Hi ALL! I am George Pierce, and at the start of my online adventue, I hated analytics of any kind. I was new and, honestly, I was terrible at Internet Marketing. So, for me, analytics were not only boring, but also they confirmed the fact that I was doing poorly. I felt that I did not need to be reminded of my inadequate results, so I made one of my many IM mistakes...I avoided analytics. I believe that many new and aspiring IMs are also guilty of the same mistake. In my case, I compounded the mistake of avoiding analytics. How? I continued to avoid them for months.
My intent for this post is to help you to change your attitude toward analytics, to help you to stop avoiding your analytics. Why should you? I discovered that analytics are your friend, not your enemy. Analytics will show you almost instantly what you are doing right! Yes, analytics also will show you what you are doing wrong, and although I initially took this remnder as a negative, it is a positive. In fact, our wrongs are our best teachers, and they are often hidden levers that will boost our results more effectively than what we are doing right.
In this post I will share an overview of the analytics of a recent video. It so happens that YT analytics are the best and they are free. The better the analytics, the more boring they may seem, so please stay with me, because analytics can be exciting!
Exciting!??
YouTube analytics show us the good and the bad. Why that is exciting, is that we can DO MORE of what is working, and we can take steps to FIX what is not. Let's begin with some of what is good. The snapshot (above) shows a video has already gotten over 10K impressions. Impressions are when a prospective viewers sees the thumbnail (for 1 seond or more). In order to get 10K impressions, YT is sharing or showing the video's thumbnail and title to prospective viewers. Technically, YT does this with every video, so what is the big deal?
The big deal is that YT is continuing to share the video. The underlying reason for this, is that people are watching the video! Viewers are liking the content. One of the secrets of online success is to "find out what your audience wants" and then "give it to them". YT analytics will show you when you are making that happen!
As mentioned, analytics will also point out what we are doing wrong. As you see in the snapshot immediately above, the CTR is 1.7%. Out of every 100 impressions, 1.7 people are clicking on the vdeo, or 17 out of 1,000 people. A CTR above 1% is OK, but many of my videos are 3%, 4%, and more. If you will look at the top snapshot, you will see that I am changing the thumbnail. When I make a change, I also make note that the original thumbnail yielded 236 views out of 10.2K impressions, 1.7%. So I can compare the performances.
Making simple changes, such as a new thumbnail is called test and tweaking. You make a tweak, and compare the results. As you gain experience, testing and tweaking will become one of your best strategies for improving and for growth.
Your analytics with be your secret assistant, your guide, to helping you know exactly what needs tweaking!
Thank you for reading.
Much success,
George Pierce
PS. For more help with your onlne adventure, visit my free training channel.
PPS. The channel that the video is on is new, so analytics are even more helpful. They can point us in the right direction and help us avoid the wrong direction. Below is the video with a new thumbnail, will it do better? Analytics will tell us.
Comments
You can't know where you are going unless you know where you are. Analytics is how you know where you are. Testing and tweaking will only work if you know what is delivering the results you want.
Testing and tweaking is one of the strategies that I feel can help newbies to better compete, and, I agree, we need analytics to know where we are, and to know what is delivering results, thank you, Dennis.
The new thumbnail is at 2.8% vs. 1.7% for the previous one, or 11 more click throughs (visitors) per 1K impressions. Versus 10.2K, the new thumb will generate about 110 more views. Analytics can help you.