Why Is My Audience Retention So Low?

[Min/Max Munchking]

From what I've seen everywhere, everyone seems to say that at least a CTR of 3% or above is good, and pretty much all my videos are above that, going even into the 6-7% territory, so is that really an issue? Also I was actually planning on implementing a slightly different style to my thumbnails based on a whole load of stuff that a few YouTube gurus shared back when I went to VidCon London in Feb, so I'm just gonna hope they will finally help, as apart from that I'm kind out of things to change again, and if that doesn't help the channel grow after almost 7 years now, then it's gonna be even more confusing.

Admittedly, I operate within my own "bubble", so my observations and opinions stem primarily and almost solely from my own experience running this D&D channel.

3-7% on a video with thousands of views is almost inevitable in most cases - that's where most of my videos end up after a while. However, one pattern that constantly repeats in my own case is that if the video doesn't get 15%+ CTR during its first couple hundred views, it just tanks immediately and gets absolutely nowhere. And even if it gets awesome CTR right away, if it drops from 15% to 5% during the first couple hundred views, it won't get nearly as much traction in the algorithm as those that managed to linger closer to 10% for an extended period of time.

That's why my last video barely broke 400 views (3.9%), the video before it is still struggling to break 1,000 (5.3%), but the video before those 2 latest videos is sitting at 32k+ views at the moment of typing this, and it's still getting 1000-2000 views per day, even though it's almost 2 weeks old at this point. It's currently sitting at 8.6%, last few days it was jumping around 9% on average.

Out of all my videos, none other than that one ever managed to maintain anywhere close to ~10% CTR for the first 5.5k views, so even though correlation doesn't prove causation, it must mean something at least. Heck, even YT analytics informs you that you will get promoted more if you increase your CTR and watchtime.

As I said, these CTRs might be niche-specific, I don't know that, but every channel has some minimum number you have to try and get as often as possible.

 

[Atheno]

Alright! Here is your answer! The reasoning that you haven't been being shown to people is for a few reasons. First, you need to look at your average view duration/viewer retention. When a video gets 50%+ average view duration (10 min video), you will pretty much blow up. However, that is really hard. After watching a few of your videos I noticed a few things that you could improve on. I would probably say that you should change up your editing style a little bit in terms of blank air space. Try to make it so that there is no space in between where you are talking. Other than that, just always try improving your overall video quality in terms of viewer retention. If people enjoy your video, your video will get better viewer retention. Another thing that I would recommend is to improve on your thumbnails. A 2% click-through rate is very poor. You should aim for 15%. Since people may not watch as long, YouTube won't recommend it as much. Since it doesn't recommend it as much and people aren't clicking your thumbnail, that is why you haven't been getting many views. I also just discovered this myself through some research and have proved this right by looking at my own data.

 

[waks]

Alright! Here is your answer! The reasoning that you haven't been being shown to people is for a few reasons. First, you need to look at your average view duration/viewer retention. When a video gets 50%+ average view duration (10 min video), you will pretty much blow up. However, that is really hard. After watching a few of your videos I noticed a few things that you could improve on. I would probably say that you should change up your editing style a little bit in terms of blank air space. Try to make it so that there is no space in between where you are talking. Other than that, just always try improving your overall video quality in terms of viewer retention. If people enjoy your video, your video will get better viewer retention. Another thing that I would recommend is to improve on your thumbnails. A 2% click-through rate is very poor. You should aim for 15%. Since people may not watch as long, YouTube won't recommend it as much. Since it doesn't recommend it as much and people aren't clicking your thumbnail, that is why you haven't been getting many views. I also just discovered this myself through some research and have proved this right by looking at my own data.

That's what I have observed. i.e. Video Quality.

Your voice quality is fine. However, two things should be done right away. 1. Lighting 2. change the background of your studio. Use green screen or change background physically.

 

[avronaYT]

That's what I have observed. i.e. Video Quality.

Your voice quality is fine. However, two things should be done right away. 1. Lighting 2. change the background of your studio. Use green screen or change background physically.

What exactly to change in lighting? Also I can't really afford a green screen and I specifically remade my background to look good for videos.

 

[waks]

What exactly to change in lighting? Also I can't really afford a green screen and I specifically remade my background to look good for videos.

There is lots of light on your face. It reflects sometime. May be it's the result of over editing. Research on best angles in studio. Search on green screen in YouTube. It's very simple. You just need to buy a green cloth and later edit n editing software.

 

[Giz Edwards]

My recommendations are to not focus on developing a bigger audience. Cultivate the one you currently have.

Your content is good. (Not my cup of tea, but objectively it is good content). So the issue may have something to do with the search-ability of your content. SEO tagging perhaps? or details in the description?

However my biggest suggestion is... make shorter content. The screenshots info you provided, suggests that your content is not being watched a lot. If your video is 10 mins long then people are spending 2 mins before dropping off. So take the same value you bring in a 10 min video and condense it to a 5 min video.

It is tough to do, very tough. However people MAY find that the value you are giving, is the same as a longer video, in a much better size. You keep delivering value after value, over and over again at a rapid pace.

I am not 100% sure if it will help, but its a start.

EDIT: Also, don't spend more money on kit. Story (value) is king. You don't need fancy kit.

 

[kobemamba824]

In the past few years I've really been spending a lot of time looking through my whole channel, through all my analytics, and over-analysing everything about my channel to try and finally find some reason for why it's only at 1.3k subs after 6 years, with most being inactive, and over 1k of them just being from a video made about me by a bigger channel. And the issue is that there seems to be nothing that should be causing that. I do the things the algorithm wants, at least all the ones I know of, and I've even upped the quality of my videos recently with a new camera, meaning all my videos are now uploaded in 4k, and yet still nothing, after so long. I've posted regularly, did as much algorithm worshiping tricks as I know, my CTR is fine and other stats that affect your standing with the algorithm seem fine also, and yet the channel is not growing whatever I do. The only stat is isn't really performing well is my retention, which is bizarre is as it barely went up over the years despite huge improvements in video quality. Could that low retention be the reason my chanel is performing so horribly? And if so how do I fix it?

I've even spent like a total of like £1500 on it over the last year alone on new equipment and still nothing. So any ideas on what could be causing this?

Not even paid reviewers or anyone else from the dozens of people I asked seem to be able to find some answers. If you need any more info or stats so we can solve this mystery once and for all please let me know!

Here's my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/avrona

Stats for my last 5 videos:

https://imgur.com/a/nyb2weu

putting relevant tags and keywords I think would help.

 

[avronaYT]

My recommendations are to not focus on developing a bigger audience. Cultivate the one you currently have.

Your content is good. (Not my cup of tea, but objectively it is good content). So the issue may have something to do with the search-ability of your content. SEO tagging perhaps? or details in the description?

However my biggest suggestion is... make shorter content. The screenshots info you provided, suggests that your content is not being watched a lot. If your video is 10 mins long then people are spending 2 mins before dropping off. So take the same value you bring in a 10 min video and condense it to a 5 min video.

It is tough to do, very tough. However people MAY find that the value you are giving, is the same as a longer video, in a much better size. You keep delivering value after value, over and over again at a rapid pace.

I am not 100% sure if it will help, but its a start.

EDIT: Also, don't spend more money on kit. Story (value) is king. You don't need fancy kit.

Issue is I don't really even have a current audience. Barely any of my subs are active and there's really nothing I'd do differently to cater to the two groups as there's barely anything you can do differently. Also I've already spent thousands of £ on new kit and most likely will be forced to do so more seeing how nothing else is helping my channel either.

putting relevant tags and keywords I think would help.

That's what I try to do already in fact been doing that since my channel started all those years ago, even use a paid version of Tubebuddy to help with that one, yet still nothing, so any more ideas on what could be causing that?

 

[wchap001]

personally myself and I can tell you as someone who watches YT regular, the fact that you show your face through out almost the entire video only, is enough just skip through. I tend to do that as well. A good way to learn human behavior is simply what make YOU retain in that video. I personally leave video within a few seconds if its just them alone with nothing to stimulate me.

Most of my videos are 3 to 4 mins retention time which is almost the entire video. and I do things that will make ME stay on the video of another person, usually a lot of broll and lot psychology involved, things that move a lot and come in and out of the screen. Im still new to YT, only about 1 yr but I manage to get an avg of 150 subs a month now and good enough retention rate to help me figure out what makes people stay

Perfect example, you know who thoughty is I am sure. he shows his face a lot, but also he uses simple broll stuff and images to CAPTURE the audience.
It is something Ive been doing a lot more of with my new to release videos and noticed my retention rate is much higher although its high as it is.

this is thoughty