Which YouTube Metrics Actually Matter?

Although YouTube has not revealed exactly how its algorithm works, digital marketers have a pretty good understanding of how it works. This means that you get to know which YouTube metrics actually matter, thus helping you increase your views and boost your ranking.

While there are a number of metrics that are worth paying attention to when it comes to YouTube marketing, these are some of the most important ones.

Impressions Click-through Rate (CTR)

Impressions click-through rate (CTR) refers to the number of users who saw your video thumbnail and then clicked on it to watch the video. This is an effective measurement of how effective your video thumbnail, title and descriptions are in prompting people to actually watch the video. If your impressions click-through rate isn’t as high as you would like it to be, it means that you need to improve your video optimization to make it more compelling.

It is important to note that soon after you publish your video, your impressions CTR will be high. The number will start to drop and then stabilize once the video moves past your core audience.

Card Click-through Rate

Card CTR refers to the number of clicks that a specific card in your video receives. Cards are small slide-in panels that you can put in your video, and by clicking on them, users can be either directed to another video, to your website, subscribe to your channel, etc. These are just a few of the different actions that cards allows users to make.

Your card CTR tells you which action is most popular among your audience, which types of cards are most effective in increasing traffic to your website, boosting the number of subscribers, etc.

Watch Time

Watch time, as the name suggests, is the total amount of time that viewers spend on watching your videos, and it is measured in minutes. This is one of the most important YouTube metrics because the higher your watch time is, the more YouTube algorithm is going to favor your video.

It is presumed that videos with higher watch times are more engaging and thus, they are likely to appear more in search results and recommendations.

Average View Duration

The average view duration is an important metric that measures just how effective your video is engaging the viewers. The average view duration is the result of the total watch time divided by the total number of plays your video receives, including replays.

If your video is not engaging enough, users will quickly bounce and leave you with a low average view duration. However, a video that can engage viewers not only results in high watch time and average view duration, but is also more likely to boost search rankings.

Average Percentage Viewed

Another crucial metric of how engaging a video is the average percentage viewed. The average percentage viewed is how much of your video the average viewer watches and it is measured in percentage.

This is a great measure of your video’s ability to hold the attention of your viewers for its entirety. This metric can be found in your watch time report.

Re-watches

This refers to the amount of times your viewers re-watch certain parts of the video by rewinding to that segment. Re-watches are important because they tell you the parts of your video which viewers find the most intriguing or attention-gripping. It means that the specific topic you were covering in that part of the video is the most interesting to your viewers. This can help you in your content planning and strategy.

Pay attention to these metrics in your YouTube Analytics and allow them to guide you in creating better content and a smarter YouTube marketing strategy!