the #1 audience retention analyzer

Audience Retention is a YouTube metric that shows the average percentage of a video that people watch for different time intervals. For example, if you see a 90% retention rate for the first 10 seconds, it means 90% of viewers watch your video until the 10 second mark.

Audience Retention is one of the most critical metrics for ranking videos in YouTube’s search engine results. YouTube has stated publicly that videos with high Audience Retention scores enjoy more visibility.

By optimizing your videos for retention, you’ll not only build a loyal following faster but rank your videos with ease and outperform your competition.

Yes, indirectly. When you successfully optimize your content for viewer retention, the YouTube algorithm notices that viewers like your content and they’re more likely to send viewers your way… because they know they’ll stick around.

Ranking on YouTube is one key to ranking on Google and perhaps with other search engines too.

That’s why you should always optimize your content. TubeBuddy SEO Studio can help there.

The Retention Analyzer breaks down a video into eight parts:

– First 10 seconds First 30 seconds
– First 60 seconds
– First 90 seconds
– First 180 seconds
– Half (i.e., 50% of the video)
– End screens (i.e., the moment when the viewers see the end screen)
– End (i.e., the moment when the video ends)

The Retention Analyzer will show you the percentage of viewers who reached each time interval in descending order. For example, you may see that 70% of your viewers watch the first 30 seconds, while only 5% watch it until the end.

The better your YouTube retention analytics, the better. Take heart in the fact that no public video on YouTube has 100% audience retention. The average is about 50% – 60%. MrBeast audience retention is estimated to be at about 70%… and he’s publicly stated that retention rate is the first metric his team solves for.

Instead of shooting for 100%, set different benchmarks for the different time intervals in descending order, such as:

– First 10 seconds: 90%
– First 30 seconds: 80%
– First 60 seconds: 70%

You can base these targets on your videos’ average rates for each interval.

Put simply, you should create compelling hooks. YouTube says that the first 15 seconds can make or break your entire video. So if your first 15 seconds are weak, people will leave in droves, which will lead to a lower Audience Retention. That’s why it’s important to start your video off with a compelling hook, such as by giving previews of what’s coming next, strong promises, and pattern interrupts. You want to start strong and keep them yearning for more. Watch the first 15 seconds of channels like MrBeast and Dude Perfect, and you’ll see they are all masters of hooks.