Lydia Sweatt is a writer who loves balancing her article/blog time indoors with a healthy dose of nature. She bikes, hikes, and identifies edible plants along the way.

Lydia Sweatt

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Of all the new viewers on your YouTube channel, how many return to watch more videos? If a large number of people keep coming back, that’s a good sign. On the flip side, having thousands of unengaged subscribers means you have some work to do.

This year, YouTube is helping creators bridge the gap. The platform has released a new feature that tracks both new and returning viewers to a channel. With these metrics, you can gauge long-term growth instead of temporary wins, such as going viral.

Here’s what it looks like in the YouTube Studio:

There are two new lines (metrics) on this graph. The blue one represents new viewers and the purple one shows how many viewers returned to your channel. When the purple line grows upward, so does your overall audience.

If the YouTube algorithm were something to beat, this would be a major cheat code. Keep reading to learn why returning visitors are worth more than subscribers and how you can leverage this new data.

How to See the Number of Returning Viewers to Your YouTube Channel

On the channel analytics page that shows views, Watch Time, subscribers, and estimated revenue, click the 

Next, you’ll see an audience graph tracking unique visitors and subscribers. But by default, you should land on a new section that shows new and returning viewers.

Need help finding this graph? Watch our video tutorial below:

How to Analyze Returning Viewer Data on YouTube

Getting more subscribers is great, but attracting viewers who keep returning is impactful. When you gain a subscriber, that means someone liked your content enough to digitally “bookmark” it. The best scenario is when that subscriber returns to watch more videos.

We can see the difference between both behaviors on the 

 channel. Here is our audience data for new and returning viewers within the past three months:

In the beginning, we attracted 15,519 returning viewers daily. By the end of this time period, our returning viewer count increased to 24,217.

As more viewers returned to watch our content, other metrics improved. Daily channel views increased from 58,604 to 89,593 views. And now YouTube’s algorithm is finding more viewers to watch our content. We can tell by looking at our daily impressions, which nearly doubled in that same period.

Our new and returning viewer data hasn’t always been positive, though. We posted a few videos about 

 – a creator who gets millions of views with each upload – and actually lost returning viewers. He’s a popular creator, so we did gain some new viewers. But overall, we attracted an audience outside our niche. Our core audience subscribed to learn YouTube growth tips.

Take a look at the graph below. It shows a spike in new viewers and a decrease in returning viewers to the vidIQ channel:

This shows a lack of focused content during our MrBeast experiment. We strayed from YouTube education so viewers didn’t watch as many videos.

On the flip side, here’s what the data looks like when we stick to our niche:

As you can see, new and returning viewers increased in this period. Below the graph, we can see which videos were published during this time:

"How to Get More Views and Subscribers on YouTube"

These videos are about YouTube channel growth. Each one sticks to our niche and creates the right conditions for a large, growing audience.

3 Examples of YouTube Viewer Graphs and What They Mean

As soon as we discovered YouTube’s new and returning viewer data, we asked the vidIQ community to share their analytics with us. This data comes from creators like you, so it’ll be helpful to learn from their successes and mistakes.

Here are three graph examples to diagnose why viewers are returning to or abandoning your channel.

From the data, it looks like this creator knew their audience well. Each video attracted returning viewers in the beginning. Unfortunately, a lack of consistency killed their momentum, which is proven by the disappearance of black play buttons underneath the graph. Those represent published videos. Return viewer growth began to flatten in January, but the solution is simple: Start creating again.

Graph 2: Popular Videos But Few Subscribers

This graph is a tale of two extremes. YouTube brought lots of new viewers to this channel every day, which is awesome. However, almost none of them come back.

Why does this happen? Most likely, one or a few videos drove traffic to the channel and caused their content to 

. But after watching those videos, perhaps viewers didn’t think the channel had anything else to offer them – hence, fewer people subscribing.

Graph 3: “Beating” the YouTube Algorithm

This channel seems to have endless growth. In this case, YouTube is finding new viewers that return to watch more content, which helps the channel grow.

, who creates custom, 3D-animated Among Us content. He has 3.5 billion subscribers and more than 2 billion views.

Jake’s channel has more returning viewers than new viewers, which means he’s basically beaten the algorithm – or reached peak content optimization. If you can get the purple line (returning viewers) above the blue line (new viewers), you’ve converted many new viewers into returning viewers.

4 Ways to Make Viewers Return to Your YouTube Channel

Attracting more return viewers leads to YouTube growth. Fortunately, convincing them to come back doesn’t require a complicated, exhausting strategy. You can follow the same core principles of 

Know your target audience and what they watch on YouTube

. Brainstorm video ideas they may enjoy watching.

Make simple, eye-catching thumbnails to increase clicks.

 You have a fraction of a second to convince viewers a video is worth watching, so make it count.

. A valuable or entertaining video has high audience retention and/or Watch Time.

 Don’t get sidetracked by unrelated topics; create the content your viewers subscribed to see.

There’s no beating the YouTube algorithm. All you can do is work with it to help your content reach more people. The first step is viewing, studying, and acting on insights from your channel analytics.

Man pointing to YouTube analytics showing 25.7M views and 413% growth graph.

Are viewers returning to your YouTube channel to watch more content? Here's how to find out.

YouTube Cheat Code Unlocked: How to Track Returning Viewers on Your Channel

How do your YouTube videos perform in the first 24 hours of publishing? Is there a surge of positive momentum or do most of your views trickle in days later?

For some creators, views earned in this one-day period can push their content to new heights. They’ll get lots of views from YouTube notifications, and in turn, the algorithm suggests their content to more viewers.

Apart from going viral, that’s the kind of mojo you want to have on YouTube. You should strive to make your videos appear in valuable areas of the app, such as browse features, YouTube search, and suggested videos.

To make it happen, start comparing your videos’ performance over the first 24 hours. It’s as simple as:

Waiting until each video has been published for 24 hours

Analyzing the results in the YouTube Studio

Step four has gotten much easier this year. Instead of opening two browser windows, you can view a side-by-side comparison for each video using YouTube’s latest tool for 24-hour views.

How to See Video Views on YouTube in the First 24 Hours

To compare video views in the YouTube Studio, follow these steps:

On the YouTube homepage, click your profile icon and select 

Find a video that’s been published for 24 hours, then hover your mouse over it. Click the analytics icon on the pop-up menu that appears.

Next, you’ll see the analytics page for the video you selected. Go to the top right corner of the screen and click the time period adjuster.

Need a visual tutorial? Watch the video below to make sure you’re doing everything correctly:

How to Analyze 24-Hour View Data on YouTube

As an example, let’s say we want to analyze the 24-hour views for our recent video, “

How to Start a YouTube Gaming Channel In 2021.

” After completing the steps above, the below results are what we see in the YouTube Studio.

Scrolling down a bit farther, we also see a list of traffic sources for video views in the first 24 hours.

With this data, we can ask ourselves a few questions about the video’s performance, and hopefully, create better content.

Question 1: Compared with other content, did the video overperform or underperform?

We can check this by looking at the traffic sources data. Via the screenshot above, it looks like our video overperformed in YouTube search views and underperformed in YouTube recommendation views. We know this because we hovered our mouse over each traffic source, which triggered a pop-up showing our typical video performance.

Here's what the vidIQ channel usually averages for these two sources:

That means our 2.8K views from YouTube recommendations is a tad low for this video. 

On the flip side, getting 957 search views is excellent. That means we did a good job 

Question 2: Did changing the video’s thumbnail or title in the first 24 hours affect its views?

To answer this question, we need to check the number of impressions the video earned, as well as its click-through rate. So instead of viewing the Overview tab, click 

near the top of the page. You should instantly see a graph showing video impressions, like the one below.

to view another graph showing the video's click-through rate in the first 24 hours.

When you update your video’s thumbnail or title in the first 24 hours, try to remember which hour you made the change. For example, you may decide to update a video’s title and thumbnail 12 hours after publishing.

With that in mind, you can check these two graphs to see if there are significant spikes or dips after the 12th hour. That alone should prove which title/thumbnail produces a better click-through rate or number of impressions.

Get Views Data Faster With vidIQ’s Real-Time Stats Bar

Right now, we're showing you the long method for checking YouTube views. It's thorough but not always practical, which is why you should have a backup plan when you're busy filming, uploading, or promoting your videos. 

, you can quickly check your YouTube views with the real-time stats bar. This handy tool sits at the top of all YouTube pages and displays crucial information, such as:

Views on your channel within the last 60 minutes, 48 hours, or seven days.

Detailed graphs showing your channel’s viewership

Your progress toward accumulating 4,000 hours of Watch Time (for channel monetization)

All of this is free, by the way. If you want to know how many views your channel is getting at all times, simply 

How to Compare the 24-Hour Views of Two YouTube Videos

OK, here’s the question most creators want us to answer: How does one determine which videos are performing well in the first 24 hours?

Fortunately, the answer is just a few clicks away. Here's how to grab that data in the YouTube Studio:

 filter selected, return to the Overview tab of your video’s analytics page. Below the graph showing channel views, Watch Time, subscribers, and revenue, click 

In the top right corner of the page, click 

This will allow you to select a second video from your channel and compare its first 24 hours to the initial video you were analyzing. To test this, we compared two videos with similar YouTube performance, as shown below.

 in the uppermost tab, you can see the traffic breakdown for each video.

As you can see, “How to Start a Gaming Channel in 2021” got more search traffic in the first 24 hours. 

That video may become evergreen content on YouTube, appearing in search results for years to come.

How to Get Your First 100 Subscribers on YouTube

” performed better in every other metric, such as browse features, suggested videos, and YouTube notifications. 

That’s indicative of a powerful title and thumbnail.

 Altogether, we can glean useful information from both videos and combine strategies to create better content.

What would really be helpful though, is the ability to compare one video with dozens more. That way we could track the effectiveness of a series of videos covering one topic. 

If YouTube makes this tiny change, the First 24 Hours tool would be almost perfect.

In the meantime, vidIQ has a channel audit tool that displays exactly what’s working on your channel. It’s free to start using, so 

 for channel insights that’ll earn you more YouTube success.

Man surprised by YouTube video analytics showing 11.3K views and 420% growth on day 1

Twenty-four hours after publishing, this YouTube tool reveals which videos are optimized for success.

How to Get More Views on YouTube in 24 Hours

Liron Segev, aka TheTechieGuy, is the Director of Customer Success at vidIQ, an internationally celebrated Digital YouTube Strategist working with some of the largest brands and YouTube influencers in the world. Over the past 20+ years, his work has taken him to South Africa, the UK, and the US where he frequently speaks at conferences and provides expert tech commentary for various print publications, radio, and TV while actively running his Tech YouTube Channel.

Liron Segev

Man smiling and giving thumbs up with colorful gaming wall art background.

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

TubeTalk logo with YouTube metrics like CTR, AVD, traffic, and impressions graph

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.

YouTube Shorts top traffic source with 87.9% views and audience engagement graph

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

Rob started out on YouTube in 2012, building up a tech channel before joining the vidIQ team. He now educates over 450,000 subscribers on the vidIQ channel which has over 25,000,000 video views. Today he is hard at work sharing everything he has learned on the YouTube platform; educating video creators on how to grow their own channels and turn hobbies into careers - just like Rob did in 2017.

Rob Wilson

Smiling bald man with stubble wearing a black t-shirt on a white background

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 

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

Mobile screen showing YouTube impressions data and growth with green arrow and logo.

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

Many YouTubers have had that one successful video that has outperformed all others, and a deep-dive into your analytics can uncover the secrets to your most-viewed content. In this episode of TubeTalk, the YouTuber podcast, we show you what metrics to look out for, what you should be focusing on, and how you can replicate success across your channel.

, and he’s all about helping businesses get more value from their video marketing efforts. Dane is the founder of the TubeTalk podcast, and he's also been a vidIQ user since Day 1. He’s also a proud 

! Click on the link above or download the TubeTalk podcast from the following:

If you have followed all the best practices for creating a great video, like giving it a great title and a compelling thumbnail, it should perform as well as any other you have uploaded. But we all know that’s not the case - some videos underperform and it pays to understand exactly why. In this podcast we take a look at:

Understanding your YouTube analytics is the first to step to creating content that drives views and subscriber growth. In this episode of TubeTalk we discuss Audience Retention, how to end your video, and why buying views is a really, really terrible idea.

YouTube Analytics Explained: Metrics That Matter

YouTube Cheat Code Unlocked: How to Track Returning Viewers on Your Channel

How to Get More Views on YouTube in 24 Hours

Top 5 YouTube Metrics Every Creator Should Study

YouTube Shorts Analytics: Why Every Creator Needs This Data

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

Recreating YouTube Success by Understanding Analytics: TubeTalk Episode 158

YouTube Watch Time: The Secret Sauce to More YouTube Views and Subscribers

How to Grow Your Channel Fast By Understanding Analytics!

How to Get More Views and Subscribers with YouTube Analytics

10 YouTube Data Secrets You Didn't Know!