YouTube decided to refurbish its retention analytics tab that provides creators with more info about what content is most engaging for viewers in videos that have pronounced watch patterns. A YouTube design team member in a Creator Insider video stated that the fundamental question this feature was designed to help answer was which video should the creators make next.
This feature was released before October and showed only a simple line graph with the percentage of viewers that stayed across the time of the video. This only provided creators with a rough estimate of what parts of the video showed big drops in viewership. This was not very intuitive and not very useful for creators.
Now, the feature has been updated, and it shows four main moments in the video, "The Intro", "Continuous Segments", "Spikes", and "Dips".
These provide detailed information on what parts the viewers found the most engaging and least engaging.
"The Intro" shows how many viewers were still watching after the first 30 seconds. This shows creators how engaging or interesting the start of their videos is, these first few seconds of the video are crucial in determining whether the viewer thinks the video is worth their time or not. If there is a great dip on the graph, then this tells the creator that they need to work on their intro.
"Continuous Segments" show at which parts of the video the least amount of viewers left. These are the most interesting parts of the video. Creators should pay special attention to what is happening in the video during these segments and learn from this as it shows what the viewers find the most interesting.
"Spikes" are periods in the video where there was an unusually sudden increase in viewership. This shows that a lot of viewers are either rewatching that part of the video or sending timestamped links to others. These are also great opportunities for creators to observe what was happening during the spike and replicate that content.
"Drops" are periods in the video where there was a sudden drop in viewership which means that the viewers found those parts boring or uninteresting. Creators should avoid these parts.
All these moments are extremely important but special attention should be paid to "Continuous Segments" and "Spikes". Creators should rewatch these parts and try to utilize this information to improve the quality of their content.
Read next: YouTube’s new AI-based feature automatically enhances audio quality in stories by reducing background noise
This feature was released before October and showed only a simple line graph with the percentage of viewers that stayed across the time of the video. This only provided creators with a rough estimate of what parts of the video showed big drops in viewership. This was not very intuitive and not very useful for creators.
Now, the feature has been updated, and it shows four main moments in the video, "The Intro", "Continuous Segments", "Spikes", and "Dips".
These provide detailed information on what parts the viewers found the most engaging and least engaging.
"The Intro" shows how many viewers were still watching after the first 30 seconds. This shows creators how engaging or interesting the start of their videos is, these first few seconds of the video are crucial in determining whether the viewer thinks the video is worth their time or not. If there is a great dip on the graph, then this tells the creator that they need to work on their intro.
"Continuous Segments" show at which parts of the video the least amount of viewers left. These are the most interesting parts of the video. Creators should pay special attention to what is happening in the video during these segments and learn from this as it shows what the viewers find the most interesting.
"Spikes" are periods in the video where there was an unusually sudden increase in viewership. This shows that a lot of viewers are either rewatching that part of the video or sending timestamped links to others. These are also great opportunities for creators to observe what was happening during the spike and replicate that content.
"Drops" are periods in the video where there was a sudden drop in viewership which means that the viewers found those parts boring or uninteresting. Creators should avoid these parts.
All these moments are extremely important but special attention should be paid to "Continuous Segments" and "Spikes". Creators should rewatch these parts and try to utilize this information to improve the quality of their content.
Read next: YouTube’s new AI-based feature automatically enhances audio quality in stories by reducing background noise
