Using Analytics to Grow Your Channel

 

Using Analytics to Grow

Your Channel

YouTube gives you at-a-glance and in-depth analytical data for

your videos and channels.

From your Dashboard, you can see the performance of your latest

video compared to your typical video performance.

You’ll see how it ranks against your last ten videos, its views,

average view duration, and watch time.

The Channel dashboard also gives you a quick glance at your

overall channel analytics. 

You can see your current subscribers, a summary of your views

and watch times during the past 28 days and your top videos

from the past 48 hours.

Now let’s do a deep dive into the analytics page. You can look at

your channel as a whole, as a video group, or for a specific video.

Remember that you can change the date range you want to look

at for your analytics.

You can also hover over any metric in analytics to get more

information about it, or click the “See More” button on any card

to see additional data or to compare different metrics, time

periods, videos, or groups.

Start with your Overview tab. This will give you personalized

information about views, watch time, subscribers, and estimated

revenue if you’re in the YouTube Partner Program.

You’ll see how your video is doing compared to your typical past

performance. You can also click on each metric to update the

graph below them.

The graph will chart day-by-day changes in that metric. The chart

also shows when new videos were uploaded, so you can chart

responses to each one.

The Overview tab also shows real-time activity for your videos

within the last 48 hours, and your top videos for your selected

time-period.

You can also see a snapshot of the performance for your last ten

videos. If you’re looking at a specific video, the Overview tab will

show views, watch time, and subscribers added.

You’ll also see audience retention, likes vs. dislikes, and the real

time activity for that video. 

The Reach tab is your central source for information about how

many viewers you’re reaching and how you’re reaching them. This

included impressions, click-through rates, and unique viewers.

Impressions are counted every time a viewer comes across one of

your thumbnails on YouTube.

Click-Through Rate shows how often the viewer clicked on that

video to watch it. Unique Viewers show how many new viewers

came to watch your video over a set time.

The Reach tab also shows various information about your video’s

traffic sources and which surfaces are driving viewers to your

video. There is also the “Viewership Funnel” graph, which shows

“Impressions and How They Led to Watch Time.”

You can improve the chances of YouTube recommending your

video by increasing your click-through rate and video watch time.

The Engagement tab gives you information on viewer attention. It

shows watch time, average view duration, and end screens

(telling you which elements are best resonating with your

audience).

At the individual video level, this tab shows you information on

audience retention, likes vs dislikes, and (if you’ve added them)

the end screen element click rate.

The Audience tab tells you who is watching your videos. This

shows you unique viewers, average view per user, and

subscribers.

These metrics give you an idea of the size of your audience, as

well as their level of engagement.

You can also see watch time from subscribers. At the channel

level, you’ll see the Subscriber Bell Notifications card, which 

shows the percentage of subscribers who have enabled

notifications from your channel and from YouTube.

The Audience tab also gives you information on the viewers

watching your videos: their gender, age group, and where they’re

located.

If you have a monetized channel, there will also be a “Revenue”

tab which gives you information about your revenue.

How to Define Your Target Audience

 

How to Define Your Target 

Audience

Reaching new audiences is easy with YouTube ads, but it all starts

by defining your target audience.

You’ll need to brainstorm and figure out which types of people

would be interested in your product or service. That will be based

on things like age, location, socio-economic status, educational

level, interests, etc.

Don’t be vague, either. “Men” or “Women” just won’t work. Think

more along the lines of “30-something career women with 2

children who are interested in starting a home-based business.”

The key is to narrow down your search as far as possible.

Market research, and being able to define your target audience in

a nutshell is important in understanding the customer and how

they are going to make purchase decisions.

Targeting a specific audience will also help your ad campaigns

reach the right people—those who will relate to your company’s

message and will be interested in your products or services.

Let’s say your company is marketing a new educational toy. Your

target audiences might be children who are X years old, parents,

grandparents, teachers, and maybe educational specialists.

Now you only need to target those people with your ads to find

some potential clients! You can insert your ad into anything from

a children’s video to an educational show for parents—whatever

you believe is not only relevant but likely to trigger a positive

response. 

That way, you’d get exposure to different audiences for the

same basic ad. Of course, you’d want to tweak the ad to appeal to

different ages and demographics.

Remember that your target audience isn’t the same as your target

market.

Both are centered around dividing customers into different

groups to help you make informed business decisions.

A target market, however, is a specific group of consumers at

whom your company’s products and services are aimed.

A target audience defines that group using demographics,

interests, and buying history.

To put it another way, you can define your target market by

finding your target audience.

For example, if your target market is “young men aged 20-35,”

your target audience might be “young men aged 20-35 living in

New York City.”

You can then divide your audience into groups or further define

them using categories like the following:

Purchase Intention: a group of people looking for a specific

product or service who are looking for more information before

they purchase.

Examples would be consumers in the market for a laptop,

automobile, television, or item of clothing. This sort of

information is important so you can see how to better direct your

messages to your audience.

Interests: a group of people who are interested in the same thing,

like hiking or knitting or basketball. 

Knowing this information helps you to connect with your

audience in a relatable way and figure out buyer behaviors and

motivation.

For example, customers interested in baseball memorabilia would

most likely be interested during baseball season, when they can

show off their purchases during the games.

Another example: if you discover that a large group of your

audience is interested in eating out, you could figure out a way to

work that into your ads and attract even more attention.

Subcultures: groups of people who identify with a shared

experience, like a certain music scene or entertainment genre.

People define themselves by these subcultures and you can use

those to better understand who you’re reaching out to. 

For example, if you think of how a certain subculture relates to

your business—especially if you have a large potential audience—

then you’re reaching your subculture.

Think of how Netflix markets to its different subcultures (people

who like comedy, science-fiction, horror, and anime) using social

media accounts directed at those groups.