YouTube’s New Metric Unveils Data You Weren’t Able to See Before

Upload, promote, and wait. That’s the routine for seasoned YouTube bloggers. Like other social media platforms, metrics matter if your goal is to increase views and build community. Up until this year, creators weren’t able to dig into data after a mere 24 hours but that’s officially a thing of the past, thanks to the latest update to YouTube‘s analytics reporting. Now, you can get a full set of numbers within this short time span and use them to inform your next moves.

Here is everything you should know about the update, which is available for all to use.

You can access the 24-hour metric within the video analytics section of YouTube‘s Creator Studio, where it will be the first option under the date range drop-down menu. From there, the landing page will show you the number of views so far and if you’d like, a side-by-side comparison against a previously published video.

According to Search Engine Journal, traffic sources are also broken down into five categories that can provide valuable insight about how and when to produce content moving forward: Browse features, Notifications, Channel Pages, External, and Direct.

They write, “The metric I would recommend paying attention to closely is views received from notifications. If that number starts to drop off noticeably over time it means people who have opted-in to viewing your content are becoming less eager to watch it.”

Additionally, they suggest that with time, the “browse features” metric could shed light on how YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is reacting to your content.

One crucial detail to note is that this data isn’t available for live streams. Nonetheless, it’s an exciting update that can help improve your YouTube strategy so check it out after your next upload.

Subscribe to the BlogHer newsletter for more tactical advice, exclusive content, and timely event updates.