High Retention on YouTube: Secrets And Hacks

Mihai-Alexandru Cristea 25/03/2022 | 19:53

Today let’s talk about one of the most important indicators of YouTube channel analytics: “audience retention”. You can see this metric in the “Analytics” section of your channel’s creative studio (in percentages and viewing time in minutes). Audience retention allows you to understand how long people watch your videos. This indicator depends on the time the user watches the video and the total number of viewed videos on the channel. The longer your videos are watched, the better it is. YouTube starts giving out such videos as recommendations.

 

As mentioned above, audience retention is measured in both percentages and minutes viewed. Why look at retention in minutes?

Example:

The first video is 10 minutes long. Audience retention – 40%, watched for 4 minutes.

The second video lasts 20 minutes. Retention – 25%, watched 5 minutes.

As we can see, the first video has a higher retention rate than the second one. But the second video was watched longer than the first one, which means it will be promoted better and more often than all the others. Audience high retention views help to decide which video to advertise.

Find the reason for not watching

A sharp decline in the first 10-15 seconds may mean that viewers are not getting what they expect. Check again the title, thumbnail, and description. Maybe they should be replaced with something more appropriate to the content of the video.

Find the moments of change in interest

An ascending graph can indicate moments that viewers watch again or send links to their friends.

A dip in the graph can indicate snippets during which viewers stop watching. Check out this little fragment. Maybe the video starts too slowly, gets to the point too slowly, or a clue appears on the screen that distracts viewers.

How to increase retention

  • Buy high retention YouTube views

You can buy high retention YouTube views. Ads with retention are an extremely effective and in-demand tool for attracting attention to video content on YouTube.

The main secret of this method is that paid views attract thousands of free viewers (so called “organic” viewers). Users see that the audience is actively interested in a certain video and it arouses curiosity. Therefore, in fact, the advertising customer always gets a lot more views than he paid for.

  • Dynamics

Your videos should be dynamic, especially important to keep the viewer’s attention in the first part of the video. So the first half of your video should contain something catchy. Merge video clips, illustrations and extra footage.

If the viewer is interested in watching the first half of the video, there is a high probability that he or she will finish it by the end. Leaving the most interesting things for the end of the video is a bad strategy, because the viewer simply won’t get to the end of the video he or she is bored with at the beginning or in the middle.

  • Cuts of the most interesting moments at the beginning of the video

Cuts of the most interesting moments at the beginning of the video allows the viewer to understand what to expect and catch the attention, to interest. This gives the effect of involving the audience and the audience watches the video in order to see these interesting moments.Such a short mini-presentation of ~5 seconds will increase audience retention because the viewer has something to watch the video for.

Don’t be afraid to reveal the most interesting things. You’re selling the viewing experience by letting the viewer know that there’s something in the video that’s really interesting, fascinating, and worth watching.

  • Emotions and lively feedback

If you tell even something interesting in a boring and monotonous way, the viewer may get bored and leave. But if you play with the timbre/tempo of your speech and communicate in a more lively and relaxed way, it can make the video more lively and interesting to watch. It will truly increase audience retention.

  • No long splash screens or static scenes

If the boring scene or the intro is ≥5 seconds long, get rid of it. Maximum recommended intro length: 1-2 seconds. If more than that, the viewer will start to lose interest. Also you can insert the intro not at the beginning but after the cutting of funny moments or after some intriguing question.

The tips given here are simple enough that you can make changes to your content strategy today. By producing content that meets viewers’ expectations on a regular basis, you can predictably get good traffic to your videos.

BR Magazine | Latest Issue

Download PDF: Business Review Magazine April 2024 Issue

The April 2024 issue of Business Review Magazine is now available in digital format, featuring the main cover story titled “Caring for People and for the Planet”. To download the magazine in
Mihai-Alexandru Cristea | 12/04/2024 | 17:28
Advertisement Advertisement
Close ×

We use cookies for keeping our website reliable and secure, personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to analyse how our website is used.

Accept & continue