I've been struggling with this...

One thing about YouTube is that it is a grind.

A tough nut to crack, just plain old hard.

WHY?

Because YouTube, at least to me, is more of an art than a science.

There are definitely numbers you can attribute to certain phenomena, but a lot of it is just plain old “feels.”

Allow me to explain.

— Paid Ad —

Put your money to work in a high-yield cash account with up to $2M in FDIC† insurance through program banks.

Get started today, with as little as $10.

_{*sponsored post}

One of the biggest questions I have always had with YouTube is when do you change a Thumbnail vs when do you change a title or when do you just give up on a video completely and just move on.

Well, I got an answer.

Check out this guy on Twitter/X, his name is Vexian. 

He is one of the co-founders (or maybe just a big advocate) of the tool 1 of 10.

He posts some pretty awesome videos on X just talking about what’s going through his mind when doing YouTube analytics audits for videos.

But there is one thing he said that really got me thinking and will be trying out from now on.

It’s a little loaded in the way it was written, but here is what I got from it.

Problem is the Topic when:

Few impressions or views

Problem is the Thumbnail when:

Many impressions but extremely low CTR

Problem is the Title when:

Many impressions/views, but low watch time

Check Search Terms when:

If your suggested videos and search terms are WAY OFF, it’s YouTube, give it more time for the algo to figure it out. 

And that is the framework…

Take it for what it’s worth, but it’s at least something to go off of when trying to figure out when to change stuff on a new video.

I want to throw out there that certain phrases like “extremely low CTR” or “low watch time” are all relative to YOUR channel and YOUR analytics.

So get a baseline for metrics such as views, impressions, average view duration,and CTR, at certain times of a new video going live.

I like to do 1 hour in, 4 hours in, 24 hours in, 3 days, 5 days, and 7 days.

That way you know where a video “should be” at those times.

It takes a while to compile the analytics, but it helps to know when a video is underperforming/overperforming and doing more than just going by “feel”

Chat soon,
Chris Myles