7 Ways to Increase Your Audience Retention on YouTube

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Do you want to make money from YouTube videos? If you do, there are a few things you must know. According to Statista, YouTube is the world’s second most popular social networking site, with more than 14.3 billion visits and 1.7 billion unique visitors monthly. That being said, YouTube is undoubtedly a charming site for growth.

Whether you have a personal YouTube channel or a channel to promote your brand, there are a few things you should always notice. YouTube audience retention is among those crucial factors that play an essential role in the overall channel growth. This article will discover what YouTube audience retention is and how to increase your audience retention on YouTube.

Let’s get started!

What is Audience Retention?

In simple terms, audience retention means the number of people watching your videos throughout the beginning, middle, end, or altogether. Let’s make it simpler:

We all watch some videos that we skip after 15 seconds, right? YouTube audience retention rate is the calculation of people who don’t navigate to other videos or leave YouTube after fifteen seconds or 1 minute, for that matter. So, it is a calculation of the average number of people who stick to your videos throughout.

You get an audience retention rate for your individual videos and the overall channel. For example, suppose you have posted a 15-minute video on your channel where the audience retention rate is 60%.

So, most of your viewers have watched your video for 9 minutes on average.

Again, if your audience retention rate for the channel is 60%, this number of people mostly sticks to your videos until the end.

You can check your audience retention statistics from YouTube studio. YouTube studio gives you a detailed analysis of different moments of an individual video that affects audience retention. For example:

The percentage of people still watching your video the intro
The continuous green line that shows people are watching your videos non-stop
The declining red line suggests people are gradually leaving your video from a certain point. It means the audience retention is low on this part.
Spikes where viewers are re-watching, watching, or sharing your video
Dips where viewers are skipping a section or leaving the entire video completely.

The highlights on YouTube studio help you understand what you can do better. You can then assess your videos and compare them to the most-watched ones to find out flaws. Youtube platform often used by Facebook educators, there is a full Facebook Educator’s Guide to learn more about that.

Now, let’s move forward and see how you can access your Audience Retention report from YouTube studio.

How to Access Your Audience Retention on YouTube?

If you want to access your audience retention report on YouTube, you can do so from the YouTube studio. YouTube studio lets you check your audience retention report for both individual videos and your overall channel. To check your YouTube audience retention report, you need to follow these few steps:

Step 1: Go to YouTube studio and login using your credential.
Step 2: Find the Analytics tab from the left navigation menu and click on it.
Step 3: Now, you can select the video you want to analyze from the list of videos. Or you can search it in the search bar.
Step 4: Finally, go down to the page to find a graph showing the average video duration and retention percentage.

This is how you access video-based audience retention reports on YouTube. If you want a channel based audience retention report, you have to follow these steps:

Go to the Analytics tab that you can find on the left-hand menu
Select the Engagement tab where you can see engagement metrics on YouTube

From here, you can check your YouTube channel’s channel-based audience retention report.

You must remember that audience retention varies a lot. There are a lot of factors impacting the audience retention rate for different videos.

For example, the length of the video, content type, channel type, etc. So, the target audience and niche are two primary variables complementing the audience retention on your channel.

For example, people looking for investment videos may skip certain parts to jump to the primary information. Similarly, music videos get more retention because skipping music is not so common.

So, there can be different reasons for people to skip a video. It depends on your niche and target audience a lot. So, while going through the graphs, you should take these factors into consideration.

What is the Average Audience Retention Rate on YouTube

It would not be very reasonable to think there is an average YouTube audience retention rate. The reason behind this statement is simple. As we were saying, your audience retention varies a lot with your target audience and content type.

The impact of niche on audience retention rate is significant. For example, tech videos, gaming, and product review are the most popular YouTube niches. Hence, they will always have better audience retention than most other niches.

So, if you compare your channel to other niches, you may or may not get a satisfactory result. But, that does not justify your efforts. You need to understand what is expected from your channel. You should be free to analyze your videos without comparing yourself to others.

Still, if you want a number for the average YouTube audience retention rate, we would say it’s somewhere between 50%-60%. Although, it may vary depending on the length of your video. If you are getting more than 70% audience retention after the 30 seconds of your video, the video should do well.

So, even though there isn’t any typical benchmark for YouTube audience retention, you should always target 50% audience retention on your channel. Of course, you can always buy cheap YouTube views to increase it.

If you are looking for ways to improve your audience retention rate on YouTube, you’ve got it here! Here is a compiled list of 7 ways to increase your audience retention on YouTube. Keep reading!

How to Increase Your Audience Retention on YouTube

Content creation is not an easy process. With creativity, you must have planning, dedication, and time to pursue your career. If you want to learn how to make money on YouTube, you have to increase your audience retention in the first place. These are the best methods that everyone should follow:

Create a Stunning Intro

The intro is the face of your content. As a YouTuber, you must know that the first 30 seconds of your video are crucial. Would you rather have people skip this part or entirely leave your content? No, right? So, the intro should be the first focus to compel your audience to watch more.

Think about it! What can you put for the viewers that they can never skip? It can be a direct answer to the topic or some jokes. It can be many things, depending on your content and niche. Give it a thought and make a compelling intro for your video. Good luck!

Sneak Peeks Keep Viewers Engaged

One of the best ways to engage with your audience is by giving them a sneak peek of the unique part of your content. You spare the details and only mention what they are supposed to expect out of your content.

Put your sneak peek in the intro itself. This increases audience retention for the first 30 seconds. Plus, after a few posts, your audience will learn what to expect in the introduction in other videos as well. Thus, it will become a practice to watch your intros thoroughly.

Video Chapters Make Your Video More Reliable

When we buy a book, we often check the chapters. But does that mean we skip most of it? No, right? A lot of people have the misconception that adding video chapters causes viewers to skip a video. But would you rather want your viewers to leave the entire video than cut some parts?

Providing video chapters makes your video more reliable. Anyone who is watching your content can see whether it matches their intent. Hence, the chances are that they will stick to your video for longer. Especially if your content has quality, it will result in more watch time.

Do an Intensive Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of the keys to better audience retention. When choosing your video topic, you will know what your audiences are looking for if you can do good keyword research. Then you can make a video relevant to the keywords. Thus, you can add more value to your video.

While doing this, ensure that your video matches what audiences are looking for in the first place. Thus, through good keyword research, you can put YouTube’s auto-suggest feature to good work.

Make It Simple and Meaningful

There’s a popular saying, “Write like a reader.” It means that while making any content, you should always think from an audience’s perspective. Would you ever watch a video with a poor script? A loose video will always cause more harm than good.

So, before you start making your content, always start with writing a script. It will give you an idea of what you want to shoot and how you want it. Plus, keep the language as simple as possible and the content to the point.

For example, if you are shooting a video for children, the language should be simpler than that of millennials. So, if the style, tone, language, and message can match your audience’s intent, you can easily see the reflection on your audience retention.

The Size Doesn’t Matter!

Yes, size doesn’t matter when you are creating a YouTube video. There are a lot of myths regarding the length of a YouTube video. But, as long as you are putting meaningful content, the duration isn’t going to affect audience retention.

Your video should rather be short than filled with irrelevant words. Fluffs will only cause your viewers to click away. As long as your viewers get what they are looking for, it is okay. Hence, make sure you make a video that is worth their time. It shouldn’t be too long or too short.

On-Screen Graphics

You can see many videos with on-screen graphics, like charts, graphs, images, cartoons, etc. On-screen graphics tend to increase the audience retention rate more than regular vlogs. It keeps audiences attached to the video.

Consistency and Patience!

Although we promised to deliver 7 points, this eighth number is rather a general suggestion. Consistency and patience are two key values required for success. Understand that any method you imply in your videos isn’t going to work overnight. Hence, you have to be patient and consistent with your approach. Sooner or later, you will have your result in hand.

Conclusion

Audiences define the ultimate success of your content on YouTube. If you want to make money from YouTube videos, you have to have enough audience retention. We hope this article can give you all you need to increase your audience retention on YouTube.

Always follow the YouTube studio stats for audience retention to find where views are dipping. Plus, learn how to use YT video cards for better performance. That said, we hope you enjoyed today’s discussion. We will meet you again soon. Till then, good luck!