Evan Carmichael’s YouTube Audience Retention Secret

Last updated on June 5th, 2024

THE GOAL:

Evan Carmichael and his team are relentlessly focused on keeping YouTube Audience Retention above 70% at the one-minute mark.

WHY DO THIS?

1. Videos with higher audience retention get ranked higher on YouTube, so they get more views.
2. YouTube promotes videos with more watch time.
3. “If you can get people to stick around for one minute, they’re way more likely to watch the whole video.” – Evan Carmichael

RELATED VIDEOS:

• Tim Schmoyer’s 50% YouTube AUDIENCE RETENTION Strategy 
• YOUTUBE AUDIENCE RETENTION – VidIQ’s Liron Segev
• TUBEBUDDY’s Retention Analyzer (with Andrew Kan) – Grow Your Channel

BEFORE YOU BEGIN, KNOW THIS:

1. You can’t make people watch for more than one second longer than they want to.
2. Audience retention for a given video can be found in YouTube Studio.
3. Audience retention for most videos at 1 minute is less than 50%.
4. Audience retention data is delayed 48+ hours, it’s not live data.

THE STEPS:

1. To find a video’s audience retention, go to YouTube Studio under Analytics in either Overview and Engagement tabs.
2. Click on “See More.” This will give you a larger graph.
3. Roll your cursor over 1:00 in the graph. This will tell you what percentage of viewers are still watching at this point.

RESULTS:

Higher audience retention at 1 minute will get you more views, subscriber growth, recommendations by YouTube, and suggested video clicks overall.