a better video content strategy.
I added Socialinsider’s YouTube to assess the channel’s evolution during the last 3 months. Here you can see the key metrics and video evolution.
Under video evolution, there is the posts’ total and how they were posted during the 3-month time frame.
By scrolling further down, you can see the top 3 videos from that particular time frame. For these videos, you get to see individual metrics.
These insights will help you figure out what changes you need to make, according to your most engaging video. It is clear that you need to post more videos like that one.
And the greatest part are the metrics about Shorts. In the Overview section you get to see Shorts evolution and, by clicking the Shorts section, you get a lot more data.
Here you can apply filters and sort your Shorts as you like, being able to collect key metrics for each Short.
With these insights, you can then plan new videos for your next campaign, understanding your YouTube metrics and how your videos ranked.
You can sort your Shorts by hashtags, particular YouTube metrics or campaigns.
If you want to see what’s your audience’s response to your YouTube content, you should look at Demographics data.
Here you can check subscribers’ growth and see how the number varied depending on your video content.
If you find out what videos caused those spikes in numbers, then you’re halfway there. All you have to do next is to replicate the “recipe” of your most engaging video posts.
All these data on YouTube analytics can help you grow your audience, develop better video content based on your previous results and improve your strategy when communicating your latest updates and launches.
The actionable insights you get with Socialinsider can change your YouTube game for the better.
6. Top YouTube analytics tools
To have everything under control and be able to check your YouTube metrics in detail, YouTube analytics tools can help you have a better grip when it comes to metrics.
There lots of analytics tools for YouTube out there like:
- Socialinsider
- ChannelMeter
- Vidooly
- Unbox Social
- Tubular Labs
- Socialbakers
- VidIQ
- Vidyard
- Klipfolio
- TubeBuddy
- ViralStat
Final thoughts
If you’re using YouTube to promote your business message, you need to understand what every YouTube metrics refers to.
Tracking YouTube analytics metrics is an essential part of any YouTube marketing strategy.
Start a 14-Days free trial with Socialinsider and analyze your YouTube channel.
Frequently asked questions
1.How much does YouTube pay for 1,000 views?
The average YouTuber makes $0.018 per view, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. That equates to about $18 for every 1,000 ad views. In this article, we'll review the average YouTube pay rate and tips for creating a successful YouTube channel.
2. How much is 20 million views worth?
On average, YouTube pays its creators around $2-$5 per 1000 views, which means that with 20 million views, you can expect to make anywhere between $40,000 to $100,000. That's a pretty impressive amount of money, isn't it?
3.What is a 0.5 watch time on YouTube?
A median value of 0.5 indicates that half of the videos of similar length retain viewers better while half retain viewers worse.
4.How many is 4000 watch hours?
4,000 hours watch time = 240,000 minutes. That's a lot of minutes, but we're going to give you some solid advice on how to get your videos watched by more people and get you to that goal faster.
5.Can I buy YouTube watch hours?
Buying YouTube watch hours is generally safe as long as you use a reputable service provider that delivers organic watch hours from real viewers. It's important to avoid buying fake watch hours as this can result in penalties and even account suspension.
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