YouTube Partner Manager - Watchtime is most important

EVO

EVO

I Love YTtalk
So I asked my YouTube Partner Manager -
As watchtime is most important does the audience retention matter?
For example If I still get 2 mins watch time with a video 5 mins long compared to 2 mins watch time with a video 10 mins long. Is 40% retention better than 20%? Or just the 2 mins that is important?
As I recently increased my videos to over 10 minutes to enjoy additional ad placements. Since this i have enjoyed an increase of CTRs - May or may not be linked?

His response -
On the audience retention questions total minutes matter above all and then % watched is a good measure of how engaging the content was. It's good that you've lengthened your content, keep an eye out on both minutes watched and %. It's fine if your total minutes grow but % drops a bit.
So if you get 3 minutes watched on a 10 minute piece of content (30%) that would be better than 2:50 minutes on a 5 minute video (50%)
CTRs probably unrelated.
 
EVO said:
So if you get 3 minutes watched on a 10 minute piece of content (30%) that would be better than 2:50 minutes on a 5 minute video (50%)
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Heh thought so. I should make only long videos now since whether my videos are short or long, I keep getting around 40-50% either way.

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The only problem is it also takes longer to make. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
My impression of %retention from our YtPM is more as a gauge to see where in videos viewers drop off, with the aim to learn better video craft and make videos more engaging. Ideally, have more of the peaks and less of the troughs. Total watch time per viewer session is #1, and your contribution towards it the most important parameter for your channel. Are you in the kids vertical? If not, would good to get some ideas from another vertical, I've had the same thing drummed into my head for months now about kids channels.
 
EVO said:
So I asked my YouTube Partner Manager -
As watchtime is most important does the audience retention matter?
For example If I still get 2 mins watch time with a video 5 mins long compared to 2 mins watch time with a video 10 mins long. Is 40% retention better than 20%? Or just the 2 mins that is important?
As I recently increased my videos to over 10 minutes to enjoy additional ad placements. Since this i have enjoyed an increase of CTRs - May or may not be linked?

His response -
On the audience retention questions total minutes matter above all and then % watched is a good measure of how engaging the content was. It's good that you've lengthened your content, keep an eye out on both minutes watched and %. It's fine if your total minutes grow but % drops a bit.
So if you get 3 minutes watched on a 10 minute piece of content (30%) that would be better than 2:50 minutes on a 5 minute video (50%)
CTRs probably unrelated.
Click to expand...
I spoke to two YT brand managers in november last year and they told me it was the other way around. I personally think it's better to aim for both while they make up their mind haha
 
On the YouTube Creator Community forums, several YouTube partner managers confirmed that watch time matters more.

The one wrinkle they also pointed that session watch time is more important, but those statistics are not readily available to us to check out. But if videos who have a higher % retention on a shorter video end up watching other videos on youtube, then that might result in a higher watch session vs. if they left YouTube after watching a longer video with shorter % retention.
 
This is really interesting and conforms what I thought. Now I just need to make my videos over 10 minutes but still keep them engaging and entertaining
 
adams eats said:
This is really interesting and conforms what I thought. Now I just need to make my videos over 10 minutes but still keep them engaging and entertaining
Click to expand...

You don't have to make them longer. Our YtPM says make them engaging and entertaining, irrespective of length (within reason). A sweet spot is 3-6 minutes. More important is keeping the viewers entertained and watching, as opposed to aiming for an arbitrary length (unless of course you want >1 ad in there mid roll).
 
KiddieToysReview said:
You don't have to make them longer. Our YtPM says make them engaging and entertaining, irrespective of length (within reason). A sweet spot is 3-6 minutes. More important is keeping the viewers entertained and watching, as opposed to aiming for an arbitrary length (unless of course you want >1 ad in there mid roll).
Click to expand...
Oh right ok haha. I must have mis understood. Man youtube is complex! With your sub count you must be well versed in these things so thanks for the clarity ☺
 
Interesting. We have recently begun trying to increase the length of our videos and in turn, have seen our watch time increase. I always thought that a lower percentage of viewer retention would hurt our channel but it seems that simply having more watch time has certainly helped as of recently!
 
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