YouTube Analytics now auto-highlights key audience moments

To enable creators and publishers with insights into moments of a video that viewers most engage with, the updated audience retention metric automatically spot such moments.

Audience retention in YouTube Analytics helps understand the parts of the video that are able to maintain the highest engagement i.e. parts that are rewatched or directly skipped to, and it will also underline parts where a viewer stops watching the video.

Knowing these insights can help understand what most of the audience finds appealing so the areas can be focussed on more, and also the areas that need improvement.

The four types of moments will be highlighted on the audience retention tab:

Intro

The percentage of your audience watching the video after the first 30 seconds. The introduction is the concluding part for a video, this moment derives if the video was found interesting by the viewer or was relevant to their search, to hold them for the full duration.

Continuous Segments

Moments in the video where almost no one dropped off while watching. This metric highlights the most engaging parts of the video. Creators and publishers can work on these areas, or increase the screen time of these parts to increase engagement.

Spikes

Moments in the video that were either re-watched or moments that users skipped to. This metric puts the spotlight on moments that would have got the viewer to come back and watch the video again.

Such moments not just sustain interest while the video is watched, but also increase views. It is also a sign of the part of the video being widely shared.

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Dips

Dips highlight moments in the video that were either skipped or where users stopped watching the video completely. A significant metric to know the areas where one lacks and is losing engagement.

The shape of the audience retention graph depicts these moments:

When the line on the chart is flat, it means viewers are watching that part of the video from start to finish.

Gradual declines mean viewers are losing interest over time. All videos on YouTube generally taper off during the playback period.

Spikes appear when more viewers are watching, rewatching, or sharing those parts of your video.

Dips mean viewers are abandoning or skipping at that specific part of your video.

The two levels at which audience retention data can be viewed:

Channel-Level

Here audience retention performance among recently published videos by the channel can be compared. This can be found on the Engagement tab of YouTube Analytics.

To see the report at the channel level:

• Sign in to YouTube Studio
• From the left menu, select Analytics
• Select the Engagement tab and look for the Audience retention report

Video-Level

Metrics at this level can enable one to dive deeper into one video’s audience retention data. This can be found on the Overview and Engagement tabs of YouTube Analytics.

To see the report at the video level:

• Sign in to YouTube Studio
• From the left menu, select Videos and choose a video
• From the left menu, select Analytics
• Select the Overview tab or the Engagement tab and look for the Audience retention report