Struggling to achieve success through a YouTube marketing campaign? Likely, this is due to the fact that you’re not taking advantage of all the tools at your disposal. Many will carry out a YouTube campaign without even referencing their analytics. YouTube Analytics, built right into the YouTube creator studio, is an absolutely tremendous tool to help steer your campaign back on track or will help improve your campaign’s performance. While you may not achieve instant success, you can use these analytics to ensure success moving forward. So if you’re looking to see better results, read on! The Fresh Ink team is back again to share our tips and tricks for achieving success.
Start with an Overview
Once inside of YouTube analytics, the very first page you’ll see is a broad overview of your channel’s data. First, we’d suggest updating the time frame in the top right of the page, ensuring that it encompasses the select dates you’re looking to analyze, or perhaps the entirety of the campaign. Automatically, however, it will only show you the last 28 days. With that done, you can now view your analytics to start to get a better understanding of your channel’s strengths and weaknesses.
While a lot of these numbers can make you excited, there are a select few to pay close attention to that will speak greater volumes. To begin, focus on watch time, as this is the #1 driver of success on YouTube. This means that it’s less about the number of views, and more about the time people actually spend watching your content. To gain a better understanding of watch time and its ability to help you succeed, take a look at this article that goes more in depth.
Aside from the numbers themselves, take a look at the line graphs that have been automatically generated on the analytics home page for watch time, average view duration, and views. Are you maintaining a steady increase? Are the results unchanging? Perhaps your experiencing a decrease? This is all good to know to establish if your current content strategy is successful.
Additionally, pay close attention to the “Top 10 Videos” Section. This is incredibly helpful, as it shows the type of content your audiences are enjoying and interacting with most. In some cases, there may not be a large difference in data between the 10. However, when there are major differences, pay close attention to the type of content that is performing best and think of ways to continue producing similar content that your audiences will enjoy.
What Audience am I Attracting?
Still staying in the overview tab, scroll down to the bottom of the page where you’ll see some helpful information about your audience. With a quick look at the “Top Geographies” and “Gender” sections, you’ll know right away where in the world your audiences are coming from, as well as what percentages are male and female. This will simply better help you to cater your content towards the specific audience. If you’re achieving great success with your channel and you notice that a large portion of your audience comes from another country, it would be a wise idea to consider incorporating translated captions into your videos.
For a more detailed look at your audience, click on the “Demographics” tab on the far left. In here, you’ll not only see a closer look at the information we discussed, but you’ll also get to see the age ranges in which you are targeting most. Depending on your content and brand, this may help you to, once again, better tailor the content towards your audience. Perhaps you need to make it more kid-friendly? Or rather, maybe you need to better appeal to a more mature audience? Doing so can greatly benefit your channel.
Are Consumers Actually Watching My Videos?
Knowing the average amount of time spent on a particular video is crucial to making sure your company or brand’s message is being received. For this, let’s switch on over to the “Audience Retention” tab. In here, you have the option of viewing your overall audience’s retention rate, demonstrated on a line graph. Automatically, you will see results for all over your videos on average, which can be extremely helpful. However, if you wish to view retention rates for one particular video, scroll to the top where you can enter in the name of whichever video you wish to view the results of. When looking at a particular video, you can actually see in real-time where it is that viewers are dropping off. This is one of my favorite tools, as it helps you to clearly see where problem areas might exist within your content. For example, let’s say you notice that a large majority of the audience is dropping out near the beginning, possibly during or right after an introduction. With constant expectations for instant gratification, your audience will often want the information they came for right up front. If you’re taking a long time to introduce your content or setup your brand, audiences may simply get bored or impatient, leading to the high rates of viewers dropping off.
Using this information can help you to better tailor your content to your audience’s needs. Based on areas of high drop-off rates, it is important that you re-evaluate your video structure and think about shortening and/or rearranging the content. You must be sure to get your message across before you lose viewers, or else what is the point? That’s why this tool is so incredibly powerful and one that all content creators should be utilizing.
When Are People Watching?
Utilizing YouTube analytics to evaluate when viewers are most often watching can be key to your channel’s success. To find this information, check out the “realtime” tab on the left hand side. Here on a graph, you’ll see views broken down by each hour for the last 48 hours. Often, there will be a specific peak at one or two points in the day in which views are highest. Be sure to publish your content 3-4 hours prior to this peak to ensure maximum reach. As with everything else, this will allow you to better cater to your audience. Not only do you need to give them the content they want, but you also need to give it to them when they want it.
How Do I Move Forward?
Don’t let the endless number of tabs and sections in YouTube analytics scare you off. Rather, think of each one as a chance to better your content and increase your chances for success. In this post, we just scraped the top of the iceberg. There is so much more information handed right to you through YouTube analytics. After having launched your campaign, it is crucial to continuously check-in with the data to see how it is that your content is performing and to then establish what it is that you need to do to better maximize ROI. Other things to consider that we didn’t quite touch on are items like playback locations, traffic sources, and devices. It’s always helpful to know how audience’s were brought to your videos and how they are consuming your content. In the end, the goal is to know and understand your audience’s habits in order to provide them an easy, effortless experience tailored to their specific needs. Though a daunting task, you can be sure to achieve this when utilizing YouTube analytics.
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