I Have A Lot of Views, But Low View Duration. What's wrong?

Sound Advice is the bi-weekly (every other week) edition of the Lower Street newsletter. This is the blog edition, posted one week delayed. Subscribe to the newsletter to get these in your inbox as they come out :). Or just come here as you need. That works too.

High Views, Low Average Percentage Viewed?

Dear Annie,​

We launched our podcast about eight months ago and have been really focused on growing our YouTube presence. We've invested heavily into it, with professional studio recordings, a well-known host with a big social media following, custom artwork for each episode, and we've even been lucky enough to book some big name founders and executives from well-known brands. We're really proud of our guest lineup and think the content is great.

The numbers originally seemed good. I mean, not Joe Rogan-level good, but the views were steadily climbing, and we’ve been pretty happy with what we’ve seen, especially seeing as our audience is kind of niche (Small-Medium Business Owners). But I only recently got access to YouTube Studio (thus far it’s been managed by another internal team member), and discovered our analytics. It looks like we’re getting lots of impressions, but the number that is really concerning me is the Average Percentage Viewed.

On episodes that run about 45 minutes, we're sitting around 18%. I didn't even know that metric existed until recently, and now it’s keeping me up at night. I don’t really have benchmarks to compare it to, but it doesn’t sound great to me. What does this number mean? And what should I do about it?

​

Sincerely,

Sleepless over Stats

Have a question? Ask Annie here.

How you can increase your APV

Hi Sleepless,

First of all, congratulations on taking your podcast seriously. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right! You’ve got slick studio production, a host with a built-in audience, custom episode artwork (I assume this includes unique thumbnails for YouTube), and a guest lineup with name recognition.

Based on the analytics you’re seeing, your podcast packaging is clearly working. Your high impression number means that YouTube is surfacing your podcast frequently, and your relatively high views indicates that a lot of people who are seeing the podcast are also choosing to click play. The big names attached to your show (your host, your guests, and the brands they represent) are probably doing a lot of the work here. People are searching for a founder or brand you’ve featured, your episodes are coming up, and your thumbnails are making them click. So that’s the good news.

Now here’s the bad news. You’re right to be concerned: 18% average percentage viewed is less than ideal. People are finding your content, but for whatever reason, it’s not keeping their attention. The viewers you’re attracting (probably through searches for your guests) arrive with expectations that aren’t being met in your episodes. Don’t feel too bad. We’ve seen this many times before. Unfortunately, booking a big name guest is just the first step in the process of making an engaging episode. If the episode doesn’t quickly deliver something substantive, unique, and generally worth the audience’s time, they won’t hesitate to click away.

So what can you do about it?

According to Video Strategist Jackie Lamport, the first step is to dive deeper into your YouTube analytics and investigate your retention curve (you can find this under the Engagement tab). If you notice a drop off in the first 30 seconds, you probably need to rethink your intros (Jackie has some recommendations for you here).

If you see a noticeable drop off later in the episode, scroll to that timestamp and watch the section back. Ask yourself honestly: are you bored? Do topics shift unexpectedly? Does the conversation drift? If you notice a gradual decline across the whole episode, it’s possible your episodes are just too long. At 45 minutes, you’re on the longer end, and your target audience of SMB Owners is a busy group of people. On average, they’re watching about 13 minutes of your episodes. Maybe that’s a more attainable length for this group of people.

One more thing worth checking before you draw any firm conclusions is your audio episode completion rate (you can find this in your Apple or Spotify analytics dashboards). For episodes around 45 minutes long, you’d want to be seeing an average completion rate of around 60% or more. If your audio numbers look healthy, what you’re seeing on YouTube might actually be audience sampling. As I said above, these are busy people. They’re likely to be primarily audio-only podcast consumers.

Based on research from Sounds Profitable, we know that audio prime listeners do still consume a lot of video – in fact, they primarily discover podcasts on YouTube. So it’s entirely possible your audience is finding the podcast on YouTube, getting a feel for the show, and then going to finish it on an audio-only podcast app. If that’s the case, your 18% APV tells a totally different story.

So to summarize: high views and high click through rates tell us that lots of people want to watch. But your low APV is definitely worth investigating. Start with your retention curve, consider your episode length, and don’t forget to cross-reference with your audio completion data. Re-watch your episodes with your audience’s expectations in mind, and make sure the content is living up to its packaging.

You’ve nailed getting people to click on your show. The next investment is in making sure they don’t regret it.

​

Good luck,

Annie