More than, YouTube is currently the second social network with the most users in the world, only behind Facebookand this in turn makes it a powerhouse in terms of marketing, as its users spend more than a billion hours a day watching videos, while one in 4 of them consume brand videos. Of course, know how the algorithm works YouTube is essential to improve your campaigns in Google’s great video social network, and to make it easier for you, the same company has decided to reveal its secrets.
This is how the YouTube algorithm works
As is the case on as well as and platforms, YouTube’s algorithm seeks to show users the videos they are most likely to want to watch, or at least those that the same algorithm determines relevant to the user based on how they have reacted and navigated on their platform: searches, likes, reactions, and even comments and playback history.
Now, YouTube has wanted to answer some of the common questions that marketers continually ask themselves: how YouTube’s algorithm works, plus why its video metrics don’t always reflect performance.
Via , Patricia and RachelYouTube product managers, focus on analyzing the impact of the click-through rate () as well as the average view duration (AVD)and how YouTube’s algorithm factors them into video distribution and performance.
How CTR Influences YouTube Algorithm Ranking
according to this video “CTR is a really hard metric to fully understand. Many creators, if you watch their most successful videos, you will discover that the videos with the most views are the ones most likely to have the lowest click-through rate”.
But how is this possible? YouTube explains that high-distribution videos end up being shown to a much larger audiencewhich means that your content will be shown to many more people who are less familiar with the channel and what it shows.
That inevitably means that the CTR will be lower. But somehow this is a consequence of success: the wider the distribution, depending on how your video performs, the lower your CTR will be.
YouTube goes on to state that “Secondly, some of the less relevant videos are shown to a very specific and small but relevant target audiencewho are more likely to click, so they could have a really high click-through rate”.
So it makes a lot of sense that there would be a discrepancy between performance when your CTR is low on high-performing videos, even if on the surface this data should correlate. Of course, YouTube knows that this can make it difficult to understand performance metrics in general, or make it more difficult to track trends on its platform. YouTube recommends that creators consider all available metrics, including for better comparison.
YouTube also clarified that different sections like home or “next” have different ways of deciding which videos to show to users. In the case of YouTube home, recommendations will be based on the user’s viewing history, while “next” videos will be determined based on what the user has just watched.
The impact of average viewing duration
Regarding the impact of ADL (average duration of views or average viewer durationfor its acronym in English), YouTube ensures that it is one of several factors that effectively influence what will be displayed in a user’s home feed.
“Overall click-through rate and AVD are pretty good indicators of how your video is performing overall, but they will definitely not cover all cases. Having more traffic from outside won’t hurt your discovery or the way your video is recommended on Start or Following. Sometimes you have to do research on individual traffic sources.”
In addition, YouTube has explained that new analytics screen filters CTR and AVD for both “Start” and “Watch Next”which will make it easier to understand the impact of external sources on these two metrics.
What happens in cases where the CTR and AVD is good, but the video performs less than expected? According to YouTube”CTR and AVD are among dozens of other signals that we use for search and discovery rankings, but there are also other factors that influence how many impressions your videos will get, and how many people will see them.”
Among these factors are:
- Competition. Sometimes even if a video meets all the requirements, it will not fare well due to the level of competition for the audience.
- thematic interest. Some themes are simply more popular than others. As YouTube explains, “For example, football: there are more people in the world interested in football than in golf.”
- Seasonality: In addition, some topics will have higher levels of interest at different times of the year, which will consequently make other topics stop being a trend, as is the case for example with Christmas-themed videos.
Does the length of the video matter?
In its tutorial, YouTube also addresses the concern that its algorithm unfairly compares the AVD of videos of different lengths.
“In fact we look at both relative and absolute playback time, are significant signals of how your videos will be recommended. It’s easier for short videos to hit a really high amount of average viewed percentage. But we can only focus creators on a few metrics, and we chose average view duration because the amount of time someone spends with you on your content is a very strong indicator of interest. That said, we want videos of all lengths to be successful on YouTube and to be discovered.”
In any case, along with these tips, YouTube ensures that you are working on new tools to provide more insight into video metrics on their platform, helping creators maximize their views. Among these tools stands out one designed to allow A/B tests with the covers of the videos, as well as another that allows compare a channel’s metrics with that of similar or competing channelsas is currently the case on Facebook.
Stay informed of the most relevant news on our news channel
Facebook Comments
Disqus