Top 12 Youtube Influencer Marketing Metrics That Brands Need To Track
“It’s really hard to measure true Influence.”- Duane Forrester
(VP Industry Insight, Yext)
Numbers don’t always indicate influence. However, in order to make the most of your influencer marketing campaigns, it is essential to track a few metrics that can help you rewire your strategies. As a brand, when you are up there placing your products and or services in front of your target audience through influencers, you need to know if you’re doing it right. Tracking metrics for your campaigns thus becomes an essential part of your strategy.
With 1.7 billion unique monthly visitors, YouTube has become the second most visited site after Google. YouTube’s creator studio and analytics combined provide enough data to understand what content works and what does not. It is however important to skim through the sea of YouTube analytics and understand which ones matter the most. Certain metrics always reveal the game way more than others can ever do, and so, we have curated this guide to help you traverse this tricky terrain of YouTube Analytics. With an outlook to save you from drowning in the waters of Analytics, we have compiled this list of 14 most important YouTube analytics that you need to focus on.
Without further ado, let’s get right into knowing analytics that shall help you get the most out of your YouTube influencer marketing game.
YouTube Analytics That Matter:
1. Watch Time
It is the total amount of minutes that your viewers allocate time for your videos. One It’s one of the key metrics that determine if YouTube will push your video along the algorithm. If your video has a higher watch time, then it would be pushed into the search results and recommended sections. The more watch time a video gathers, the more engaging it becomes and the more it gets pushed by the algorithm.
YouTube helps you to understand how much watch time your video has collected through its watch time report. Additionally, you can group your videos according to the most viewed and most engaging ones by putting them together to increase the watch time.
2. View Percentage On An Average
It is the percentage of video viewers that have watched on an average basis. Basically, it’s a measure of the ability of your videos to attract viewers. The more the number is, the higher it stands a chance of being pushed along the algorithm. As YouTube realizes a video has the ability to hold your viewer’s attention, it rewards it by pushing it up in the search list and recommending it. You can also find this measurement in the watch report.
3. View Duration On An Average
When you divide the total watch time of your video by the total number of video plays, you get the average view duration. It basically measures the ability of a video to keep your audience engaged. If it’s long enough, it means viewers are interested in the content, and if it’s not, the viewers will bounce off your video, and it will affect your watch duration.
If you have an engaging video in your kitty, it wouldn’t only increase the average view duration, but the total watch time would increase too. It would show an effect on the search list and recommendations too. This metric could be found on your watch time report.
4. Impressions’ Click-Through Rate
If your tile or thumbnail is compelling, your impressions’ click-through rate will soar. It basically measures the ability of your video to attract viewers at first glance.
So if your video has some good content and some great thumbnails generated using YouTube thumbnail maker, go with that it would resonate with the viewers, and there would be an increase in the organic click-through rate.
What is commonly noticed is that once your video is published, there is an increase in the click-through rates as it would be recommended to your subscribers, and they would watch it, but the actual work starts as it spreads beyond your established audience as it would determine if your viewer base is increasing.
You would know your actual audience if you couple this up with the average percentage viewed and average view duration.
How many of them watch it after getting recommended?
If it’s great, then it’s good enough, but if it’s not, you need to check what went wrong.
Is the thumbnail not strong enough?
Is the title misleading?
Figuring and fixing the problem behind a low click-through rate can eventually help your videos gain a higher position in the search results. If your click-through rate is high, but you are low on engagement, it means your videos have a specific audience dedicated to watching your videos. The YouTube Analytics tab can help you measure this.
How many people are watching your video every moment?
How many of them are leaving every moment?
Your audience retention calculates every one of those numbers and compiles a list for you. Videos where audiences watch it from start to end, having a high retention time, will be pushed higher up in the rankings. These videos can capture the audience’s attention for a longer duration and will be suggested and recommended more.
This metric is one of the best ways to plan your videos. You can check for yourself what are the most engaging parts of your video and where the audiences are interested. From here, you can get topics for your next video. It helps you to understand where the viewers are bored and where they are enticed, and then you plan accordingly. You can choose to prune out some elements to make the videos work and add some elements to make them engaging.
When you find YouTube’s retention report, you will find two graphs to look at. There would be an absolute retention curve and a relative retention curve. The absolute one is the key to understanding how well your video is retained, and the relative one shows how one of your videos retains viewers when compared to videos of similar strength.
6. Unique Viewers And Views Per Unique Viewers
The number of individuals watching your videos over a period of time is called unique viewers. It basically helps to understand the actual size of the audience.
You can use this to understand your viewers’ engagement with a video. If this number is lower than your subscriber count, then you need to reach out to your subscribers as they aren’t getting to watch your videos. Ask them to push the notification button on and try innovative ways to reach the audience. You can find this measurement under the Reach Views and Audience tab in YouTube Studio.
The amount of time the average view allots time to your video is views per unique viewer. This metric will tell you if your content is loved by your audience. Video topics with a good number of unique viewers would mean that your video is being liked. It means that people love your content, and you are making videos that are relevant. This is a very important metric to measure your success on YouTube.
7. Traffic Sources
All the traffic sources that direct the audience towards your video are called traffic sources. These can be social media or sites embedding your videos or YouTube referrals like search, the recommended section, and the homepage. This report basically shows you how viewers reached your video, and you can understand which sources rake up the most views and watch time. You can then use this data to optimize your promotion strategy.
8. Rewatches And Interactions
Now think as a creator, the parts that keep the viewers engaged, making them rewatch, will be the perfect fodder for your next topic. If you look at the graphs, you can easily recognize the changes and then use them to create content accordingly.
Besides rewatches, the volume of comments, shares, likes and dislikes can be key to understanding your content’s performance. Just as important as it is to track engagements for your Instagram influencer marketing campaign, it is necessary to track interactions on YouTube.
If a person comments, it means they feel an emotional connection with the video.
When you share a video, it basically means you are showing trust in a brand, and you aren’t afraid to show it publicly. The likes and dislikes can show you what videos are working and what is not.
Hence, the interaction metric is also important, and you can find it in your Interactions report.
9. Playlists
Playlists are the best way to keep your channel neat, clean and organized. When a new viewer lands on your channel, it becomes easier for them to skim through your channel and find videos that they consider to be relevant. It also rakes up the watch time by giving them the impetus to stay on your channel for longer.
You can use YouTube’s playlist report to analyze the engagement of each one of your playlists. You can find out the views per playlist start and average time in the playlist. While the former states the average views of your playlist, and the average time in the playlist is the average time, your video was viewed in the playlist. Try to segment your playlist with high retention videos placed together.
10. Your Audience
YouTube with your demographic report tells which segment and section are viewing your videos often. Categorized by age, gender, and geography, this data lets you know your most engaged audience and whom you should target. Try to optimize your videos accordingly.
Remember, your audience is the most important metric to consider for growth. It lets you know if it’s working and if you should add new strategies to your YouTube campaign. Increasing your audience is key to increasing your overall subscribers. Stay within the limits of your niche but make sure to try out something new. Offer something different to keep the audience hooked. This section allows you to understand which section is entrapped by your content, and likewise, you can cater to more of them.
11. Subscriber Growth
Well, this is something that doesn’t need a mention, perhaps. Your subscribers are your most loyal customers. They made a commitment to stand by you as you traverse this path. They love your brand and the value it upholds. They help you to have your videos rake in the initial views. It gets featured on their homepage, and they see your videos frequently. It generates more views, and you get more reach and engagement. Also, they watch your videos twice as much as non-subscribers. So, the more of them you have, the more will be the watch time.
Your YouTube subscribers’ report will show you which videos, locations and time frames help gain or lose subscribers. You can then gauge which videos are getting the maximum engagement, and you will have an idea of what is working and what is not.
12. Keywords
When you study YouTube’s search report, you can see the most popular questions guiding viewers to your videos. You can study them and understand whether your target audience is being directed toward the right video content. You can update the title and thumbnail accordingly and add more keywords to your metadata if they are not. Researching keywords, and utilising them aptly in all your videos can eventually help you optimise your channel for YouTube SEO, and rank higher in search results.
Conclusion
Standing and flourishing on YouTube is not an easy man’s job. YouTube provides many metrics in place to study, analyze and understand what’s working and what’s not. It’s important to curate content, keeping in mind the audience you plan to cater to. It’s not something to just do without planning. You need to have a clear strategy in place to efficiently win on YouTube. Today everybody is vying for a place on the platform. So, make sure you stand out with your platter to enamour audiences and studying these metrics will definitely help you with that.
Being a global influencer marketing agency, we at Confluencr, know that it is important to track the success of a campaign. Besides crafting successful influencer marketing strategies, we also help our clients efficiently track YouTube metrics that give a clear idea of the results we yield. With hawk-eyed sharp strategies and accurate analytical reports of campaigns, we make sure that your brand gets the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns. Guessing how we do it? Get in touch with us! Write to us at [email protected] and we shall get right back to you!
