Card placement and abandonment

[YAOG]

I'm just curious as to how far into a video you guys place your cards. I'm afraid that if I place cards too close to the beginning of the video, that people might see the preview pop-out and click immediately if they find the card interesting. The other concern is that if I place it too far into the video, the viewer might leave the video before even noticing the card.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[JesusGreen]

The people who will leave your video a minute in because they see an interesting looking card are the people who will leave your video in anyway a minute in because they see an interesting thumbnail somewhere in the related videos.

Also, even if you're concerned about this affecting your watch time - the important watch time metric that you should be concerned about is session length. A session ends when someone leaves YouTube, not when they leave your video. So it doesn't matter so much if someone leaves your video early on if they then go on to watch more videos from you or someone else.

My suggestion is to use a combination of some cards early in your videos (to have a chance of sending viewers who get bored early elsewhere before they leave) as well as near the end so those who watched all the way through have somewhere to go next.

If these are cards for products/external websites then my advice is to time them with you mentioning the products etc and giving a reason to get them in the video. That way the people who actually bother to click through are the ones who're likely to make a purchase - so while you'll get some session ends that'll negatively affect your rankings, it'll balance out from the sales you get.

 

[YAOG]

The people who will leave your video a minute in because they see an interesting looking card are the people who will leave your video in anyway a minute in because they see an interesting thumbnail somewhere in the related videos.

That makes sense. I am hoping that's the case.

So it doesn't matter so much if someone leaves your video early on if they then go on to watch more videos from you or someone else.

Yes, but by the same token you do want your viewers to view as much of your own video as possible since that would theoretically contribute to a greater overall session length. If they're abandoning your video very early on, for whatever reason, it indicates a YT experience that isn't so great, and a higher probability of them leaving the site. Of course, if what you mentioned in the first paragraph is correct than they might leave anyway for a variety of distracting reasons.

My suggestion is to use a combination of some cards early in your videos (to have a chance of sending viewers who get bored early elsewhere before they leave) as well as near the end so those who watched all the way through have somewhere to go next.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. I think that as people get more used to cards we will see an increase in card clicks. How do you do personally with cards and/or end cards?

Thanks for the input.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Cards are best placed in locations where audience retention drops off sharply in past videos. As mentioned, session time trumps individual video watch times as a metric. You can also start to place cards at your average view duration if you can't do it video by video. It's also best to update your cards with every new upload, to drive as much traffic as possible to your latest video. I generally run a card update on all 190 videos on our channel immediately after the upload, getting as many eyes as possible on a new upload is critical.

 

[JesusGreen]

Yes, but by the same token you do want your viewers to view as much of your own video as possible since that would theoretically contribute to a greater overall session length. If they're abandoning your video very early on, for whatever reason, it indicates a YT experience that isn't so great, and a higher probability of them leaving the site. Of course, if what you mentioned in the first paragraph is correct than they might leave anyway for a variety of distracting reasons.

Actually it doesn't matter as long as they stay on YouTube. Overall session length is a factor, but session ends (leaving YouTube) are a factor that gets penalised more.

If someone someone watches 1 minute of your video, goes to someone else's video, and only leaves YouTube in the middle of THEIR video, then it is the other person who is penalised rather than you. So it is actually better to send the people with short attention spans elsewhere, because the algorithm will react to that better than if they stayed on your video longer but then left the site completely in the middle of your video/at the end of your video.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

So it is actually better to send the people with short attention spans elsewhere, because the algorithm will react to that better than if they stayed on your video longer but then left the site completely in the middle of your video/at the end of your video.

That is actually a really good point. Thanks for solidifying that concept so clearly.

 

[YAOG]

but session ends (leaving YouTube) are a factor that gets penalised more.

I've heard that mentioned before, but I frankly do not believe it. I've seen nothing but shoddy research that attempts to prove to what extent such a penalty affects a channel. It's important for us to remember that the algorithm is far more complex than anyone ever seems to like to give it credit for. And it's dynamic, ever changing. They tweak the algorithm more often than people realize. The one thing we know for sure is that Youtube's search and suggested video algorithms give preference to those videos that lead to a longer overall viewing session. We know this because Youtube has told us this (for the first time, way back in 2011 when the changes were announced first in a google products forum thread. There was a lot of questions and a lot of solid, thought out answers from Google employees. It was a very interesting time). Much of the rest, and especially session-ends, is pure conjecture, a mixture of educated speculation and incredibly unscientific testing.

That being said, the only content I can control is my own. The only way for me to assure a decent session length for a viewer that happens upon my channel is to keep them on my channel for as long as I can. This also (obviously) helps me because of the ad revenue from them visiting multiple videos. If someone has a short attention span, them staying on my video for a longer period of time shouldn't have any effect on whether they abandon the site at that point or move on to another video on either my channel or someone else's. If I believed that there was some huge site abandonment penalty, I'd be more concerned and more inclined to agree with you, but I don't. I just don't see any evidence of it, nor do I think it would make much sense for Youtube to weigh that kind of metric so heavily. I mean, people leave Youtube for a huge variety of reasons having nothing to do with the content of the video they were watching when they left. It wouldn't make sense.