One of the many benefits of being a creator on YouTube is access to a huge range of analytics and metrics around your content. But unless data is your thing, it can get a little overwhelming to have so much information at your fingertips.

So which analytics and tools are going to help you grow your channel? The vidIQ team answer that question on this episode of TubeTalk! You will learn about:

CTR - why you should analyze your thumbnails

Data source - How to use that to understand your audience and their needs

Video Views over the past 28 days/ 90 days

YouTube's News Terms of Service: What You Need to Know

Did you know that YouTube updated its TOS?  One of the changes is that the platform can now run ads

 on unmonetized channels - without offering any revenue share. 

Find out more in this episode of our podcast.

Catch up on the Latest YouTube News With TubeTalk

TubeTalk is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to TubeTalk on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode!

You can also find the complete list of all the

YouTube has a playground of analytics and data for creators, but which 5 metrics are the most important? Find out on this episode of TubeTalk.

Top 5 YouTube Metrics Every Creator Should Study

If you’ve been following our blogs and videos about 

, you may have noticed they have some distinct benefits and limitations. For weeks now, we’ve marveled at the extra views any creator can get from simply posting a YouTube Short. And at the same time, we’ve bemoaned the lack of analytics for this feature because that’s what helps creators excel on YouTube.

Now that YouTube is going all-in with short-form content, more information is being shared with creators. Now, you can go to the YouTube Studio and access the one thing we’ve wanted to see all along, which are analytics for YouTube Shorts. 

We were so excited to see this, we filmed a brief tutorial on how to get there in the YouTube Studio:

Without these analytics, we can't answer important questions. 

For instance, Shorts are vertical videos of less than 60 seconds, and we’ve always wondered how such a short viewing duration affects a channel’s 

, and if so, what that process looks like. These questions had no conclusive answers for a long time, but now we have some information to share.

To learn everything we know, such as where to access YouTube Shorts analytics, and how monetization works for the new content type, read our guide below.

On YouTube, there are three ways to view Shorts analytics. Two of those methods are for desktop viewing and one is for viewing on mobile. To see analytics on either device, here’s what you need to do.

Method 1: Viewing Individual Video Stats on Desktop

While on desktop, go to the YouTube Studio.

Hover your mouse over any video, and some menu options will appear. You’ll want to click the analytics button, which looks like a tiny bar graph.

On the right side of the page, you’ll find real-time stats for views coming from YouTube Shorts, as shown below:

Method 2: Viewing Channel Stats on Desktop 

Next, you’ll see a section showing views, Watch Time, subscriber count, and estimated revenue for your channel. Scroll directly below this section and click ‘

Go to the filter tabs at the top of the page and click ‘

’. This action divides the views on your channel by all the different ways people can watch your content, which now includes YouTube Shorts. Take a look below:

Open the YouTube Studio app and click ‘

’ tab at the top of the page and you’ll see a list of traffic sources for your views, including those from YouTube Shorts.

YouTube Shorts Views: Can They Be Monetized?

Now that creators can access YouTube Shorts analytics, where these views are coming from is no longer a secret. But having more information leads to more questions, such as, “Is it possible to monetize YouTube Shorts?”

Basically, views that come from the YouTube Shorts traffic source aren’t monetized.

Because of that, these views don't contribute to the 4,000 hours of Watch Time you’d need to 

However, if someone watches a YouTube Short as a regular video on the app - meaning it wasn’t watched on the 

 or another display area - that video can earn some revenue and boost a channel's Watch Time.

For example, let's say you’re watching a video but something interests you on the Stories and Short Videos shelf. If you watch that video, the creator earns one view from the traffic source of ‘YouTube Shorts’. They don't earn any advertising revenue or extra Watch Time.

On the other hand, if you watch that same video on a channel page so it plays like a regular video, the Short earns one view and can 

 get advertising revenue. And any Watch Time it collects goes toward the 4,000 hours a creator needs for monetization.

YouTube Shorts, their analytics, and how everything gets monetized is kind of confusing right now. If you have a channel dedicated to YouTube Shorts, things get even muddier.

 channel to upload and test the performance of our own YouTube Shorts. We're up to 977 subscribers, and each video is vertical and less than 60 seconds long. Although many views on this channel come from the YouTube Shorts traffic source, more than half come from other traffic sources. And as we mentioned before, views from the YouTube Shorts traffic source aren’t monetized.

That means views from the traffic sources below, and the Watch Time they earn, count toward monetizing the vidIQ Shorts channel:

But here’s the weird part. When you look at the total Watch Time for our Shorts channel (158.5) versus the Watch Time hours that have been recorded for monetization (71), something is obviously wonky. Theoretically, if more views are coming from non-YouTube Shorts traffic sources, we should have than 71 hours of Watch Time recorded for monetization.

Two Metrics Are Still Missing From YouTube Shorts Analytics

Speaking of metrics, we’d like to see more of them for YouTube Shorts, especially on desktop. We still have no idea how often YouTube shares our content on discovery shelves, so we need a metric showing that. It would also help to see how often people tap on a Short. Right now, we don’t know if people are going to our channel after watching a Short or skipping the video altogether.

Basically, we’d like to see impressions and click-through rates. That would help us determine which Shorts contain the blueprint for getting more views, at the very least. 

To compete with TikTok, YouTube will probably keep developing Shorts and all the data that come with them. We just hope future metrics help creators do what they desire 

which is getting more views, subscribers, Watch Time, and revenue on YouTube.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ for more subscriber insights. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps to success. 

And if you’re really serious about growing your channel, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

Want to know what percentage of your YouTube traffic comes from YouTube Shorts? Wonder no more. Here's a guide on how to find the analytics you're looking for.

YouTube Shorts Analytics: Why Every Creator Needs This Data

When you created your YouTube channel, you probably had an idea of what your videos would be about. Whether you wanted to create Fortnite gaming tutorials, comedic sketches, or hours upon hours of pranks, you at least had 

But here’s a question worth asking yourself: 

Does your audience know what your channel is about? 

It almost seems silly to ask, especially if you’ve been pumping out very specific content. Nonetheless, it’s worth answering to make sure you’re on the right track. For example, if you think your channel is about one topic while your audience thinks it’s about something totally different, that tiny misconception could block your channel’s growth.

Fortunately, a new panel within the YouTube Studio can help. To see if you and your audience are on the same page about the content you create, just keep reading.

YouTube’s ‘Audience Watched’ Panel Is a Data Goldmine

Most likely, your audience watches a wide variety of YouTube videos within your niche. To get a glimpse of what that content is - and whether that proves you have a clear, concise channel by comparison - make your way to YouTube’s new audience panel:

From most YouTube desktop screens, click your profile image in the top right corner and go to the YouTube Studio.

You should arrive at the main analytics screen. In the uppermost menu, click on the ‘Audience’ tab.

About a third of the way down the screen, probably on the right side, you’ll see a panel called ‘Other videos your audience watched’.

You’ll know you’ve reached the panel when you see something that looks like this:

Or, if you need some extra guidance and would rather hear and see the instructions in real-time, watch our video tutorial:

Not Seeing Any Audience Data? Here’s Why

While some of you may see the ‘audience watched’ panel above, a lot of you might not because of a lack of data.

There are a few reasons why no data is appearing in this panel. It might be because you're violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines or your content is made for kids, which means YouTube won’t collect any audience information. But most likely, it’s because you don't have enough data on your YouTube channel.

To get a more scientific reason for this issue, we went to our beloved vidIQ community to see what their ‘audience watched’ panels look like. 

After creating a poll on our Community Tab, we discovered that 13% of creators in our community found the panel and could see some data. Unfortunately, another 18% could see the panel but no data. And much worse, 14% said they couldn't see the panel at all. The remaining 55% chose a throwaway option, which said, "I’m going to vote here to spoil your data." I guess we walked right into that one, but still, it kind of hurt. We laughed it off in the end. Sort of.

This poll tells us less than half of our typical vidIQ audience is able to see this panel (with data). Our typical audience includes channels under 1,000 subscribers, less than 4,000 hours of Watch Time, and any channel working toward YouTube monetization. 

So that could be a reason some channels (or yours) have zero data. You might need to increase your channel’s Watch Time so YouTube has enough data to work with.

If You Have Zero Audience Watched Data, Use This vidIQ Tool Instead

If you aren't getting any data from the ‘audience watched’ panel, vidIQ has an alternative. As long as you have vidIQ installed, follow this path to get the data you need:

In your YouTube Studio homepage, go to the left menu and click ‘Channel Audit’.

On the next screen, you should see a huge report card on your channel. Scroll down, look to the right, and find a section called ‘Top Suggested’:

Free users can see this section, but paid users can click on it and get a full list of videos. This is essentially what YouTube’s ‘audience watched’ tool would have shown you.

How to Use the 'Other Videos Your Audience Watched' Panel

OK, back to the YouTube audience tool itself. This panel shows you what your audience watched on YouTube over the last seven days. At the time of writing, it shows you 15 videos split into three pages, and you can click on either the video title or the channel’s name to view the content. These videos aren’t sorted by age, the number of views, or channel size, but it’s worth looking through all of them if you can.

Now, here comes the real question: Why is this so important? The basic premise is that the content your audience watches on other channels should be the content they enjoy watching on your channel. That’s how YouTube encourages you to use this tool. You can use it to find new video topics, title and thumbnail ideas, and collaboration opportunities.

And here’s the most important thing to know: 

No matter what you, the creator, think your channel is about, your audience thinks it’s about the topic in your 'audience watched' panel.

How to Research ‘Audience Watched’ YouTube Data

OK, let’s do an experiment using the vidIQ channel. In our ‘audience watched' panel, we should see a list of videos that reflect our target audience.

How to Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers on YouTube in 2020

How to Stop Haters, Trolls, and Spammers on YouTube

How to Color Grade in Adobe Premiere Pro for Beginners

How to Get 100 Subscribers on YouTube Every Day

Dream & MrBeast Gaming Speedrunning 10 Million Subscribers Live 

It's great to see our friends at Think Media on the list. And YouTube is right on the money with a video about how to get your first 1,000 subscribers in 2020. That's the type of content we make, no doubt. 

Nick Nimmin is also on the list with a video about haters, trolls, and spammers. We recently did a video on 

Interestingly, there’s a video about color grading in Adobe Premiere Pro, a video editor. That's something we don't cover on the vidIQ channel, so YouTube doesn't always get it right when it comes to mixed audiences. And finally, another video we're happy to be connected with is fourth on the list: How to get 100 subscribers on YouTube.

But the next two are subscriber battles, which is cause for concern. We’ve tested the topic on the vidIQ channel with great success, gaining tons of subscribers from each video. However, they aren't necessarily what we cover every single day. Instead, we're about YouTube education and growth.

If YouTube suggests this content to our audience, they may be left a little disappointed. Everything else on the list looks pretty good, though. If anything, this panel confirms we should do more videos about how to get a certain number of subscribers, how to grow your channel, how to get 100 subscribers every day, and how to get more views.

Can you see the value of this panel and its data? We've been able to learn so much about our YouTube channel in two minutes.

How to Track YouTube Channels That Share Your Audience

With the new ‘audience watched’ panel, YouTube empowers creators to research the targeted and mixed audiences on their channel. But, guess what? vidIQ has a tool to help you track the audiences you share with other creators.

As mentioned earlier, you can click on any of the videos in this audience watch panel to jump straight to the watch page for that video. Well, you can also do this from our channel audit tool. Once you’re on the watch page, next to the likes and dislikes, you'll see a vidIQ button that looks like this:

Next, click the button to reveal an ‘Add competitor’ menu option. Once you select that, you can add the channel of the video you’re currently watching to your competitor list. That allows you to track their most successful videos via views per hour.

If you share an audience as YouTube already suggests, it's likely you can make similar content. It's more likely to be suggested by YouTube and most importantly, watched and enjoyed by more viewers within that audience.

So, what does your audience think your YouTube channel is about? If you’re not sure, all you have to do is follow the data.

If you're new to vidIQ, our creator-obsessed goal is to educate you on your YouTube journey. We help you 

 and create an outstanding career on YouTube, one you can be proud of. For competitor research tools, video analysis, and helpful channel audits, 

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

YouTube recently released a new audience data tool. If you’re not sure who your audience is or how they behave, let’s explore all the ways it could get you more views.

How to Get More Views from YouTube’s Audience Data Tool

We are always talking about how you can get more views on your YouTube channel if you have a better understanding of your 

. But access to that data hasn’t been possible to do away from a desktop - until now.

Understanding YouTube Analytics - Mobile Version!

The first thing you will need to do is to make sure your iOS or Android version of the Creator Studio app is fully up-to-date. To do this, go to either the Android Play Store or Apple App Store, search for ‘YouTube Studio’, and if it isn't up-to-date right now, you should get an option to update it from this screen.

Now open up the Creator Studio app from the Dashboard screen

Tap on ‘View More’ for channel analytics

Then tap on the ‘Discovery’ tab to show you the screen Impressions and click-through rate for your entire channel over the last 28 days.

Even the full desktop Creator Studio doesn't show you this side-by-side comparison, which can be useful to review as a snapshot of how impressions affect your click-through rate.

You can tap on each of the graphs to go into detail and the impressions will show you growth or decline over the last 28 days.

The dropdown filter allows you to refine your results to the last seven days but unfortunately not to the last 48 hours or 60 minutes so it isn't quite realtime, an advantage you do get through the desktop version.

As well as channel impressions and click-through rates, you can view the same analytics on a video-by-video basis.

Go to the ‘Video’ section of the Creator Studio app and select the video you want to view

You'll see the same Discovery tab at the top of the screen which will show you impressions and click-through rates for that one video.

Now for a quick explanation of these two analytics:

 are the number of times your thumbnail is seen on YouTube. You want as many impressions as possible because that's basically free advertising for your content.

 is the number of times a person clicks on a thumbnail when it's seen. For example, if you get a hundred impressions and 10 people click on those thumbnails, that is a click-through rate of 10% and that would be considered very high and very good.

The quality of your thumbnails is what usually drives your click-through rate, so from our tutorials on how to make better thumbnails, we've got a playlist over here.

A lot of people have been getting very excited about these analytics finally coming to the mobile app, and you may be wondering why it's taken so long for that to happen when they've been available on desktop for over a year.

Well, to be honest, it's our fault. Well, I don't mean vidIQ's fault but the creator community at large. YouTube is currently having to maintain both the new Creator Studio and the Classic Creator Studio and until they can pull resources off of that Classic Studio, they can't put them into resources that will help them create all of these analytics for the mobile application.

So the quicker we can all get off Classic, which is happening very, very soon, the quicker YouTube can create more awesome tools for us on the desktop and mobile analytics for YouTube.

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

YouTube has finally made some vital analytics data available on its mobile app. We show you how to find these insights and how understanding them will help your channel grow.

How to Get More YouTube Views by Understanding These New CRUCIAL Analytics

If you’re a YouTube creator, you may have noticed that when you go to check your analytics, they look a little different to what they used to be. YouTube are encouraging video creators to try the new Studio Beta, because it has new analytics and it has a layout that YouTube wants you to use in the future. The problem is for many video creators is that they've been forced onto this new studio without being asked.

If you want to return to the Creator Studio Classic, as it's now called, in the bottom left hand corner, you should be able to click a button which will take you back there. However, this is only a temporary fix, because when you go back to your analytics on your next YouTube session, you'll be taken to the new Beta Studio once again.

How to Make YouTube Classic Studio Your Default (But Should You?)

To make the Classic Studio once again your default studio, click on Settings in the new Beta Studio and you should have an option in the General Settings to set the default creator experience. Set it to Creator Studio Classic and you should now go to your normal analytics, which you're all used to.

So now you know how to switch back to the old Classic Studio analytics. The question is should you? Well the most important thing to know right now is that the Studio Beta is the future, the Classic Studio is going to go away at some point in 2019. YouTube is still very coy on when this is going to happen, but at some point that Creator Studio is not going to be accessible. So you should at least familiarize yourself with the new Studio Beta. Another thing to note is that the Classic Studio is now in what you might call a maintenance-only mode, so that it's not gonna get any new upgraded features.

For example, there is an option to check Impressions and Click Through, but that's only available through the new Studio Beta. And this is another reason to start using the new studio for Impressions, Click Through rates, and so on. These are vital pieces of information which will really help grow your channel.

For all you vidIQ users out there, we will be concentrating more and more on the Studio Beta throughout 2019. You can already see we've got some features in the edit pages, such as the best time to publish your videos, the legendary SEO Scorecard and Checklist, as well as the Boost feature.

Personally, I love the new features in the Studio Beta, the dashboard in particular, with that little snapshot of your latest video, and Impressions to Click Through Rate is an absolute gold mine of information to really improve your thumbnails.

However, in the Classic Studio, there is still one page I absolutely love. Yep, still can't get enough of this page showing my views in real time for all of my latest videos, and it does help when one of those videos is going viral. Nice!

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

YouTube wants you to try Studio Beta to access new analytics data. We show you how to switch back to the old Creator Studio Layout.

How to Switch Back To the Old YouTube Layout [Creator Studio]

Curious which analytics you should be focusing on in the coming months to help grow your channel? Look no further — here are the top 5 analytics to get you more views and subscribers on YouTube in 2019.

Note: In order to follow along you’ll need to access the new YouTube Studio beta. If you’re still on Creator Studio Classic, you'll see a big blue “YOUTUBE STUDIO BETA” link in the top-left-hand corner. Click there and you'll instantly see a radically different analytics page.

The first analytic we want to look at is click-through rate. Put simply, your click-through rate is the number of times somebody clicks on one of your thumbnails or titles from the total number of times it's been seen.

So if three people see your video and one of them chooses to watch it, that’s a click-through rate essentially of 33.3%.

In the YouTube Studio beta, you can see the impressions and click-through rates for the past 28 days by simply navigating to “Analytics” from the dashboard and then clicking on “Reviewers.”

You can also go to different cards in the YouTube analytics and look at a breakdown of click-through rates. So if I click on Top Videos, for example, it will list the click-through rate for individual videos as well.

Now if you’re wondering why you should care about your click-through rate, here are three key reasons:

Every single analytic from your YouTube channel trickles down from click-through rate. People have to actually click on your thumbnail to watch your content before you can gain traction with other analytics such as watchtime, subscribers, comments, and all the rest of that good stuff.

Viewers judge videos by their thumbnails just as readers judge books by their covers, so it's really important to have a good first impression. Your click-through rate represents intrigue — of topic, thumbnail or title. For example, recently we covered the subscriber rate of PewDiePie vs. T-Series. Because it was a very intriguing topic at the time, and we used very targeted keywords and colorful thumbnails, our click-through rate for that particular topic went through the roof.

An important to remember about click-through rate is it’s not an exact science. I often hear people say between 2% and 10% is a “good” click-through rate, but I think it’s better to focus simply on improving your click-through rate.

Click-through rates vary from video topic to video topic, and it's heavily influenced by where you are simply in the order of suggested videos and search pages. If you're at the top of a search page, you can have a terrible thumbnail but a high click-through rate simply because of the prime real estate.

Don't get too caught up comparing your click-through rate versus somebody else's. Look at your click-through rate, and aim to improve it one or two percentage points over 2019 — that will bring in a significant number of views.

Channel analytics can give you some insight into average view duration, but a more accurate approach is look at audience retention on individual videos.

To do this, click “Videos” along the left-hand nav. Click on the video that you want to investigate and you’ll see audience retention.

Mouse over the graph and you'll see the audience retention at a specific point in the video, or click on a point and then press play. Doing so will allow you to see the audience retention alongside the video in real-time, giving you clues to investigate drops and spikes in retention.

And if you’re thinking that watchtime is the ultimate analytic king on YouTube and not audience retention, consider that YouTube tends to favor content with more than 50% audience retention. So whether your videos are two minutes long, four minutes long or six minutes long, aim first to make your content better to improve audience retention, and then start to think about making longer videos if that's what you want to do with your content to get more watchtime.

Each individual video has likes and dislikes, and 

 has a funky little tool that turns these metrics into a Likes to Dislikes Ratio.

But what if you want this for your entire channel?

Well they do in the form of YouTube recommended content. When viewers watch your content and enjoy it, they generally watch for longer, and YouTube loves this.

When YouTube loves your content, they want to share it with more people. That means putting it on the homepage, Browse Features and the suggested videos on watch pages — and the more you can push this line into the orange, the more YouTube is doing all the hard work for you.

Rather than people having to search to find your content or find it through the subscription feeds, they're finding it in random places because YouTube wants to share your content with a wider audience.

So how do you manipulate this magic formula to get it to work for you? Engaging thumbnails, intriguing titles — which are then clicked onto — increased watchtime on your content and, as we mentioned, getting above 50% with your audience retention.

For example, take a look at vidIQ’s September analytics below. Notice the 2.5 million impressions, 27.8% of which came from YouTube recommending our content.

Now take a look at vidIQ’s analytics for October when the T-Series vs. PewDiePie subscriber rates was in full flow.

Look at the radical change here: 17 million impressions, and YouTube was recommending our content way more, especially on homepages.

We were feeding YouTube exactly what they wanted and so they responded by sharing it with a much wider audience.

I may be missing something here in the new analytics dashboard, but I can't find a good way to show subscribers gained from videos, so we're going old school here.

Navigate to Creator Studio Classic, click on “Subscribers” and then “YouTube watch page”. This will show you all the videos that are converting viewers into subscribers.

Since there is no analytic that tracks trust, tracking subscribers gained is the next best thing. Think about it, why else would someone subscribe to your channel unless they trust you — trust you to entertain, educate or emotionally impact you.

People who subscribe to your channel from a video watch page usually do it because they’ve experienced a light bulb moment — something that instinctively and instantly drives them to click that button.

 you can look at subs gained a lot quicker than through YouTube analytics through the subs gained column on our channel audit.

If you click on “View More”, you can see all of the videos that are driving viewers to turn into subscribers. It's almost like your trust column.

We also have click-through rate, audience retention, YouTube recommended content, and subscribers gained.

We said earlier that gaining subscribers through your videos is like building trust with your audience. Gaining comments, likes and dislikes through your videos is building engagement — another really important facet of YouTube.

Strictly speaking, YouTube doesn't track engagement rate, but the vidIQ channel audit tool does. Use it to see which videos are generating conversation or whether they're polarizing in terms of how many people react to it with likes versus dislikes.

Astonishingly here, we have one video with 68% engagement rate, but that's because we were having a little bit of fun with YouTube premieres.

In terms of engagement rates, we also want to look at the finer points as well. If we scroll down the channel audit page, we can look at how often the end screens are clicked on — you know, those boxes right at the end of videos.

As a final thought on engagement, don’t forget the Community tab if you have access to it.

Use it to ask your audience what video you should make next, collect general feedback or start a conversation. You might be surprised by the response. In fact, we’ve found that some of our posts are getting more feedback from the videos themselves.

All of these analytics are super important, but if you don’t actually do something with them then you’re missing the point. Remember: Doing the same thing over and expecting different results is a sign of insanity.

Our challenge to you is simple: Act on the data you’re getting from YouTube and 

 and good luck in growing your channel in 2019!

Video creators have access to A TON of analytics, but which ones should you prioritize to get more views and subscribers? Dive into the top 5 vidIQ-approved analytics and grow your YouTube channel fast.

Posts tagged with "youtube analytics"