Maximize Your YouTube Channels Using Google Analytics

How to Use YouTube Analytics to Grow Your Channel?

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

YouTube data is valuable because it can show you why you aren’t getting more subscribers and why certain videos aren’t getting the views you expected. Data can also identify all the positive results and give you insights into what worked.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

1. Overview
2. Realtime
3. Revenue
4. Ad Rates
5. Watch Time
6. Audience Retention
7. Demographics
8. Playback Locations
9. Traffic Sources
10. Devices
11. Translations
12. Subscribers
13. Likes and Dislikes
14. Videos in Playlists
15. Comments
16. Sharing
17. Annotations
18. Cards
19. End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

The Overview dashboard breaks down all your key stats. If you want a deeper dive, you can click into each of the section headers and it will give you an in-depth look at the analytics of that specific category.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

In Overview you can see where the majority of your audience is from, what gender they are, how they are discovering your videos in Traffic Source, and where they are watching your video in Playback Locations:

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

The Realtime report is a fantastic tool for seeing the immediate performance of your channel, which automatically updates every 10 seconds. There are two main views: The last 48 hours and the Last 60 Minutes.

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

If you notice that you are getting a lot of views from the US, but also notice that people are about to go to sleep and the trend shows that it drops at that point in the past 24 hours, you can decide whether to schedule the post for the next morning or you can see if a boost at this point can keep the audience awake.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

For example, if you published a video this morning and shared it on your Facebook page, and you checked in this morning and saw that there was only a small amount of views, you may want to share it on a different platform so that it can get more exposure.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

1. Dropdown menu

1. Calendar

1. Slide Bar

You can also change how you view your data, whether Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc. This way you can see exactly how much you made each day, week, or month, and determine if you can correlate a particular dip or spike to an event that occurred.

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Different countries have different rates for how much creators can make off Adsense. Click into Geography and see how much you are making in different countries and consider which audience is best to focus your attention on with the intention of increasing revenue.

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

This tells you that while Views may be an important metric, it won’t affect your revenue. This can mean that you haven’t been reaching the audience that will engage with the ads, consider a slight content shift.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

Playback-based CPM: This is an estimation from YouTube on how much money you can make if you had 1,000 views from a monetized video. This is based on the parameters of the advertisers, your current number of views, and where your viewers are from.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

This allows you to not only see the estimated earnings but also how many times the ad was shown. On top of that, the CPM gives you an idea of what YouTube deems to be more valuable content for advertisers, which gives you a better idea about the capabilities of the video and offers insight into the type of videos you make in the future.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

But as you accumulate more and more monetized videos, and you will start seeing which videos are stronger in getting you ad engagements and which aren’t. The result might surprise you and help inform your next phase of videos.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

YouTube puts a lot of weight on this metric because they know that the more time people spend watching your original content, the more time they will have to show ads to your audience. Overall, you’ll want to see a steady rise for your Watch Time as it will indicate that you have a growing dedicated viewership.

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

Like Watch Time, Audience Retention is a metric YouTube uses to determine how valuable your video is and how worthy it is in being discovered by your audience. It’s important to learn where in your video you are losing viewers.

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

1. Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
2. Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

While you should aim to have 100% audience retention, if you can get an average above 50%, you are doing something right. Anything under, you may want to consider changing up your strategy (content, structure, pacing, etc.).

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Absolute Audience Retention: This report shows you the number of views at every point in the video as a percentage. This will let you know which part of the video is most popular, which part is causing a big drop off, and which part viewers are skipping to or rewatching.

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

Audience retention can give you a lot of insights on how you should be structuring your videos. If you notice a steep drop in viewership, you can assume that what the viewer is watching is not that interesting.

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

In the example below, we see that there is a peak at the point in this video where a specific part of a tutorial is shown. Viewers were most likely rewatching to confirm they understand the information, so they can apply it themselves.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

The first thing you’ll see when you enter the Demographic dashboard is the segmentation of your audience by age and gender. This gives you a good indication of who your overall channel is currently attracting.

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Not only will you be able to see which region the majority of your viewerships are from, but you can also segment and compare by demographics. This will give you a more insightful view of how your channel is performing across the world for different people.

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

Understanding which group makes up the majority of your viewership will help you decide how to strategize the next phase of content. Will you keep growing that audience or will you want to grow in another demographic?

If you noticed that you have an underperforming female demographic in India, you can plan out some content that focus on that community. Without this report, you cannot see where you are missing opportunities.

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

If your video is only promoted organically your views will likely be coming from the YouTube Watch Page, but if other media publications embedded your video, and it’s getting a lot of views, you can see it here.

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

By clicking into the Embedded in External Websites and Apps report, you’ll be able to see all the different websites and apps that your video is featured on. This will give you a good indication of which sites and apps are driving the most views.

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

You can reach out to the website that has embedded your video and thank them for sharing your content, and maybe they will be happy to share more. This way you create a relationship with them, which can increase your network and also improve the chances of your videos being discovered.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

If you see that you are getting a lot of viewers coming from Suggested Videos, go to that report and see which external video was directing viewers to yours. These suggested videos can be your own or it can be from another YouTube creator.

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

By clicking into the YouTube search, you can see what viewers searched in order to find your video. This can be useful in understanding your viewers’ mindset: were they trying to solve a problem or answer a question?

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

The way viewers watch content on their mobile phones is very different from the way they watch on television. By understanding how the majority of your viewers are watching your content, you can better design and structure your video.

For example, if you see that you have a large following that watches your content on mobile, then it might not be a good idea to load your video with too much text, as it’ll be hard for them to read.

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

Find Out Where People Clicked Subscribe

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

If you see that you are getting a lot of conversions from the YouTube Watch Page, you can dig in and see which video specifically you should give credit to for earning your subscribers — and which ones are causing people to unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

If you see a video is earning you a lot of subscribers, it might be a good idea to give it a boost and make sure more people discover it. However, if you see a video is causing people to click unsubscribe, even though it might be a video you love, consider removing it from your channel as it might be doing more harm than good for your channel growth.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

In addition to seeing the total Likes and Dislikes your channel received, in this report, you can see the Likes and Dislikes of individual videos. This gives you a quick glance at how your viewers are enjoying your channel and videos.

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

See if there is a correlation between the channel’s performance and how viewers give Likes and Dislikes. Does increasing views get you more likes? Did a dip in views cause people to stop liking your videos?

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

Knowing how your subscribers and non-subscribers are responding to your content will give you a good idea at how effective your video is at delighting those that know your content well, and those that are newer to your videos.

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

As a creator, you always want to know how your videos are received. Knowing how your audience feels about your content, even if it’s just a Like or Dislike click, is a good indication of whether the public found your work: educational, inspirational, or entertaining.

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

By having a report to see which videos have been added to the playlist, you can see that there is an interest in this type of content. With this knowledge, you can decide that perhaps the audience may be interested in a series around this topic.

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

Identify if there are any direct or indirect effects of having videos in the playlist by comparing it to important metrics such as Watch Time. If you see that there is a boost for days when more videos are added to the playlist, you can start planning more strategies to get video features along with other related content.

How to Use Videos in Playlist

The Videos in the Playlist report give you another perspective on the popularity of videos. Unlike Views or Watch Time, adding a video to a playlist means that the audience will likely watch it again, as they are saving it amongst related content or as a favorite video.

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Select a time period and see how many comments your channel and videos got at that point. Knowing which video gets you the most comments and when it happens, gives you a good idea what type of conversations your audience is interested in having.

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

However, there are also benefits of using an external analytics tool like Sotrender . You can adjust the amount of time you want to analyze, visualize the metrics in different ways, and even customize what you want to show in the graphs. What’s more, Sotrender has it’s own metric called the Activity Index, which indicates to what extent your audience is engaging with your videos. You can use this metric in combination with others to see what content your audience is really invested in.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

This report shows you how frequently your audience is sharing your videos to their networks. In addition to Views and Watch Time, knowing the shareability of your content helps guide your videos in achieving viral status.

See Which Sharing Service Is Most Popular For Your Channel

Know which platform your audience is most active on. Understanding this can help you tailor your content to be more shareable on those channels or you can discover your audience’s account on those services and thank them personality.

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

Understand how your videos are getting shared by your viewers. Do you see a spike in shares the first few days after publishing and then it becomes forgotten or is it an evergreen video that keeps getting consistent shares through its lifetime?

Compare Sharing to Views

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

How to Use Sharing Report

Understand what videos you create are more likely to get shares. If you are making a lot of how-to videos, a lot of people might be searching for the content, but unless it is highly relevant, it won’t get shared. The type of content that gets shared are the ones that have an interesting story and delights people.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

When you add annotations to your videos, you would want to know if your audience is actually engaging with it. This report gives you an overview of how frequently your viewers are clicking on the links.

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

Click into a specific video to see which type of annotations are getting engagement and at what time it is happening. If you see that many annotation clicks are happening at a certain point in your video, going forward with your new videos that is where you can insert it.

How to Use Annotations

By finding out when in the video your audience engages with annotations and what type of annotations performs the best, you will have more insights on designing your videos and where to position the annotations to get the optimal results.

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

See what is happening on screen that is making the card more click-worthy, this can help you plan out your next video so that you direct your viewers’ attention to the clickable card teaser so they see it.

How to Use Cards Report

This report helps you understand the different cards and how they are performing within your videos so that you can better plan your content to increase the chances of your audience engaging with your cards.

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

The End Screens report is great for letting you know which of your existing content the audience is interested in seeing after they finished watching one of your videos. As you learn more about your viewers and accumulate more videos, with the help of the End Screens report, you can determine which videos to use to increase Views and Watch Time.

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Learning how to use analytics is not always a skill YouTubers think about when they are making videos, but it plays such an instrumental part throughout the whole stage of creation, from ideation to distribution.

Understanding how your videos are performing shines a light on your process, helps you evaluate what is working and what isn’t, and empower you to think beyond the lens and create videos that really resonates with your growing audience.

If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Filmora, which is equipped with its own footage stock Wondershare Filmstock and will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

YouTube data is valuable because it can show you why you aren’t getting more subscribers and why certain videos aren’t getting the views you expected. Data can also identify all the positive results and give you insights into what worked.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

1. Overview
2. Realtime
3. Revenue
4. Ad Rates
5. Watch Time
6. Audience Retention
7. Demographics
8. Playback Locations
9. Traffic Sources
10. Devices
11. Translations
12. Subscribers
13. Likes and Dislikes
14. Videos in Playlists
15. Comments
16. Sharing
17. Annotations
18. Cards
19. End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

The Overview dashboard breaks down all your key stats. If you want a deeper dive, you can click into each of the section headers and it will give you an in-depth look at the analytics of that specific category.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

In Overview you can see where the majority of your audience is from, what gender they are, how they are discovering your videos in Traffic Source, and where they are watching your video in Playback Locations:

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

The Realtime report is a fantastic tool for seeing the immediate performance of your channel, which automatically updates every 10 seconds. There are two main views: The last 48 hours and the Last 60 Minutes.

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

If you notice that you are getting a lot of views from the US, but also notice that people are about to go to sleep and the trend shows that it drops at that point in the past 24 hours, you can decide whether to schedule the post for the next morning or you can see if a boost at this point can keep the audience awake.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

For example, if you published a video this morning and shared it on your Facebook page, and you checked in this morning and saw that there was only a small amount of views, you may want to share it on a different platform so that it can get more exposure.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

1. Dropdown menu

1. Calendar

1. Slide Bar

You can also change how you view your data, whether Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc. This way you can see exactly how much you made each day, week, or month, and determine if you can correlate a particular dip or spike to an event that occurred.

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Different countries have different rates for how much creators can make off Adsense. Click into Geography and see how much you are making in different countries and consider which audience is best to focus your attention on with the intention of increasing revenue.

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

This tells you that while Views may be an important metric, it won’t affect your revenue. This can mean that you haven’t been reaching the audience that will engage with the ads, consider a slight content shift.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

Playback-based CPM: This is an estimation from YouTube on how much money you can make if you had 1,000 views from a monetized video. This is based on the parameters of the advertisers, your current number of views, and where your viewers are from.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

This allows you to not only see the estimated earnings but also how many times the ad was shown. On top of that, the CPM gives you an idea of what YouTube deems to be more valuable content for advertisers, which gives you a better idea about the capabilities of the video and offers insight into the type of videos you make in the future.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

But as you accumulate more and more monetized videos, and you will start seeing which videos are stronger in getting you ad engagements and which aren’t. The result might surprise you and help inform your next phase of videos.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

YouTube puts a lot of weight on this metric because they know that the more time people spend watching your original content, the more time they will have to show ads to your audience. Overall, you’ll want to see a steady rise for your Watch Time as it will indicate that you have a growing dedicated viewership.

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

Like Watch Time, Audience Retention is a metric YouTube uses to determine how valuable your video is and how worthy it is in being discovered by your audience. It’s important to learn where in your video you are losing viewers.

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

1. Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
2. Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

While you should aim to have 100% audience retention, if you can get an average above 50%, you are doing something right. Anything under, you may want to consider changing up your strategy (content, structure, pacing, etc.).

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Absolute Audience Retention: This report shows you the number of views at every point in the video as a percentage. This will let you know which part of the video is most popular, which part is causing a big drop off, and which part viewers are skipping to or rewatching.

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

Audience retention can give you a lot of insights on how you should be structuring your videos. If you notice a steep drop in viewership, you can assume that what the viewer is watching is not that interesting.

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

In the example below, we see that there is a peak at the point in this video where a specific part of a tutorial is shown. Viewers were most likely rewatching to confirm they understand the information, so they can apply it themselves.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

The first thing you’ll see when you enter the Demographic dashboard is the segmentation of your audience by age and gender. This gives you a good indication of who your overall channel is currently attracting.

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Not only will you be able to see which region the majority of your viewerships are from, but you can also segment and compare by demographics. This will give you a more insightful view of how your channel is performing across the world for different people.

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

Understanding which group makes up the majority of your viewership will help you decide how to strategize the next phase of content. Will you keep growing that audience or will you want to grow in another demographic?

If you noticed that you have an underperforming female demographic in India, you can plan out some content that focus on that community. Without this report, you cannot see where you are missing opportunities.

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

If your video is only promoted organically your views will likely be coming from the YouTube Watch Page, but if other media publications embedded your video, and it’s getting a lot of views, you can see it here.

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

By clicking into the Embedded in External Websites and Apps report, you’ll be able to see all the different websites and apps that your video is featured on. This will give you a good indication of which sites and apps are driving the most views.

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

You can reach out to the website that has embedded your video and thank them for sharing your content, and maybe they will be happy to share more. This way you create a relationship with them, which can increase your network and also improve the chances of your videos being discovered.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

If you see that you are getting a lot of viewers coming from Suggested Videos, go to that report and see which external video was directing viewers to yours. These suggested videos can be your own or it can be from another YouTube creator.

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

By clicking into the YouTube search, you can see what viewers searched in order to find your video. This can be useful in understanding your viewers’ mindset: were they trying to solve a problem or answer a question?

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

The way viewers watch content on their mobile phones is very different from the way they watch on television. By understanding how the majority of your viewers are watching your content, you can better design and structure your video.

For example, if you see that you have a large following that watches your content on mobile, then it might not be a good idea to load your video with too much text, as it’ll be hard for them to read.

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

Find Out Where People Clicked Subscribe

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

If you see that you are getting a lot of conversions from the YouTube Watch Page, you can dig in and see which video specifically you should give credit to for earning your subscribers — and which ones are causing people to unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

If you see a video is earning you a lot of subscribers, it might be a good idea to give it a boost and make sure more people discover it. However, if you see a video is causing people to click unsubscribe, even though it might be a video you love, consider removing it from your channel as it might be doing more harm than good for your channel growth.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

In addition to seeing the total Likes and Dislikes your channel received, in this report, you can see the Likes and Dislikes of individual videos. This gives you a quick glance at how your viewers are enjoying your channel and videos.

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

See if there is a correlation between the channel’s performance and how viewers give Likes and Dislikes. Does increasing views get you more likes? Did a dip in views cause people to stop liking your videos?

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

Knowing how your subscribers and non-subscribers are responding to your content will give you a good idea at how effective your video is at delighting those that know your content well, and those that are newer to your videos.

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

As a creator, you always want to know how your videos are received. Knowing how your audience feels about your content, even if it’s just a Like or Dislike click, is a good indication of whether the public found your work: educational, inspirational, or entertaining.

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

By having a report to see which videos have been added to the playlist, you can see that there is an interest in this type of content. With this knowledge, you can decide that perhaps the audience may be interested in a series around this topic.

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

Identify if there are any direct or indirect effects of having videos in the playlist by comparing it to important metrics such as Watch Time. If you see that there is a boost for days when more videos are added to the playlist, you can start planning more strategies to get video features along with other related content.

How to Use Videos in Playlist

The Videos in the Playlist report give you another perspective on the popularity of videos. Unlike Views or Watch Time, adding a video to a playlist means that the audience will likely watch it again, as they are saving it amongst related content or as a favorite video.

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Select a time period and see how many comments your channel and videos got at that point. Knowing which video gets you the most comments and when it happens, gives you a good idea what type of conversations your audience is interested in having.

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

However, there are also benefits of using an external analytics tool like Sotrender . You can adjust the amount of time you want to analyze, visualize the metrics in different ways, and even customize what you want to show in the graphs. What’s more, Sotrender has it’s own metric called the Activity Index, which indicates to what extent your audience is engaging with your videos. You can use this metric in combination with others to see what content your audience is really invested in.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

This report shows you how frequently your audience is sharing your videos to their networks. In addition to Views and Watch Time, knowing the shareability of your content helps guide your videos in achieving viral status.

See Which Sharing Service Is Most Popular For Your Channel

Know which platform your audience is most active on. Understanding this can help you tailor your content to be more shareable on those channels or you can discover your audience’s account on those services and thank them personality.

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

Understand how your videos are getting shared by your viewers. Do you see a spike in shares the first few days after publishing and then it becomes forgotten or is it an evergreen video that keeps getting consistent shares through its lifetime?

Compare Sharing to Views

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

How to Use Sharing Report

Understand what videos you create are more likely to get shares. If you are making a lot of how-to videos, a lot of people might be searching for the content, but unless it is highly relevant, it won’t get shared. The type of content that gets shared are the ones that have an interesting story and delights people.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

When you add annotations to your videos, you would want to know if your audience is actually engaging with it. This report gives you an overview of how frequently your viewers are clicking on the links.

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

Click into a specific video to see which type of annotations are getting engagement and at what time it is happening. If you see that many annotation clicks are happening at a certain point in your video, going forward with your new videos that is where you can insert it.

How to Use Annotations

By finding out when in the video your audience engages with annotations and what type of annotations performs the best, you will have more insights on designing your videos and where to position the annotations to get the optimal results.

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

See what is happening on screen that is making the card more click-worthy, this can help you plan out your next video so that you direct your viewers’ attention to the clickable card teaser so they see it.

How to Use Cards Report

This report helps you understand the different cards and how they are performing within your videos so that you can better plan your content to increase the chances of your audience engaging with your cards.

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

The End Screens report is great for letting you know which of your existing content the audience is interested in seeing after they finished watching one of your videos. As you learn more about your viewers and accumulate more videos, with the help of the End Screens report, you can determine which videos to use to increase Views and Watch Time.

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Learning how to use analytics is not always a skill YouTubers think about when they are making videos, but it plays such an instrumental part throughout the whole stage of creation, from ideation to distribution.

Understanding how your videos are performing shines a light on your process, helps you evaluate what is working and what isn’t, and empower you to think beyond the lens and create videos that really resonates with your growing audience.

If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Filmora, which is equipped with its own footage stock Wondershare Filmstock and will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

YouTube data is valuable because it can show you why you aren’t getting more subscribers and why certain videos aren’t getting the views you expected. Data can also identify all the positive results and give you insights into what worked.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

1. Overview
2. Realtime
3. Revenue
4. Ad Rates
5. Watch Time
6. Audience Retention
7. Demographics
8. Playback Locations
9. Traffic Sources
10. Devices
11. Translations
12. Subscribers
13. Likes and Dislikes
14. Videos in Playlists
15. Comments
16. Sharing
17. Annotations
18. Cards
19. End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

The Overview dashboard breaks down all your key stats. If you want a deeper dive, you can click into each of the section headers and it will give you an in-depth look at the analytics of that specific category.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

In Overview you can see where the majority of your audience is from, what gender they are, how they are discovering your videos in Traffic Source, and where they are watching your video in Playback Locations:

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

The Realtime report is a fantastic tool for seeing the immediate performance of your channel, which automatically updates every 10 seconds. There are two main views: The last 48 hours and the Last 60 Minutes.

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

If you notice that you are getting a lot of views from the US, but also notice that people are about to go to sleep and the trend shows that it drops at that point in the past 24 hours, you can decide whether to schedule the post for the next morning or you can see if a boost at this point can keep the audience awake.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

For example, if you published a video this morning and shared it on your Facebook page, and you checked in this morning and saw that there was only a small amount of views, you may want to share it on a different platform so that it can get more exposure.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

1. Dropdown menu

1. Calendar

1. Slide Bar

You can also change how you view your data, whether Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc. This way you can see exactly how much you made each day, week, or month, and determine if you can correlate a particular dip or spike to an event that occurred.

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Different countries have different rates for how much creators can make off Adsense. Click into Geography and see how much you are making in different countries and consider which audience is best to focus your attention on with the intention of increasing revenue.

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

This tells you that while Views may be an important metric, it won’t affect your revenue. This can mean that you haven’t been reaching the audience that will engage with the ads, consider a slight content shift.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

Playback-based CPM: This is an estimation from YouTube on how much money you can make if you had 1,000 views from a monetized video. This is based on the parameters of the advertisers, your current number of views, and where your viewers are from.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

This allows you to not only see the estimated earnings but also how many times the ad was shown. On top of that, the CPM gives you an idea of what YouTube deems to be more valuable content for advertisers, which gives you a better idea about the capabilities of the video and offers insight into the type of videos you make in the future.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

But as you accumulate more and more monetized videos, and you will start seeing which videos are stronger in getting you ad engagements and which aren’t. The result might surprise you and help inform your next phase of videos.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

YouTube puts a lot of weight on this metric because they know that the more time people spend watching your original content, the more time they will have to show ads to your audience. Overall, you’ll want to see a steady rise for your Watch Time as it will indicate that you have a growing dedicated viewership.

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

Like Watch Time, Audience Retention is a metric YouTube uses to determine how valuable your video is and how worthy it is in being discovered by your audience. It’s important to learn where in your video you are losing viewers.

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

1. Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
2. Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

While you should aim to have 100% audience retention, if you can get an average above 50%, you are doing something right. Anything under, you may want to consider changing up your strategy (content, structure, pacing, etc.).

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Absolute Audience Retention: This report shows you the number of views at every point in the video as a percentage. This will let you know which part of the video is most popular, which part is causing a big drop off, and which part viewers are skipping to or rewatching.

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

Audience retention can give you a lot of insights on how you should be structuring your videos. If you notice a steep drop in viewership, you can assume that what the viewer is watching is not that interesting.

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

In the example below, we see that there is a peak at the point in this video where a specific part of a tutorial is shown. Viewers were most likely rewatching to confirm they understand the information, so they can apply it themselves.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

The first thing you’ll see when you enter the Demographic dashboard is the segmentation of your audience by age and gender. This gives you a good indication of who your overall channel is currently attracting.

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Not only will you be able to see which region the majority of your viewerships are from, but you can also segment and compare by demographics. This will give you a more insightful view of how your channel is performing across the world for different people.

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

Understanding which group makes up the majority of your viewership will help you decide how to strategize the next phase of content. Will you keep growing that audience or will you want to grow in another demographic?

If you noticed that you have an underperforming female demographic in India, you can plan out some content that focus on that community. Without this report, you cannot see where you are missing opportunities.

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

If your video is only promoted organically your views will likely be coming from the YouTube Watch Page, but if other media publications embedded your video, and it’s getting a lot of views, you can see it here.

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

By clicking into the Embedded in External Websites and Apps report, you’ll be able to see all the different websites and apps that your video is featured on. This will give you a good indication of which sites and apps are driving the most views.

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

You can reach out to the website that has embedded your video and thank them for sharing your content, and maybe they will be happy to share more. This way you create a relationship with them, which can increase your network and also improve the chances of your videos being discovered.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

If you see that you are getting a lot of viewers coming from Suggested Videos, go to that report and see which external video was directing viewers to yours. These suggested videos can be your own or it can be from another YouTube creator.

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

By clicking into the YouTube search, you can see what viewers searched in order to find your video. This can be useful in understanding your viewers’ mindset: were they trying to solve a problem or answer a question?

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

The way viewers watch content on their mobile phones is very different from the way they watch on television. By understanding how the majority of your viewers are watching your content, you can better design and structure your video.

For example, if you see that you have a large following that watches your content on mobile, then it might not be a good idea to load your video with too much text, as it’ll be hard for them to read.

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

Find Out Where People Clicked Subscribe

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

If you see that you are getting a lot of conversions from the YouTube Watch Page, you can dig in and see which video specifically you should give credit to for earning your subscribers — and which ones are causing people to unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

If you see a video is earning you a lot of subscribers, it might be a good idea to give it a boost and make sure more people discover it. However, if you see a video is causing people to click unsubscribe, even though it might be a video you love, consider removing it from your channel as it might be doing more harm than good for your channel growth.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

In addition to seeing the total Likes and Dislikes your channel received, in this report, you can see the Likes and Dislikes of individual videos. This gives you a quick glance at how your viewers are enjoying your channel and videos.

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

See if there is a correlation between the channel’s performance and how viewers give Likes and Dislikes. Does increasing views get you more likes? Did a dip in views cause people to stop liking your videos?

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

Knowing how your subscribers and non-subscribers are responding to your content will give you a good idea at how effective your video is at delighting those that know your content well, and those that are newer to your videos.

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

As a creator, you always want to know how your videos are received. Knowing how your audience feels about your content, even if it’s just a Like or Dislike click, is a good indication of whether the public found your work: educational, inspirational, or entertaining.

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

By having a report to see which videos have been added to the playlist, you can see that there is an interest in this type of content. With this knowledge, you can decide that perhaps the audience may be interested in a series around this topic.

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

Identify if there are any direct or indirect effects of having videos in the playlist by comparing it to important metrics such as Watch Time. If you see that there is a boost for days when more videos are added to the playlist, you can start planning more strategies to get video features along with other related content.

How to Use Videos in Playlist

The Videos in the Playlist report give you another perspective on the popularity of videos. Unlike Views or Watch Time, adding a video to a playlist means that the audience will likely watch it again, as they are saving it amongst related content or as a favorite video.

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Select a time period and see how many comments your channel and videos got at that point. Knowing which video gets you the most comments and when it happens, gives you a good idea what type of conversations your audience is interested in having.

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

However, there are also benefits of using an external analytics tool like Sotrender . You can adjust the amount of time you want to analyze, visualize the metrics in different ways, and even customize what you want to show in the graphs. What’s more, Sotrender has it’s own metric called the Activity Index, which indicates to what extent your audience is engaging with your videos. You can use this metric in combination with others to see what content your audience is really invested in.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

This report shows you how frequently your audience is sharing your videos to their networks. In addition to Views and Watch Time, knowing the shareability of your content helps guide your videos in achieving viral status.

See Which Sharing Service Is Most Popular For Your Channel

Know which platform your audience is most active on. Understanding this can help you tailor your content to be more shareable on those channels or you can discover your audience’s account on those services and thank them personality.

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

Understand how your videos are getting shared by your viewers. Do you see a spike in shares the first few days after publishing and then it becomes forgotten or is it an evergreen video that keeps getting consistent shares through its lifetime?

Compare Sharing to Views

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

How to Use Sharing Report

Understand what videos you create are more likely to get shares. If you are making a lot of how-to videos, a lot of people might be searching for the content, but unless it is highly relevant, it won’t get shared. The type of content that gets shared are the ones that have an interesting story and delights people.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

When you add annotations to your videos, you would want to know if your audience is actually engaging with it. This report gives you an overview of how frequently your viewers are clicking on the links.

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

Click into a specific video to see which type of annotations are getting engagement and at what time it is happening. If you see that many annotation clicks are happening at a certain point in your video, going forward with your new videos that is where you can insert it.

How to Use Annotations

By finding out when in the video your audience engages with annotations and what type of annotations performs the best, you will have more insights on designing your videos and where to position the annotations to get the optimal results.

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

See what is happening on screen that is making the card more click-worthy, this can help you plan out your next video so that you direct your viewers’ attention to the clickable card teaser so they see it.

How to Use Cards Report

This report helps you understand the different cards and how they are performing within your videos so that you can better plan your content to increase the chances of your audience engaging with your cards.

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

The End Screens report is great for letting you know which of your existing content the audience is interested in seeing after they finished watching one of your videos. As you learn more about your viewers and accumulate more videos, with the help of the End Screens report, you can determine which videos to use to increase Views and Watch Time.

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Learning how to use analytics is not always a skill YouTubers think about when they are making videos, but it plays such an instrumental part throughout the whole stage of creation, from ideation to distribution.

Understanding how your videos are performing shines a light on your process, helps you evaluate what is working and what isn’t, and empower you to think beyond the lens and create videos that really resonates with your growing audience.

If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Filmora, which is equipped with its own footage stock Wondershare Filmstock and will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

YouTube data is valuable because it can show you why you aren’t getting more subscribers and why certain videos aren’t getting the views you expected. Data can also identify all the positive results and give you insights into what worked.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

1. Overview
2. Realtime
3. Revenue
4. Ad Rates
5. Watch Time
6. Audience Retention
7. Demographics
8. Playback Locations
9. Traffic Sources
10. Devices
11. Translations
12. Subscribers
13. Likes and Dislikes
14. Videos in Playlists
15. Comments
16. Sharing
17. Annotations
18. Cards
19. End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

The Overview dashboard breaks down all your key stats. If you want a deeper dive, you can click into each of the section headers and it will give you an in-depth look at the analytics of that specific category.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

In Overview you can see where the majority of your audience is from, what gender they are, how they are discovering your videos in Traffic Source, and where they are watching your video in Playback Locations:

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

The Realtime report is a fantastic tool for seeing the immediate performance of your channel, which automatically updates every 10 seconds. There are two main views: The last 48 hours and the Last 60 Minutes.

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

If you notice that you are getting a lot of views from the US, but also notice that people are about to go to sleep and the trend shows that it drops at that point in the past 24 hours, you can decide whether to schedule the post for the next morning or you can see if a boost at this point can keep the audience awake.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

For example, if you published a video this morning and shared it on your Facebook page, and you checked in this morning and saw that there was only a small amount of views, you may want to share it on a different platform so that it can get more exposure.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

1. Dropdown menu

1. Calendar

1. Slide Bar

You can also change how you view your data, whether Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc. This way you can see exactly how much you made each day, week, or month, and determine if you can correlate a particular dip or spike to an event that occurred.

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Different countries have different rates for how much creators can make off Adsense. Click into Geography and see how much you are making in different countries and consider which audience is best to focus your attention on with the intention of increasing revenue.

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

This tells you that while Views may be an important metric, it won’t affect your revenue. This can mean that you haven’t been reaching the audience that will engage with the ads, consider a slight content shift.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

Playback-based CPM: This is an estimation from YouTube on how much money you can make if you had 1,000 views from a monetized video. This is based on the parameters of the advertisers, your current number of views, and where your viewers are from.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

This allows you to not only see the estimated earnings but also how many times the ad was shown. On top of that, the CPM gives you an idea of what YouTube deems to be more valuable content for advertisers, which gives you a better idea about the capabilities of the video and offers insight into the type of videos you make in the future.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

But as you accumulate more and more monetized videos, and you will start seeing which videos are stronger in getting you ad engagements and which aren’t. The result might surprise you and help inform your next phase of videos.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

YouTube puts a lot of weight on this metric because they know that the more time people spend watching your original content, the more time they will have to show ads to your audience. Overall, you’ll want to see a steady rise for your Watch Time as it will indicate that you have a growing dedicated viewership.

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

Like Watch Time, Audience Retention is a metric YouTube uses to determine how valuable your video is and how worthy it is in being discovered by your audience. It’s important to learn where in your video you are losing viewers.

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

1. Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
2. Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

While you should aim to have 100% audience retention, if you can get an average above 50%, you are doing something right. Anything under, you may want to consider changing up your strategy (content, structure, pacing, etc.).

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Absolute Audience Retention: This report shows you the number of views at every point in the video as a percentage. This will let you know which part of the video is most popular, which part is causing a big drop off, and which part viewers are skipping to or rewatching.

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

Audience retention can give you a lot of insights on how you should be structuring your videos. If you notice a steep drop in viewership, you can assume that what the viewer is watching is not that interesting.

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

In the example below, we see that there is a peak at the point in this video where a specific part of a tutorial is shown. Viewers were most likely rewatching to confirm they understand the information, so they can apply it themselves.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

The first thing you’ll see when you enter the Demographic dashboard is the segmentation of your audience by age and gender. This gives you a good indication of who your overall channel is currently attracting.

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Not only will you be able to see which region the majority of your viewerships are from, but you can also segment and compare by demographics. This will give you a more insightful view of how your channel is performing across the world for different people.

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

Understanding which group makes up the majority of your viewership will help you decide how to strategize the next phase of content. Will you keep growing that audience or will you want to grow in another demographic?

If you noticed that you have an underperforming female demographic in India, you can plan out some content that focus on that community. Without this report, you cannot see where you are missing opportunities.

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

If your video is only promoted organically your views will likely be coming from the YouTube Watch Page, but if other media publications embedded your video, and it’s getting a lot of views, you can see it here.

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

By clicking into the Embedded in External Websites and Apps report, you’ll be able to see all the different websites and apps that your video is featured on. This will give you a good indication of which sites and apps are driving the most views.

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

You can reach out to the website that has embedded your video and thank them for sharing your content, and maybe they will be happy to share more. This way you create a relationship with them, which can increase your network and also improve the chances of your videos being discovered.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

If you see that you are getting a lot of viewers coming from Suggested Videos, go to that report and see which external video was directing viewers to yours. These suggested videos can be your own or it can be from another YouTube creator.

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

By clicking into the YouTube search, you can see what viewers searched in order to find your video. This can be useful in understanding your viewers’ mindset: were they trying to solve a problem or answer a question?

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

The way viewers watch content on their mobile phones is very different from the way they watch on television. By understanding how the majority of your viewers are watching your content, you can better design and structure your video.

For example, if you see that you have a large following that watches your content on mobile, then it might not be a good idea to load your video with too much text, as it’ll be hard for them to read.

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

Find Out Where People Clicked Subscribe

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

If you see that you are getting a lot of conversions from the YouTube Watch Page, you can dig in and see which video specifically you should give credit to for earning your subscribers — and which ones are causing people to unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

If you see a video is earning you a lot of subscribers, it might be a good idea to give it a boost and make sure more people discover it. However, if you see a video is causing people to click unsubscribe, even though it might be a video you love, consider removing it from your channel as it might be doing more harm than good for your channel growth.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

In addition to seeing the total Likes and Dislikes your channel received, in this report, you can see the Likes and Dislikes of individual videos. This gives you a quick glance at how your viewers are enjoying your channel and videos.

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

See if there is a correlation between the channel’s performance and how viewers give Likes and Dislikes. Does increasing views get you more likes? Did a dip in views cause people to stop liking your videos?

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

Knowing how your subscribers and non-subscribers are responding to your content will give you a good idea at how effective your video is at delighting those that know your content well, and those that are newer to your videos.

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

As a creator, you always want to know how your videos are received. Knowing how your audience feels about your content, even if it’s just a Like or Dislike click, is a good indication of whether the public found your work: educational, inspirational, or entertaining.

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

By having a report to see which videos have been added to the playlist, you can see that there is an interest in this type of content. With this knowledge, you can decide that perhaps the audience may be interested in a series around this topic.

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

Identify if there are any direct or indirect effects of having videos in the playlist by comparing it to important metrics such as Watch Time. If you see that there is a boost for days when more videos are added to the playlist, you can start planning more strategies to get video features along with other related content.

How to Use Videos in Playlist

The Videos in the Playlist report give you another perspective on the popularity of videos. Unlike Views or Watch Time, adding a video to a playlist means that the audience will likely watch it again, as they are saving it amongst related content or as a favorite video.

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Select a time period and see how many comments your channel and videos got at that point. Knowing which video gets you the most comments and when it happens, gives you a good idea what type of conversations your audience is interested in having.

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

However, there are also benefits of using an external analytics tool like Sotrender . You can adjust the amount of time you want to analyze, visualize the metrics in different ways, and even customize what you want to show in the graphs. What’s more, Sotrender has it’s own metric called the Activity Index, which indicates to what extent your audience is engaging with your videos. You can use this metric in combination with others to see what content your audience is really invested in.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

This report shows you how frequently your audience is sharing your videos to their networks. In addition to Views and Watch Time, knowing the shareability of your content helps guide your videos in achieving viral status.

See Which Sharing Service Is Most Popular For Your Channel

Know which platform your audience is most active on. Understanding this can help you tailor your content to be more shareable on those channels or you can discover your audience’s account on those services and thank them personality.

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

Understand how your videos are getting shared by your viewers. Do you see a spike in shares the first few days after publishing and then it becomes forgotten or is it an evergreen video that keeps getting consistent shares through its lifetime?

Compare Sharing to Views

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

How to Use Sharing Report

Understand what videos you create are more likely to get shares. If you are making a lot of how-to videos, a lot of people might be searching for the content, but unless it is highly relevant, it won’t get shared. The type of content that gets shared are the ones that have an interesting story and delights people.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

When you add annotations to your videos, you would want to know if your audience is actually engaging with it. This report gives you an overview of how frequently your viewers are clicking on the links.

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

Click into a specific video to see which type of annotations are getting engagement and at what time it is happening. If you see that many annotation clicks are happening at a certain point in your video, going forward with your new videos that is where you can insert it.

How to Use Annotations

By finding out when in the video your audience engages with annotations and what type of annotations performs the best, you will have more insights on designing your videos and where to position the annotations to get the optimal results.

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

See what is happening on screen that is making the card more click-worthy, this can help you plan out your next video so that you direct your viewers’ attention to the clickable card teaser so they see it.

How to Use Cards Report

This report helps you understand the different cards and how they are performing within your videos so that you can better plan your content to increase the chances of your audience engaging with your cards.

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

The End Screens report is great for letting you know which of your existing content the audience is interested in seeing after they finished watching one of your videos. As you learn more about your viewers and accumulate more videos, with the help of the End Screens report, you can determine which videos to use to increase Views and Watch Time.

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Learning how to use analytics is not always a skill YouTubers think about when they are making videos, but it plays such an instrumental part throughout the whole stage of creation, from ideation to distribution.

Understanding how your videos are performing shines a light on your process, helps you evaluate what is working and what isn’t, and empower you to think beyond the lens and create videos that really resonates with your growing audience.

If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Filmora, which is equipped with its own footage stock Wondershare Filmstock and will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Unlock Creative Potential - Top 10 Online Banners Tools

Youtube Banners Makers: 10+ Online Tools to Create Channel Art

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you want to have more fans on your YouTube channel, it becomes really important to make your channel more attractive and fresh. YouTube banner is one of the important factors which represents the style, quality, and taste of your channel. Fortunately, there are many tools on the market that can help you make attractive banners. Therefore, we have brought you 10+ best-known YouTube banner makers that can enhance the beauty of your channel with their exceptionally amazing features. We will also let you know how to make a YouTube banner. Let’s explore.

You may also like: How to add custom thumbnails to YouTube videos >>

• Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know
• Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free
• Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know

YouTube banner dimensions varied on different platforms, so you need to make the YouTube banner look great on desktop, tablet, and phone. According to Google , the recommended dimension is 2560 x 1440 px as the YouTube banner will be cropped if its size is too large. Minimum dimension is 2048 x 1152 px for uploading. The maximum width is 2560 x 423 px. The largest file size is 6MB. You can also add links to your own social media on YouTube banner, so it is a great place to recommend your other social media.

Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free

There are so many tools that you can make a YouTube banner in the market, but it is not easy to find the right tool to make a banner if you can’t find the right tools. We have listed one way to make a YouTube banner below. You can use Wondershare Filmora to edit YouTube videos as it is designed to be a YouTube editor. Besides the basic editing including cropping/trimming and adding transitions, you can use it to add various text, more than 300 effects/filters, free audio, and more. It is also easy to make a YouTube intro. Download it to have a try!

Download Mac Version ](https://tools.techidaily.com/wondershare/filmora/download/ )

Step 1: Choose your template and layout

Canva is an online tool to make YouTube banner, so first you need to open it up . You are asked to log in.

After you’ve signed up for Canva you will see a variety of different templates. Scroll through them until you find YouTube Channel Art under Social Media & Email Headers.

This template will be the right size for a YouTube banner, but it will not show you the ‘safe zones’. Your banner will show up differently depending on the screen a viewer is watching on. Click here to download YouTube’s official template, which displays safe zones. You will be able to use it as a reference.

And Canva also provides you with sample layouts that you can build off of. They will include stock photos and text. Most are free, but some might cost a dollar.

If the one you happen to like isn’t free, don’t worry. It’s actually just the specific stock images being used in the example that cost money, and you’re probably planning on replacing those anyways.

Step 2: Import your image

Canva provides a selection of stock images you can use for free. You can find them by clicking on Elements in the menu on the far left, and then clicking on Free Photos.

If you’d rather use your own images, click on Upload at the bottom of that same menu on the left. You’ll have the option of uploading images from your computer or importing them from Facebook.

After you have found the image you want to use or loaded it into Canva, click on it and it will appear in your layout.

Step 3: Add text to YouTube banner

You can add various text after it is imported. There are lots of text templates in Canva, so just pick the one you like. You can also change text color and transparency to make it look great. Now to place it in the right position.

Step 4: Edit other elements

The layout you chose might include things like borders or backgrounds behind the text. You can change the colors of any of these just by clicking on them, then clicking on the color swatch in the top left corner of your design area.

Step 5: Download YouTube banner

Once you finish the editing, there is a download button in the top right corner of your screen. Click on it when you are finished to save your new channel art to your computer. It supports JPEG, PNG, and PDF. Now upload it to YouTube. So simple. Isn’t it?

Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

1. Canva:

Canva is probably the most popular site for making channel art, for good reason. It has over 8000 templates for different kinds of graphics, including YouTube channel art, and there’s a huge variety of stock photos available either for free or $1. On Canva, creating your perfect banner is as easy as dragging and dropping images into a pre-built layout. Resizing is automatic, and you can flip/rotate or apply filters in just a few clicks

Pros: It contains millions of stock images, about 100 professional layouts, and lots of stunning filters.

Cons: Some high-quality images can be accessed only after payment of $1.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

2. Wondershare PixStudio

Wondershare PixStudio is an all-in-one and powerful online graphic design maker for everyone. It has various types of templates for YouTube Thumbnails, Logos, Posters, etc. You can create a beautiful design by simply dragging and dropping the elements and photos. The online platform is free to use all templates, just One-Click to download your creations, and share to your Facebook, Instagram Story, and YouTube Thumbnails, etc. immediately.

Pros:

• Various types of templates
• Simple and Fast Design
• Background remover

Cons: The features of removing background be used after payment of $7.99 per month.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

3. Fotor:

The makers of Fotor describe it as a ‘revolutionary photo editor and graphic designer’, and it is certainly a powerful tool. Fotor allows you to do a lot of fine editing on your photos – brightness, saturation, and color temperature are just a few of the things you can adjust – and its design feature is perfect for YouTube channel art.

Fotor has templates for YouTube channel art and a lot of fun sticker-like graphics. The Design interface is very similar to Canva, if slightly more complicated.

Pros: Complete art can be created within a few minutes and contains dozens of templates.

Cons: Little difficult to use for beginners.

Price: Free

4. Photovisi:

It is a great source of inspiration for your YouTube channel where you can easily design, save and share your customized banner.

Pros: It automatically adjusts the size of the banner to the required format and is loaded with unlimited themes. Works on Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS.

Cons: Demand some special skills for usage.

Price: It is available for free at the official website

5. iKomee:

It is possible to have customized results for your YouTube banner designing using the iKomee platform where few minutes are enough to create wonders. It is one of the most loved tools of all professionals.

Pros: Contains lots of cool templates for channel art.

Cons: Limited themes and layouts.

Price: Available for free.

6. Banners Nack:

Here is one of the most wonderful YouTube banner maker for you that can be accessed online with easy to use interface where one can design animated, static HTML5 with interactive banner ads.

Pros: Professional, easy to use platform with rich quality fonts, stock images, and animated effects.

Cons: Little costly.

Price: Users can go ahead with premium plans where the basic plan is worth $12/month and a professional plan is $18/month with a business plan offer of $24 per month.

7. BeFunky:

BeFunky allows users to create meaningful banners for YouTube business building. The platform consists of numerous effortless options for banner designs and the drag and drops features make everything much easier. It is possible to boost traffic on your YouTube channel with this highly ranked banner maker.

Pros: Four-step banner-making process that can be followed by beginners too.

Cons: The uploading and downloading process takes more time due to heavy projects.

Price: Get started for free.

8. Picmonkey:

With PicMonkey.com you will be able to get customized, readymade banners with a perfect look. It is much easier to make selections for fonts, colors, and graphics with advanced templates here.

Pros: The best platform to enhance your creativity; users will be able to get perfect sharpness of quality.

Cons: File size is more for output banner and special features can be accessed only after payment.

Price: Free trial.

9. iPiccy:

The number of steps to be followed for designing a YouTube banner here completely depends upon your demand of end banner design type. Generally, four-step method is capable enough to provide you professional output with proper cropping dimensions and small file size for download

Pros: Various additional features are available like adding text etc so that highly customized designs can be created for YouTube Banners.

Cons: Demands more time of the user for making quality banner.

Price: Get started for free within a few seconds.

10. Adobe Spark:

Adobe Spark is one of the amazing online YouTube banner makers that helps you create the desired banner for your YouTube channel with ease. All that you need to do is browse to the site and pick the ‘YouTube channel art’ option to get the YouTube banner of the right size, though there are other options as well. Due to its easily customizable features, you can alter or change the background completely and try different color combinations to match your brand’s logo.

Pros:

• The drag-n-drop feature of Adobe Spark enables you to craft eye-catching and engaging banners effortlessly.
• Adobe Spark offers you the freedom to experiment with unlimited alterations in alignments, text, layouts, and themes like a trusted YouTube banner creator.

Cons: Though Adobe Spark is free, it annoys the users when it automatically adds Adobe Spark’s watermark logo to your creation. To get it removed, you must be an active subscriber of Adobe products.

11. Fotojet:

FotoJet being a reliable YouTube banner maker assists you in creating personalized banners using numerous free templates. You get hold of interesting YouTube banner without toiling with the intricacies of graphic designing. Impressing your visitors with your unique and brand new banner from FotoJet YouTube banner creator is class apart.

Pros: It offers you the flexibility to add anything and everything on your channel art and upload it on YouTube right away.

Cons: Similar to Adobe Spark, FotoJet too adds a watermark logo of its name to your creation which is again a bit of nuisance.

Conclusion

Want to make your YouTube video more attractive and beautiful? Wondershare Filmora is such video editing software designed for YouTube creators. It not only allows you to cut, trim, crop, zoom, reverse, rotate the video clips, but also makes the advanced features like green screen, PIP, tilt-shift, and mosaic easy like a piece of cake. With Wondershare Filmora, you can ignite your YouTube videos with over 300 effects like Fashion, Beauty, BlockBuster, Travel, etc.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you want to have more fans on your YouTube channel, it becomes really important to make your channel more attractive and fresh. YouTube banner is one of the important factors which represents the style, quality, and taste of your channel. Fortunately, there are many tools on the market that can help you make attractive banners. Therefore, we have brought you 10+ best-known YouTube banner makers that can enhance the beauty of your channel with their exceptionally amazing features. We will also let you know how to make a YouTube banner. Let’s explore.

You may also like: How to add custom thumbnails to YouTube videos >>

• Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know
• Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free
• Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know

YouTube banner dimensions varied on different platforms, so you need to make the YouTube banner look great on desktop, tablet, and phone. According to Google , the recommended dimension is 2560 x 1440 px as the YouTube banner will be cropped if its size is too large. Minimum dimension is 2048 x 1152 px for uploading. The maximum width is 2560 x 423 px. The largest file size is 6MB. You can also add links to your own social media on YouTube banner, so it is a great place to recommend your other social media.

Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free

There are so many tools that you can make a YouTube banner in the market, but it is not easy to find the right tool to make a banner if you can’t find the right tools. We have listed one way to make a YouTube banner below. You can use Wondershare Filmora to edit YouTube videos as it is designed to be a YouTube editor. Besides the basic editing including cropping/trimming and adding transitions, you can use it to add various text, more than 300 effects/filters, free audio, and more. It is also easy to make a YouTube intro. Download it to have a try!

Download Mac Version ](https://tools.techidaily.com/wondershare/filmora/download/ )

Step 1: Choose your template and layout

Canva is an online tool to make YouTube banner, so first you need to open it up . You are asked to log in.

After you’ve signed up for Canva you will see a variety of different templates. Scroll through them until you find YouTube Channel Art under Social Media & Email Headers.

This template will be the right size for a YouTube banner, but it will not show you the ‘safe zones’. Your banner will show up differently depending on the screen a viewer is watching on. Click here to download YouTube’s official template, which displays safe zones. You will be able to use it as a reference.

And Canva also provides you with sample layouts that you can build off of. They will include stock photos and text. Most are free, but some might cost a dollar.

If the one you happen to like isn’t free, don’t worry. It’s actually just the specific stock images being used in the example that cost money, and you’re probably planning on replacing those anyways.

Step 2: Import your image

Canva provides a selection of stock images you can use for free. You can find them by clicking on Elements in the menu on the far left, and then clicking on Free Photos.

If you’d rather use your own images, click on Upload at the bottom of that same menu on the left. You’ll have the option of uploading images from your computer or importing them from Facebook.

After you have found the image you want to use or loaded it into Canva, click on it and it will appear in your layout.

Step 3: Add text to YouTube banner

You can add various text after it is imported. There are lots of text templates in Canva, so just pick the one you like. You can also change text color and transparency to make it look great. Now to place it in the right position.

Step 4: Edit other elements

The layout you chose might include things like borders or backgrounds behind the text. You can change the colors of any of these just by clicking on them, then clicking on the color swatch in the top left corner of your design area.

Step 5: Download YouTube banner

Once you finish the editing, there is a download button in the top right corner of your screen. Click on it when you are finished to save your new channel art to your computer. It supports JPEG, PNG, and PDF. Now upload it to YouTube. So simple. Isn’t it?

Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

1. Canva:

Canva is probably the most popular site for making channel art, for good reason. It has over 8000 templates for different kinds of graphics, including YouTube channel art, and there’s a huge variety of stock photos available either for free or $1. On Canva, creating your perfect banner is as easy as dragging and dropping images into a pre-built layout. Resizing is automatic, and you can flip/rotate or apply filters in just a few clicks

Pros: It contains millions of stock images, about 100 professional layouts, and lots of stunning filters.

Cons: Some high-quality images can be accessed only after payment of $1.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

2. Wondershare PixStudio

Wondershare PixStudio is an all-in-one and powerful online graphic design maker for everyone. It has various types of templates for YouTube Thumbnails, Logos, Posters, etc. You can create a beautiful design by simply dragging and dropping the elements and photos. The online platform is free to use all templates, just One-Click to download your creations, and share to your Facebook, Instagram Story, and YouTube Thumbnails, etc. immediately.

Pros:

• Various types of templates
• Simple and Fast Design
• Background remover

Cons: The features of removing background be used after payment of $7.99 per month.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

3. Fotor:

The makers of Fotor describe it as a ‘revolutionary photo editor and graphic designer’, and it is certainly a powerful tool. Fotor allows you to do a lot of fine editing on your photos – brightness, saturation, and color temperature are just a few of the things you can adjust – and its design feature is perfect for YouTube channel art.

Fotor has templates for YouTube channel art and a lot of fun sticker-like graphics. The Design interface is very similar to Canva, if slightly more complicated.

Pros: Complete art can be created within a few minutes and contains dozens of templates.

Cons: Little difficult to use for beginners.

Price: Free

4. Photovisi:

It is a great source of inspiration for your YouTube channel where you can easily design, save and share your customized banner.

Pros: It automatically adjusts the size of the banner to the required format and is loaded with unlimited themes. Works on Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS.

Cons: Demand some special skills for usage.

Price: It is available for free at the official website

5. iKomee:

It is possible to have customized results for your YouTube banner designing using the iKomee platform where few minutes are enough to create wonders. It is one of the most loved tools of all professionals.

Pros: Contains lots of cool templates for channel art.

Cons: Limited themes and layouts.

Price: Available for free.

6. Banners Nack:

Here is one of the most wonderful YouTube banner maker for you that can be accessed online with easy to use interface where one can design animated, static HTML5 with interactive banner ads.

Pros: Professional, easy to use platform with rich quality fonts, stock images, and animated effects.

Cons: Little costly.

Price: Users can go ahead with premium plans where the basic plan is worth $12/month and a professional plan is $18/month with a business plan offer of $24 per month.

7. BeFunky:

BeFunky allows users to create meaningful banners for YouTube business building. The platform consists of numerous effortless options for banner designs and the drag and drops features make everything much easier. It is possible to boost traffic on your YouTube channel with this highly ranked banner maker.

Pros: Four-step banner-making process that can be followed by beginners too.

Cons: The uploading and downloading process takes more time due to heavy projects.

Price: Get started for free.

8. Picmonkey:

With PicMonkey.com you will be able to get customized, readymade banners with a perfect look. It is much easier to make selections for fonts, colors, and graphics with advanced templates here.

Pros: The best platform to enhance your creativity; users will be able to get perfect sharpness of quality.

Cons: File size is more for output banner and special features can be accessed only after payment.

Price: Free trial.

9. iPiccy:

The number of steps to be followed for designing a YouTube banner here completely depends upon your demand of end banner design type. Generally, four-step method is capable enough to provide you professional output with proper cropping dimensions and small file size for download

Pros: Various additional features are available like adding text etc so that highly customized designs can be created for YouTube Banners.

Cons: Demands more time of the user for making quality banner.

Price: Get started for free within a few seconds.

10. Adobe Spark:

Adobe Spark is one of the amazing online YouTube banner makers that helps you create the desired banner for your YouTube channel with ease. All that you need to do is browse to the site and pick the ‘YouTube channel art’ option to get the YouTube banner of the right size, though there are other options as well. Due to its easily customizable features, you can alter or change the background completely and try different color combinations to match your brand’s logo.

Pros:

• The drag-n-drop feature of Adobe Spark enables you to craft eye-catching and engaging banners effortlessly.
• Adobe Spark offers you the freedom to experiment with unlimited alterations in alignments, text, layouts, and themes like a trusted YouTube banner creator.

Cons: Though Adobe Spark is free, it annoys the users when it automatically adds Adobe Spark’s watermark logo to your creation. To get it removed, you must be an active subscriber of Adobe products.

11. Fotojet:

FotoJet being a reliable YouTube banner maker assists you in creating personalized banners using numerous free templates. You get hold of interesting YouTube banner without toiling with the intricacies of graphic designing. Impressing your visitors with your unique and brand new banner from FotoJet YouTube banner creator is class apart.

Pros: It offers you the flexibility to add anything and everything on your channel art and upload it on YouTube right away.

Cons: Similar to Adobe Spark, FotoJet too adds a watermark logo of its name to your creation which is again a bit of nuisance.

Conclusion

Want to make your YouTube video more attractive and beautiful? Wondershare Filmora is such video editing software designed for YouTube creators. It not only allows you to cut, trim, crop, zoom, reverse, rotate the video clips, but also makes the advanced features like green screen, PIP, tilt-shift, and mosaic easy like a piece of cake. With Wondershare Filmora, you can ignite your YouTube videos with over 300 effects like Fashion, Beauty, BlockBuster, Travel, etc.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you want to have more fans on your YouTube channel, it becomes really important to make your channel more attractive and fresh. YouTube banner is one of the important factors which represents the style, quality, and taste of your channel. Fortunately, there are many tools on the market that can help you make attractive banners. Therefore, we have brought you 10+ best-known YouTube banner makers that can enhance the beauty of your channel with their exceptionally amazing features. We will also let you know how to make a YouTube banner. Let’s explore.

You may also like: How to add custom thumbnails to YouTube videos >>

• Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know
• Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free
• Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know

YouTube banner dimensions varied on different platforms, so you need to make the YouTube banner look great on desktop, tablet, and phone. According to Google , the recommended dimension is 2560 x 1440 px as the YouTube banner will be cropped if its size is too large. Minimum dimension is 2048 x 1152 px for uploading. The maximum width is 2560 x 423 px. The largest file size is 6MB. You can also add links to your own social media on YouTube banner, so it is a great place to recommend your other social media.

Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free

There are so many tools that you can make a YouTube banner in the market, but it is not easy to find the right tool to make a banner if you can’t find the right tools. We have listed one way to make a YouTube banner below. You can use Wondershare Filmora to edit YouTube videos as it is designed to be a YouTube editor. Besides the basic editing including cropping/trimming and adding transitions, you can use it to add various text, more than 300 effects/filters, free audio, and more. It is also easy to make a YouTube intro. Download it to have a try!

Download Mac Version ](https://tools.techidaily.com/wondershare/filmora/download/ )

Step 1: Choose your template and layout

Canva is an online tool to make YouTube banner, so first you need to open it up . You are asked to log in.

After you’ve signed up for Canva you will see a variety of different templates. Scroll through them until you find YouTube Channel Art under Social Media & Email Headers.

This template will be the right size for a YouTube banner, but it will not show you the ‘safe zones’. Your banner will show up differently depending on the screen a viewer is watching on. Click here to download YouTube’s official template, which displays safe zones. You will be able to use it as a reference.

And Canva also provides you with sample layouts that you can build off of. They will include stock photos and text. Most are free, but some might cost a dollar.

If the one you happen to like isn’t free, don’t worry. It’s actually just the specific stock images being used in the example that cost money, and you’re probably planning on replacing those anyways.

Step 2: Import your image

Canva provides a selection of stock images you can use for free. You can find them by clicking on Elements in the menu on the far left, and then clicking on Free Photos.

If you’d rather use your own images, click on Upload at the bottom of that same menu on the left. You’ll have the option of uploading images from your computer or importing them from Facebook.

After you have found the image you want to use or loaded it into Canva, click on it and it will appear in your layout.

Step 3: Add text to YouTube banner

You can add various text after it is imported. There are lots of text templates in Canva, so just pick the one you like. You can also change text color and transparency to make it look great. Now to place it in the right position.

Step 4: Edit other elements

The layout you chose might include things like borders or backgrounds behind the text. You can change the colors of any of these just by clicking on them, then clicking on the color swatch in the top left corner of your design area.

Step 5: Download YouTube banner

Once you finish the editing, there is a download button in the top right corner of your screen. Click on it when you are finished to save your new channel art to your computer. It supports JPEG, PNG, and PDF. Now upload it to YouTube. So simple. Isn’t it?

Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

1. Canva:

Canva is probably the most popular site for making channel art, for good reason. It has over 8000 templates for different kinds of graphics, including YouTube channel art, and there’s a huge variety of stock photos available either for free or $1. On Canva, creating your perfect banner is as easy as dragging and dropping images into a pre-built layout. Resizing is automatic, and you can flip/rotate or apply filters in just a few clicks

Pros: It contains millions of stock images, about 100 professional layouts, and lots of stunning filters.

Cons: Some high-quality images can be accessed only after payment of $1.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

2. Wondershare PixStudio

Wondershare PixStudio is an all-in-one and powerful online graphic design maker for everyone. It has various types of templates for YouTube Thumbnails, Logos, Posters, etc. You can create a beautiful design by simply dragging and dropping the elements and photos. The online platform is free to use all templates, just One-Click to download your creations, and share to your Facebook, Instagram Story, and YouTube Thumbnails, etc. immediately.

Pros:

• Various types of templates
• Simple and Fast Design
• Background remover

Cons: The features of removing background be used after payment of $7.99 per month.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

3. Fotor:

The makers of Fotor describe it as a ‘revolutionary photo editor and graphic designer’, and it is certainly a powerful tool. Fotor allows you to do a lot of fine editing on your photos – brightness, saturation, and color temperature are just a few of the things you can adjust – and its design feature is perfect for YouTube channel art.

Fotor has templates for YouTube channel art and a lot of fun sticker-like graphics. The Design interface is very similar to Canva, if slightly more complicated.

Pros: Complete art can be created within a few minutes and contains dozens of templates.

Cons: Little difficult to use for beginners.

Price: Free

4. Photovisi:

It is a great source of inspiration for your YouTube channel where you can easily design, save and share your customized banner.

Pros: It automatically adjusts the size of the banner to the required format and is loaded with unlimited themes. Works on Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS.

Cons: Demand some special skills for usage.

Price: It is available for free at the official website

5. iKomee:

It is possible to have customized results for your YouTube banner designing using the iKomee platform where few minutes are enough to create wonders. It is one of the most loved tools of all professionals.

Pros: Contains lots of cool templates for channel art.

Cons: Limited themes and layouts.

Price: Available for free.

6. Banners Nack:

Here is one of the most wonderful YouTube banner maker for you that can be accessed online with easy to use interface where one can design animated, static HTML5 with interactive banner ads.

Pros: Professional, easy to use platform with rich quality fonts, stock images, and animated effects.

Cons: Little costly.

Price: Users can go ahead with premium plans where the basic plan is worth $12/month and a professional plan is $18/month with a business plan offer of $24 per month.

7. BeFunky:

BeFunky allows users to create meaningful banners for YouTube business building. The platform consists of numerous effortless options for banner designs and the drag and drops features make everything much easier. It is possible to boost traffic on your YouTube channel with this highly ranked banner maker.

Pros: Four-step banner-making process that can be followed by beginners too.

Cons: The uploading and downloading process takes more time due to heavy projects.

Price: Get started for free.

8. Picmonkey:

With PicMonkey.com you will be able to get customized, readymade banners with a perfect look. It is much easier to make selections for fonts, colors, and graphics with advanced templates here.

Pros: The best platform to enhance your creativity; users will be able to get perfect sharpness of quality.

Cons: File size is more for output banner and special features can be accessed only after payment.

Price: Free trial.

9. iPiccy:

The number of steps to be followed for designing a YouTube banner here completely depends upon your demand of end banner design type. Generally, four-step method is capable enough to provide you professional output with proper cropping dimensions and small file size for download

Pros: Various additional features are available like adding text etc so that highly customized designs can be created for YouTube Banners.

Cons: Demands more time of the user for making quality banner.

Price: Get started for free within a few seconds.

10. Adobe Spark:

Adobe Spark is one of the amazing online YouTube banner makers that helps you create the desired banner for your YouTube channel with ease. All that you need to do is browse to the site and pick the ‘YouTube channel art’ option to get the YouTube banner of the right size, though there are other options as well. Due to its easily customizable features, you can alter or change the background completely and try different color combinations to match your brand’s logo.

Pros:

• The drag-n-drop feature of Adobe Spark enables you to craft eye-catching and engaging banners effortlessly.
• Adobe Spark offers you the freedom to experiment with unlimited alterations in alignments, text, layouts, and themes like a trusted YouTube banner creator.

Cons: Though Adobe Spark is free, it annoys the users when it automatically adds Adobe Spark’s watermark logo to your creation. To get it removed, you must be an active subscriber of Adobe products.

11. Fotojet:

FotoJet being a reliable YouTube banner maker assists you in creating personalized banners using numerous free templates. You get hold of interesting YouTube banner without toiling with the intricacies of graphic designing. Impressing your visitors with your unique and brand new banner from FotoJet YouTube banner creator is class apart.

Pros: It offers you the flexibility to add anything and everything on your channel art and upload it on YouTube right away.

Cons: Similar to Adobe Spark, FotoJet too adds a watermark logo of its name to your creation which is again a bit of nuisance.

Conclusion

Want to make your YouTube video more attractive and beautiful? Wondershare Filmora is such video editing software designed for YouTube creators. It not only allows you to cut, trim, crop, zoom, reverse, rotate the video clips, but also makes the advanced features like green screen, PIP, tilt-shift, and mosaic easy like a piece of cake. With Wondershare Filmora, you can ignite your YouTube videos with over 300 effects like Fashion, Beauty, BlockBuster, Travel, etc.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you want to have more fans on your YouTube channel, it becomes really important to make your channel more attractive and fresh. YouTube banner is one of the important factors which represents the style, quality, and taste of your channel. Fortunately, there are many tools on the market that can help you make attractive banners. Therefore, we have brought you 10+ best-known YouTube banner makers that can enhance the beauty of your channel with their exceptionally amazing features. We will also let you know how to make a YouTube banner. Let’s explore.

You may also like: How to add custom thumbnails to YouTube videos >>

• Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know
• Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free
• Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

Part 1: YouTube Banner Dimensions You Should Know

YouTube banner dimensions varied on different platforms, so you need to make the YouTube banner look great on desktop, tablet, and phone. According to Google , the recommended dimension is 2560 x 1440 px as the YouTube banner will be cropped if its size is too large. Minimum dimension is 2048 x 1152 px for uploading. The maximum width is 2560 x 423 px. The largest file size is 6MB. You can also add links to your own social media on YouTube banner, so it is a great place to recommend your other social media.

Part 2: How to Make a YouTube Banner with Canva for Free

There are so many tools that you can make a YouTube banner in the market, but it is not easy to find the right tool to make a banner if you can’t find the right tools. We have listed one way to make a YouTube banner below. You can use Wondershare Filmora to edit YouTube videos as it is designed to be a YouTube editor. Besides the basic editing including cropping/trimming and adding transitions, you can use it to add various text, more than 300 effects/filters, free audio, and more. It is also easy to make a YouTube intro. Download it to have a try!

Download Mac Version ](https://tools.techidaily.com/wondershare/filmora/download/ )

Step 1: Choose your template and layout

Canva is an online tool to make YouTube banner, so first you need to open it up . You are asked to log in.

After you’ve signed up for Canva you will see a variety of different templates. Scroll through them until you find YouTube Channel Art under Social Media & Email Headers.

This template will be the right size for a YouTube banner, but it will not show you the ‘safe zones’. Your banner will show up differently depending on the screen a viewer is watching on. Click here to download YouTube’s official template, which displays safe zones. You will be able to use it as a reference.

And Canva also provides you with sample layouts that you can build off of. They will include stock photos and text. Most are free, but some might cost a dollar.

If the one you happen to like isn’t free, don’t worry. It’s actually just the specific stock images being used in the example that cost money, and you’re probably planning on replacing those anyways.

Step 2: Import your image

Canva provides a selection of stock images you can use for free. You can find them by clicking on Elements in the menu on the far left, and then clicking on Free Photos.

If you’d rather use your own images, click on Upload at the bottom of that same menu on the left. You’ll have the option of uploading images from your computer or importing them from Facebook.

After you have found the image you want to use or loaded it into Canva, click on it and it will appear in your layout.

Step 3: Add text to YouTube banner

You can add various text after it is imported. There are lots of text templates in Canva, so just pick the one you like. You can also change text color and transparency to make it look great. Now to place it in the right position.

Step 4: Edit other elements

The layout you chose might include things like borders or backgrounds behind the text. You can change the colors of any of these just by clicking on them, then clicking on the color swatch in the top left corner of your design area.

Step 5: Download YouTube banner

Once you finish the editing, there is a download button in the top right corner of your screen. Click on it when you are finished to save your new channel art to your computer. It supports JPEG, PNG, and PDF. Now upload it to YouTube. So simple. Isn’t it?

Part 3: 10+ Best YouTube Banner Makers

1. Canva:

Canva is probably the most popular site for making channel art, for good reason. It has over 8000 templates for different kinds of graphics, including YouTube channel art, and there’s a huge variety of stock photos available either for free or $1. On Canva, creating your perfect banner is as easy as dragging and dropping images into a pre-built layout. Resizing is automatic, and you can flip/rotate or apply filters in just a few clicks

Pros: It contains millions of stock images, about 100 professional layouts, and lots of stunning filters.

Cons: Some high-quality images can be accessed only after payment of $1.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

2. Wondershare PixStudio

Wondershare PixStudio is an all-in-one and powerful online graphic design maker for everyone. It has various types of templates for YouTube Thumbnails, Logos, Posters, etc. You can create a beautiful design by simply dragging and dropping the elements and photos. The online platform is free to use all templates, just One-Click to download your creations, and share to your Facebook, Instagram Story, and YouTube Thumbnails, etc. immediately.

Pros:

• Various types of templates
• Simple and Fast Design
• Background remover

Cons: The features of removing background be used after payment of $7.99 per month.

Price: The best thing to know is that this tool is available for free.

3. Fotor:

The makers of Fotor describe it as a ‘revolutionary photo editor and graphic designer’, and it is certainly a powerful tool. Fotor allows you to do a lot of fine editing on your photos – brightness, saturation, and color temperature are just a few of the things you can adjust – and its design feature is perfect for YouTube channel art.

Fotor has templates for YouTube channel art and a lot of fun sticker-like graphics. The Design interface is very similar to Canva, if slightly more complicated.

Pros: Complete art can be created within a few minutes and contains dozens of templates.

Cons: Little difficult to use for beginners.

Price: Free

4. Photovisi:

It is a great source of inspiration for your YouTube channel where you can easily design, save and share your customized banner.

Pros: It automatically adjusts the size of the banner to the required format and is loaded with unlimited themes. Works on Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS.

Cons: Demand some special skills for usage.

Price: It is available for free at the official website

5. iKomee:

It is possible to have customized results for your YouTube banner designing using the iKomee platform where few minutes are enough to create wonders. It is one of the most loved tools of all professionals.

Pros: Contains lots of cool templates for channel art.

Cons: Limited themes and layouts.

Price: Available for free.

6. Banners Nack:

Here is one of the most wonderful YouTube banner maker for you that can be accessed online with easy to use interface where one can design animated, static HTML5 with interactive banner ads.

Pros: Professional, easy to use platform with rich quality fonts, stock images, and animated effects.

Cons: Little costly.

Price: Users can go ahead with premium plans where the basic plan is worth $12/month and a professional plan is $18/month with a business plan offer of $24 per month.

7. BeFunky:

BeFunky allows users to create meaningful banners for YouTube business building. The platform consists of numerous effortless options for banner designs and the drag and drops features make everything much easier. It is possible to boost traffic on your YouTube channel with this highly ranked banner maker.

Pros: Four-step banner-making process that can be followed by beginners too.

Cons: The uploading and downloading process takes more time due to heavy projects.

Price: Get started for free.

8. Picmonkey:

With PicMonkey.com you will be able to get customized, readymade banners with a perfect look. It is much easier to make selections for fonts, colors, and graphics with advanced templates here.

Pros: The best platform to enhance your creativity; users will be able to get perfect sharpness of quality.

Cons: File size is more for output banner and special features can be accessed only after payment.

Price: Free trial.

9. iPiccy:

The number of steps to be followed for designing a YouTube banner here completely depends upon your demand of end banner design type. Generally, four-step method is capable enough to provide you professional output with proper cropping dimensions and small file size for download

Pros: Various additional features are available like adding text etc so that highly customized designs can be created for YouTube Banners.

Cons: Demands more time of the user for making quality banner.

Price: Get started for free within a few seconds.

10. Adobe Spark:

Adobe Spark is one of the amazing online YouTube banner makers that helps you create the desired banner for your YouTube channel with ease. All that you need to do is browse to the site and pick the ‘YouTube channel art’ option to get the YouTube banner of the right size, though there are other options as well. Due to its easily customizable features, you can alter or change the background completely and try different color combinations to match your brand’s logo.

Pros:

• The drag-n-drop feature of Adobe Spark enables you to craft eye-catching and engaging banners effortlessly.
• Adobe Spark offers you the freedom to experiment with unlimited alterations in alignments, text, layouts, and themes like a trusted YouTube banner creator.

Cons: Though Adobe Spark is free, it annoys the users when it automatically adds Adobe Spark’s watermark logo to your creation. To get it removed, you must be an active subscriber of Adobe products.

11. Fotojet:

FotoJet being a reliable YouTube banner maker assists you in creating personalized banners using numerous free templates. You get hold of interesting YouTube banner without toiling with the intricacies of graphic designing. Impressing your visitors with your unique and brand new banner from FotoJet YouTube banner creator is class apart.

Pros: It offers you the flexibility to add anything and everything on your channel art and upload it on YouTube right away.

Cons: Similar to Adobe Spark, FotoJet too adds a watermark logo of its name to your creation which is again a bit of nuisance.

Conclusion

Want to make your YouTube video more attractive and beautiful? Wondershare Filmora is such video editing software designed for YouTube creators. It not only allows you to cut, trim, crop, zoom, reverse, rotate the video clips, but also makes the advanced features like green screen, PIP, tilt-shift, and mosaic easy like a piece of cake. With Wondershare Filmora, you can ignite your YouTube videos with over 300 effects like Fashion, Beauty, BlockBuster, Travel, etc.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

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