Which Analytics REALLY MATTER?

Have you ever heard of the “Creator’s Journey”? Within the YouTube sphere, it starts with expectations. A lot of us start creating videos on YouTube because we watched other YouTubers. We look at their growth, and we use that to gauge our own potential for growth.

Then we create. We learn to tell a story, film, and get good sound.

We watch our growth, and for 99% of us, it will not be as fast (or even as close) to what we expected. I thought I’d have 50,000 subscribers on my first channel by now…

The next logical step is to turn inwards and try to improve. That’s where analytics come in.

But there is so many statistics! What do they all mean, and what actually matters?!

The BIG Ones

There are two analytics that matter the most on YouTube, and if you fail to understand any others, these two are a must if you want to grow.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

Your Click Through Rate (CTR) works hand in hand with “Impressions”. Impressions are counted if your thumbnail is shown for more than 1 second and at least 50% of the thumbnail is visible on the screen. The CTR is the percentage of those people who clicked through to the actual video. You want to aim for above 5% minimum for each video’s CTR, but there is nuance to this.

When I put out a video, I typically get anywhere between 13-25% CTR within the first few hours. That’s because the video is only being pushed to my subscribers who are my most loyal followers. If I get anything lower than 10% within my subscribers, I know the video won’t do well. We’ll call this group the “first push” group.

If the video performs well within my initial subscriber group, then YouTube starts pushing the video to an audience that has similar interests to the “first push” group. We’ll call this group the “second push” group.

And so the algorithm continues to push the video to wider interest groups until it stops performing well. The CTR is half of this. The other half is Audience Retention.

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Audience Retention

Audience retention is measured by two statistics: Average View Duration (AVD) and Average Percentage Viewed (APV). Short videos have the advantage of holding people for a larger percentage of the video, whereas longer videos have the advantage of keeping viewers in a video for a longer amount of time. These two analytics work hand in hand to ensure the algorithm is considering both aspects so neither type of video is getting more or less of an advantage.

When a video first pushes out, you want your core audience (“first push” group) to be viewing at least 60% of the video. If the AVD is lower than this, then the video is unlikely to perform well when the video gains more impressions.

They All Go Down

One thing that people often miss is that your CTR, AVD, and APV will all go down as your impressions go up. And then they switch out their “package” (thumbnail & title) because they see a low CTR. This is a mistake! If your CTR is going down, but your impressions are going up more than average, in most cases, leave it. The only time I ever switch out my package is if I see it drop below 3%.

Session Time

One video performing well isn’t going to make your channel explode though. In order to truly grow, you need to increase the “Session Time” of your channel. Session Time is the amount of time that someone spends on your channel. There’s a few statistics you can look at for this one, starting with Average View Per Viewer.

Average View Per Viewer

This statistic is self-explanatory – the number of videos watched per viewer, on average, once they watch an initial video. You want to try to get this up to 2 videos. One of the easiest ways to do this is to get people to click through to another video.

End Screens

You can see if viewers are clicking through to another video by looking at the analytics for your End Screens. These analytics work similarly to Impressions and CTR: how many end screens were show? How many people clicked through? What was the percentage of people who saw an end screen and clicked through?

By far the most effective way to get people to watch another video is to point them directly to another video. Just don’t forget my interview with Fair Winds Media that you want to limit your Call To Actions (CTA) to JUST ONE. People are less likely to perform any action if there is more than one request. Asking people to watch another video should be the only CTA you take.

How Do You Do It?

This formula has been adapted from George Blackman to fit the adventure sphere.

• Set up a point that links to the current video.
• Hint at something to come in the next video.
• Promise something specific that they’ll experience by clicking the next video.

DON’T:

❌ To learn more about New Zealand, watch this video.”

INSTEAD:

✅ “Now that you know about Kaikoura Peninsula, the next stop on our journey is Te Anau where you can see more stars than anywhere else in New Zealand. Check out this video where we go visit the Southern Hemisphere’s first ever sky reserve!”

Returning Viewers

As you increase session time, you should start to see more viewers return. Logically, if they are watching more than one video, they are more likely to return to your channel. This is where the stat, “Returning Viewers”, is important, as it tells you how many of your viewers are watching a video and then returning to your channel at some point.
There must be a balance here. You want viewers to return in order for your channel to grow, but you need to consistently be attracting new viewers too. I aim to have at least half of my subscribers returning every month.

Engagement

The last statistics that may be worth looking into if you are planning on monetising are engagement metrics: likes, shares, and comments. The more engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to buy from you.

Shares is in particular important for growth, because that can help you learn which topics can reach beyond the algorithm. However, it is important to look at likes, shares, and comments together. Just because a topic is shareworthy doesn’t mean your audience is engaging with the topic.

For example, I did a video about living in New Zealand for 7 years. The video has 210 shares and is performing very well. But this video has low engagement otherwise, and hasn’t translated to viewers staying on my channel. Short term, this video is a win. Long term, these aren’t the viewers who will want to actually pay me for something. This type of video can help you grow, but make sure that you are creating videos that make people want to engage with you too!

Vanity Metrics

“Vanity Metrics” is a term used to label metrics that have little to zero impact on the success of your channel. They are metrics we obsess over and waste energy on but give us very little power to actually make impactful changes. On YouTube, its “Views” and “Subscribers”.

And yet, the number of times I have seen someone posting on various creator groups wondering why their subscribers keep disappearing or their views are low on this video would make me a rich man. Subscribers come and go weekly, but growth should be consistently upwards over a long period.

Easy answers: Your views are low because either the CTR or AVD/APV aren’t staying strong as the algorithm is pushing your video to a wider audience. Your subscribers are disappearing because your content isn’t keeping them engaged past the one video to which they subscribed.

The better questions are:

• “How is my CTR changing with impressions?”
• “Where are viewers dropping off?”
• “Is my intro holding viewers? If not, does it match the package?”
• “Are my viewers returning?”
• “Are viewers clicking through to another video after watching a first?”
• “Are people commenting on my videos? If not, have I asked them to and have I made a pattern of engaging with them?”

Action

Go on to YouTube Studio and find all the metrics mentioned in this article. How is your channel performing in each? Where do you have room for improvement?