Two questions regarding the audience retention graph on YouTube

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bsidh512

Member
Hi, I have two questions regarding the audience retention graph on YouTube. On one of my videos, it shows 82.3% on the 0 second mark, and on another video, it shows 58.1% at the 0 second mark. Shouldn't the % start at 100% at the 0 second mark for both videos, given that all of the audience would start watching from the 0 second mark? Both videos never reach 100% at any time on the graph.

Secondly, is the average view duration the amount of the video that the average viewer watches starting from the 0 second mark, or is it based on how many random minutes of the video the average viewer watched? For example, if the average view duration of a video is 1 minute and 25 seconds of a 5 minute video (average % viewed is around 28%), does that mean that the average viewer watched only the first 1 minute and 25 seconds of the video, or that they watched any random 1 minute and 25 seconds of the video?

Thanks!

EDIT: sorry one more thing, all of this information would be based on all of the views the video got rather than just views from subscribers, correct? And worldwide views?
 
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To answer your first question: 82.3% at 0-second mark suggest that roughly 18% of users left your video at the very first second. 58.1% suggest that 42% of users left your video at the very first second.

The view duration tells the average %(or time) watched in total. E.g. if I have a 5 min video and someone watches the first minute and then skips to the last minute. He would have watched a total of 2 minutes out of 5. The retention would be 40%.

That's right. The retention is calculated based on the total views the video got (which includes subscribers and non-subscribers).
 
mashtanda said:
To answer your first question: 82.3% at 0-second mark suggest that roughly 18% of users left your video at the very first second. 58.1% suggest that 42% of users left your video at the very first second.

The view duration tells the average %(or time) watched in total. E.g. if I have a 5 min video and someone watches the first minute and then skips to the last minute. He would have watched a total of 2 minutes out of 5. The retention would be 40%.

That's right. The retention is calculated based on the total views the video got (which includes subscribers and non-subscribers).
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Thank you so much for your response! Getting to the first part again, for those people that are leaving the video at the very first second, are those people still counted as part of the overall views for the video? For example, if my video is showing 680 views, are those people that left at the very first second being counted as part of the views?

And okay, so using your example, that person's view duration would be 2 minutes, with that person's % viewed being 40%?
 
Yes, those views are part of the overall view count. Sometimes, Google does remove some views which it considers spammy after a few hours/days. But your total views will take into account those 1-second views too.

That's right. So a video with 40% retention means that on average people watch 40% of your video in total. It doesn't necessarily mean the first 40%. Some people will watch the whole video bringing the average retention higher. Others will stop watching after 5 seconds bringing the retention lower. Some might fast forward and watch half of it on average.
 
mashtanda said:
Yes, those views are part of the overall view count. Sometimes, Google does remove some views which it considers spammy after a few hours/days. But your total views will take into account those 1-second views too.

That's right. So a video with 40% retention means that on average people watch 40% of your video in total. It doesn't necessarily mean the first 40%. Some people will watch the whole video bringing the average retention higher. Others will stop watching after 5 seconds bringing the retention lower. Some might fast forward and watch half of it on average.
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Thanks once again! Lastly just to clarify, 40% retention is referring to the same thing which is average view duration (%watched) right? Sorry I'm still new with these terms
 
Yes. Average Retention is in % and Average View duration is in time. E.g. a 5-minute video that has a 40% average retention will have a 2-minute average view duration.
 
just going to add this because I'm curious and throwing ideas out,

I wonder if seeing an ad show up before the video starts, and leaving the video is where these 0 second views come from?
 
Lightsen said:
just going to add this because I'm curious and throwing ideas out,

I wonder if seeing an ad show up before the video starts, and leaving the video is where these 0 second views come from?
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It could be, though I must say I haven't noticed any drawbacks in anayltics ever since I turned on ads a few weeks ago (November 17). None of my videos ever had 100% retention at the 0 second mark. Some people just click on the video and leave immediately for whatever reason.
 
Min/Max Munchking said:
It could be, though I must say I haven't noticed any drawbacks in anayltics ever since I turned on ads a few weeks ago (November 17). None of my videos ever had 100% retention at the 0 second mark. Some people just click on the video and leave immediately for whatever reason.
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yeah just to me, if you click then click off it should still count as 100 for the first second. ah well, youtube is weird at how it measures things
 
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