YouTube Marketing Metrics: 17 Important KPIs You Should be Aware of When Measuring Your Channel Growth

YouTube is one of the successful marketing platforms to enhance your brand. According to the statistics, YouTube has more than 2 billion active users, and 1 billion hours of YouTube videos were watched in a single day. 

If you want to be successful onYouTube platform, you have to face several challenges. Also, you should know the important KPIs about YouTube to make a better channel. 

What is YouTube KPI? 

YouTube KPI is an important metric that helps you measure your video performance based on likes, views, subscribers, watch time, etc. Before starting the YouTube channel, you should know how important it is. 

Let’s start! 

1. Watch Time

Watch time is calculated by the total amount of time the audience spends watching your videos. It is an important metric because YouTube elevates your channels and videos based on the higher watch time in their recommendation sections. 

Based on the watch time report, you can see the total amount of watch time your videos have gathered. You will get the rank of each video based on the watch time and group of videos, such as style, length, theme, etc. 

2. Engagement

YouTube engagement means after watching your videos when the viewers take action such as giving likes, dislikes, comments, subscribers to your channel, and share your video. 

Suggestions for Public Engagement

– Keep it short and simple; videos should be no longer than 10-12 minutes.

– Produce eye-catching intro/outro videos for quick engagements.

– Use humor when appropriate (less lecturing and more jesting can go a long way)

– Summarize by repeating key points

This advice can assist you in increasing audience engagement by making your intro/outro more engaging by using any intro maker or outro maker, which adds a professional touch to your videos. Make use of simple and appealing video templates to make your video look professional.

The most important engagement is comments. A viewer watching your video after that they will share their opinion via the comments section. 

• Comments look like a clear picture of your YouTube videos. 
• Share explains how much viewers enjoyed your content
• Likes and dislikes are helping to determine how your topics are worth for your audience. 

If you want to see your engagement metric, use the YouTube Interactions Report. 

3. Subscriber Growth

Increasing subscribers for your channel is an extraordinary way to enrich your brand presence and create awareness. If you get unlimited subscribers for your channel, your brand will reach a huge audience. Your channel has several subscribers, YouTube will send them notifications about every new video and feature them on their homepage. 

The main advantage of boosting subscribers which will help generate more views. At last, you can gain more organic engagement and expand your YouTube presence from a loyal audience. Also, you will get a monetization process after getting 1000 subscribers in the last 12 months. 

4. Re-watches

Re-watches mean how many times users have watched your video content over and again. In fact, people watching a certain part of the video have probably liked the content topic at the moment. In this case, you will know that your audience likes which type of content. It helps to know what type of content you can create for your future content strategy. 

5. Audience Retention

Audience attention describes how your content is liked by the audience because it shows that the audience’s percentage is watched and leaves the content. YouTube upgrades videos with a high number of audience attention in their search suggestions and rankings because these videos can effectively draw viewer’s retention.

Based on YouTube’s audience attention report, there will be two graphs. There is an absolute retention curve and a relative retention curve. 

• Absolute Retention Curve explains that how your videos are retaining the audience
• Relative retention curve describers that how well one of your videos retains the audience

6. Average Percentage Viewed

It is measured by the percent of every video the average user watched. It means your video’s ability to grab the viewers’ retention for its entirety. YouTube also explains your videos can hold audience attention, and they will reward it with higher recommendation and search rankings. If you want to know this metric, use the watch time report.

7. Average View Duration

It is calculated by the total amount of watch time of your videos divided by the total amount of video plays, including replays. This measurement helps to know how much of your viewers can be engaged. In this case, your videos can’t engage the users, and they will leave your video quickly. 

If your videos can engage your views, you will get the average view duration and increase your YouTube watch time. Finally, your videos will show up on the search recommendations, and more possible to click your videos. 

8. Playlist Engagement

Adding a playlist to your channel will be more effective and possible to increase the watch time. And also creating a playlist that helps to organize your videos in an affordable way. In this way, people can easily find your content about their interesting topics and keep watching, enhancing your watch time. 

Playlist engagement by analyzing two metrics in YouTube’s Playlist Report:

• Views per playlists 
• Average time playlists

9. Watch Demographics 

Based on the YouTube demographics data, you can get the statistics of who watches your videos. In this report, you will see which type of audience can see your posts, such as gender, age, location, and more. 

Analyzing the data tells you who most engaged your content and who’s your actual target audience. Also, you can make the opposite approach with this data. If you are not reaching a larger audience, you need to change your video strategy and content topics. 

10. Traffic Sources

Adding videos on external referrals which helps to reach your brand effectively. 

External referrals like social media networks that you can add the video on other social networks. Traffic sources report shows how the audience determines your videos and which sources line up by the more views, likes, and watch time. By using this data, you can optimize your YouTube video promotion strategy.

11. Keywords

Keywords are the most important element in video creation. Adding keywords in your video title, description and use keywords as tags help to improve your ranking and get organic reach. Based on YouTube’s Search Report, the traffic generated by the keywords. 

Also, you can add the content-related keywords in your meta title, and the description will be more effective. Keep in mind that you don’t stuff the keywords in your content because it’s sometimes negative. 

12. Unique Viewers

It is the total number of persons who watch your YouTube videos over a specific period. This measurement really helps you understand that what’s actually thought of your audience is. 

You will also use these values to increase your subscriber’s engagement with your videos. If your individuals are low when compared to your subscriber count, then your subscribers aren’t watching your videos as they could be. Get new members to your channel and ask them to set up notifications while posting new videos.

More subscribers mean more views. 

13. Views Per Different Viewers

This metric is calculated by the total amount of times the average audience watches your video. You can get clear data from this metric which is the audience can’t get sufficient of your video and keep rewatching it. 

Creating unique video topics with a lot of views per individual could be your most popular content topics, and if you cover them more. You could also generate more views, likes, watch time, and subscribers.

14. Click-Through Rate by Impressions

Impression CTR calculates your video ability to the instant audience who watch your videos after seeing their recommendation sections, homepage, or trending section. If you want a high click-through rate means your title should be compelling, engaging, and informative. If you get a low click-through rate, you need to revise your content strategy. Create content based on the specific audience requirement.

If you want to know that, use Google analytics. Go to the Analytics tab -> YouTube Studio to analyze this metric.

15. Card Click-Through-Rate

Get high-level CTR by using cards in your YouTube videos. Cards look like slide panels that encourage the audience to take the desired action during a video, such as moving to the next video, subscribing to a channel, or clicking through to a different website. Each of your cards’ CTR tells you your audience’s action to take while watching your videos.

Analyzing card Click Through Rate can help you uncover the placement, optimal timing, and duration of your cards in future videos. 

16. Video Rankings

The YouTube algorithm ranks your video based on keywords, traffic, and engagement. Kristeen Romero says, “a lot of brand videos suffer from less tagging, and they can’t take advantage to build brand reach and awareness as a result.”

How to improve your video rankings? 

• Make an engaging & creative content 
• Add the best keywords for your videos
• Optimize your content for mobile viewers
• Eye-catchy thumbnail and playlist in your channel. 

17. Lead Generation

The ultimate aim for every brand is to increase its sales and marketing. You should track your leads and increase your brand presence. Heather Baker says, “Video is no longer, it’s just about branding.” 

While tracking lead generation, it’s also beneficial to inspect and gain a better understanding of things like this:

• Which type of content drives more leads or highest quality leads
• High traffic videos come from 
• Producing more content 
• Improve the number of leads