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Some marketers might have an unhealthy obsession with metrics — they track too many of them. Maybe we think we can prove any marketing campaign is producing results if there’s a eye-catching percentage by its name. But, deep down, we all know that some metrics are more revealing than others.

There are a ton of KPIs that provide minimal insights. Fortunately, though, we created this guide to help you navigate YouTube Analytics and measure the metrics that actually matter. It’ll save you from drowning in the sea of analytics that most marketers only have a lifebuoy in, helping you not only stay afloat, but swim safely to land.

Read on to learn about the YouTube metrics that actually matter, and how they’ll enhance your video strategy.

YouTube Analytics: The 15 Metrics That Actually Matter

1. Watch Time

Watch time is the total amount of minutes viewers have spent watching your videos. It’s a key metric because YouTube elevates videos and channels with higher watch times in their search results and recommendations section. YouTube does this because the more watch time a video has, the more engaging their algorithm presumes it is.

In the watch time report, you can see the amount of watch time your videos have accumulated. You can also rank each of your videos by watch time and group your videos by themes, styles, and lengths to determine your most engaging types of videos.

2. Average Percentage Viewed

Average percentage viewed is the percent of each video the average viewer watched. It measures your video’s ability to hold viewers’ attention for its entirety. And when YouTube realizes your videos can hold people’s attention, they’ll reward it with higher search and recommendation rankings. You can find this metric in your watch time report.

3. Average View Duration

Average view duration is the total watch time of your video divided by the total number of video plays, including replays. This metric measures your video’s ability to engage viewers. If your video can’t engage viewers, they’ll bounce from your video quickly, leaving you with an unimpressive average view duration. But if your video can engage viewers, your average view duration and total watch time will increase at the same time, boosting your search and recommendations rankings. You can also find this metric in your watch time report.

4. Audience Retention

Audience retention shows you the percentage of viewers who watch and leave your video at every single moment of the video. YouTube elevates videos with high audience retention in their search rankings and suggestions because these videos can effectively capture viewers’ attention.

Audience retention can also inform your future video strategy. The most engaging parts of your video could be your next best video topics. And watching your video during steep dips of engagement will tell you what might be boring your viewers, allowing you to scrap those elements from current and future videos.

In YouTube’s audience retention report, there will be two graphs: the absolute retention curve and relative retention curve. The absolute retention curve shows you how well your videos retain viewers. And the relative retention shows you how well one of your videos retains viewers compared to all other YouTube videos of similar length.

Image Credit: YouTube

5. Re-watches

Re-watches are the amount of times viewers re-watch certain parts of your video. If a lot of people are re-watching a specific part of your video, then they’re probably interested in the topic your video is covering during that moment. These topics can be fodder for your future video strategy. You can find this data in the absolute audience retention graph. Re-watches are usually indicated by rising curves in the graph.

Image Credit: YouTube

6. Engagement

Comments, shares, likes, and dislikes provides marketers with a lot of valuable qualitative data.

Comments can paint a clear picture of your video’s emotional effect on viewers. Shares can gauge how much viewers value your content and brand — since people share content that confirms their ideal self-persona, people who share your video are publicly displaying that they trust and support your brand. Likes and dislikes can help you determine what video topics work best with your particular audience. You can find your videos’ engagement metrics in YouTube’s Interactions Report.

7. Impressions Click-Through Rate

Impressions click-through rate measures your video’s ability to prompt people to watch your video after seeing it on their homepage, recommendation section, or trending section. A high click-through rate means your title was compelling and your video’s topic resonates with a lot of relevant audiences on YouTube.

A common trend for impression click-through rates is that they usually spike immediately after you release your video — your subscribers will see the video at the top of their home page and probably click on it. But once your video spreads beyond your core audience, your click-through rate will decline and then stay at a stable rate.

You can also couple this metric with average percentage viewed and average view duration to see if people actually watch your video after they click on it. A high click-through rate is great, but if people are leaving right at the beginning of your video, your title or thumbnail could be misleading. Preparing viewers for what’s to come is crucial because if your title or thumbnail is inaccurate, they’ll feel deceived and lose trust in your brand.

A low click-through rate but high engagement could mean that the video has a small yet specific audience that is enamored by the content. Go to the Analytics tab in YouTube Studio to examine this metric.

Image Credit: YouTube

8. Card Click-Through-Rate

Cards are slide-in panels that encourage people to take a desired action during a video like watch another video, subscribe to a channel, or click through to a different website. Each of your cards’ click-through rate tells you which action your viewers prefer to take while watching your videos. This can help you place the most engaging card in each of your videos, potentially boosting your watch time, subscriber growth, or website traffic.

Analyzing card click-through rates can also help you uncover the optimal timing, placement, and duration of your cards in future videos. You can find your cards’ click-through rates in the Cards Report.

Image Credit: YouTube

9. Playlist Engagement

Playlists are a great way to organize your videos in a digestible way. It helps your viewers easily consume videos about their favorite topics and prompts them to keep watching, which racks up watch time for your channel.

You can uncover your playlist engagement by analyzing two metrics in YouTube’s Playlist Report: views per playlist start and average time in playlist. Views per playlist start is the average number of video views your playlists gather, and average time in playlist is the average amount of time that viewers viewed the videos in your playlist. If these two metrics are underperforming, try starting your playlist with videos that have the highest retention rate.

10. Unique Viewers

Unique viewers is the estimated number of individuals who watch your videos over a certain period of time. This metric really helps you understand the actual size of your audience.

You can also use this metric to gauge your subscriber’s engagement with your videos. If your unique viewers are lower than your subscriber count, then your subscribers aren’t watching as much of your video as they could be. To get them to be more active, ask them to set up notifications for your new videos. You can find this metric under the Reach Views and Audience tab in YouTube Studio.

11. Views Per Unique Viewers

Views per unique viewers is the amount of times the average viewer watches your video. This metric tells you if people can’t get enough of your video and keep rewatching it. Video topics with a lot of views per unique viewers could also be your most popular content topics, and if you cover them more, you could generate more views, watch time, and subscribers.

Image Credit: YouTube

12. Who’s Watching Your Videos

In YouTube’s demographics report, you can see the different types of people who watch your videos, segmented by age, gender, and geography. This data tells you who your most engaged audience is and who your target audience should actually be. You can take the opposite approach with this data too. If you’re not reaching the audience you want, try pivoting your video strategy and cover topics that would attract them.

Image Credit: YouTube

13. Subscriber Growth

Subscribers are your most loyal fans. They’ve made a public commitment to your brand, content, and values. And they’re most likely to be your evangelists too. Subscribers are also important to your channel because YouTube will send them notifications about your new videos and feature them on their homepage. This means they’ll see your videos more frequently, which’ll help generate more views. Subscribers also watch twice as much video than non-subscribers, so the more subscribers you have, the more watch time your videos will collect.

YouTube’s Subscribers Report will show you which videos, locations, and time periods gain and lose subscribers. This data will tell you what video topics resonate with your subscribers and where to target new subscribers. And by prioritizing your subscribers’ needs, you’ll create videos that they crave, increase your watch time, and boost your search rankings.

14. Traffic Sources

External referrals like social media or sites that embed your videos and YouTube referrals like search, the recommended section, and the homepage are all traffic sources. The Traffic Sources report shows you how viewers found your videos and what sources rack up the most views and watch time. You can use this data to better optimize your video promotion strategy.

Image Credit: YouTube

15. Keywords

In YouTube’s Search Report, which is under the Traffic Sources Report, you can see the most popular queries guiding viewers to your videos. If these queries are slightly different than your video’s topic, consider updating your video to fill these content gaps and add the keywords to your metadata. If there’s a stark difference, consider making a new video about these popular queries.

When you ask someone a question nowadays and they don’t know the answer, you almost always know what they’ll say — “Just Google it.” With over 3.5 billion searches a day, Google’s typically your entry-point for anything you need to do on the web, so I’m not surprised you want to change your homepage to Google.

Having the world’s number one search engine as your homepage is undoubtedly helpful. Who wouldn’t want everything from dinner recipes to news stories a mere keyboard tap away?

If you want to make Google your homepage, here’s how to do it in a minute or less.

How to Make Google Your Homepage on Firefox

1. Open your Firefox browser, and search “www.google.com.”

2. Hold the “Google” tab down, and drag it onto the home icon.

3. A “Set Home Page” message will pop up — click the blue “Yes” button.

How to Make Google Your Homepage on Chrome

1. Open your Chrome browser, and click the three-dot icon in the top right corner. Then select “Settings”.

2. Under “Appearance”, find “Show home button”. If it’s disabled (you’ll know if it’s grey), slide the button to the right.

3. With the indicator now blue, you’re free to select the button beside “Enter custom web address” (below “New Tab page”). In the line beside it, type “www.google.com”.

How to Make Google Your Homepage on Safari

1. Open your Safari browser, click “Safari” on the navigation bar, and select “Preferences … ”.

2. Go to your “General” tab.

3. Where it says “Homepage:”, fill in the box with “www.google.com”. Then click the “Set to Current Page” button.

4. Click “Change Homepage” in the pop-up.

Earlier this year, a handful of my extremely bright and capable colleagues compiled a report on topic clusters. Now first, what the heck is a topic cluster?

A topic cluster is a method that uses a single “pillar page” as the main hub of content for a given topic. All of your content assets related to that topic link back to the pillar page — and the pillar links out to each asset.

Here’s why it’s critical to your content strategy.

Topic clusters aren’t just a nice, clean way of organizing content that brings glee to the most Type A of marketers (me, for instance). It also keeps Google happy. As it turns out, the search engine giant has changed its algorithm to favor topic-based content, making pillar pages a requirement for content marketers who want to maintain a high SERP ranking.

Here’s a handy video explaining how topic clusters work:

>Now, let’s dive into what these pillar pages mean for your business.

What Is a Pillar Page?

My colleague, Sophia Bernazzani, does an excellent job of summarizing pillar pages (and comparing them to HubSpot Marketing Blog’s own previous method of topic organization) in her post on the subject here. As the previous paragraphs suggest, she says:

“A pillar page is the basis on which a topic cluster is built. A pillar page covers all aspects of the topic on a single page, with room for more in-depth reporting in more detailed cluster blog posts that hyperlink back to the pillar page. Pillar pages broadly cover a particular topic, and cluster content should address a specific keyword related to that topic in-depth.”

What’s more, however, is that the idea of a pillar page is to cover broad content in a way that is highly linkable itself — that is, external sites would link to it as a canonical resource for the topic. So, to put it into visual terms, here’s what our blog architecture used to look like using this old playbook:

This is where the topic cluster model comes into play. Using topics you want to rank for, you can organize the mess of content above by optimizing it for specific keywords related to its respective topic. Then, hyperlink all of those topics back to a pillar page.

Think of this pillar page as a topic’s mother ship, and your blog posts are all smaller soldier ships that give and receive support from this mother ship. This organization offers greater search engine authority because it tells Google you’ve dedicated a certain amount of digital real estate to this topic, and are to be considered a reliable answer to users’ questions on that topic when they conduct a search.

Now, as we’ve established multiple topic clusters, here’s what our blog infrastructure now looks like:

See how the site architecture is more deliberate in this model? The visual above shows how it organizes content assets together to help searchers more easily find information within your domain.

It has three main components:

1. Pillar content (your pillar page)
2. Cluster content
3. Hyperlinks

Okay, you get it — pillar pages are both nice and important for SEO. After all, on average, a page that ranks #1 in Google will also rank well for around 1,000 other related keywords. But what are they supposed to look like? Are aesthetics important? How do you organize all of your content assets on a pillar page?

Actions speak louder than words — says the writer — which is why we sought answers to those questions by way of pillar page examples that do an excellent job of organizing and linking to content assets.

7 Great Pillar Page Examples

1. Typeform: Brand Awareness

At first glance, it’s hard to ignore the positively inbound-y nature Typeform’s Brand Awareness pillar page. It was built to inform, and lives up to its tagline: “Nearly everything you need to know.”

Not only is it aesthetically pleasing — the color palette is, somehow, at once both soothing and bold — but it’s quite easy to navigate. The table of contents appears immediately, and once you begin to consume the content, it’s clear, comprehensive, and quotable.

Typeform’s Internal Linking Strategy

Notice how the information is interjected with CTAs to tweet various stand-out quotes:

And while there are several links throughout the pillar page, the vast majority of them don’t link to other Typeform content assets. In fact, it’s not until toward the end of the pillar page that those links to other Typeform pages begin to appear, and even them, they’re used sparingly, and typically used to support points and direct readers to solutions.

2. Matthew Barby: Customer Acquisition Strategies

HubSpot’s Global Head of Growth and SEO, Matthew Barby, is no stranger to the HubSpot Marketing Blog, or the people who comprise its team. We regularly quote him here, and frequently pester him with our own questions. Naturally, his website is a go-to resource for marketers who want to learn about SEO — and it includes an exemplary pillar page on customer acquisition strategies.

Matthew Barby’s Internal Linking Strategy

Similar to the Typeform example, there’s a noticeable shortage of promotional hyperlinks within the first section of the page. In fact, as you scroll down the page, you’ll also see that links to Barby’s other content assets are both tastefully and seamlessly inserted between large pieces of tactical information.

But these links are supplemental and relevant, and there aren’t tons of them — all of them direct the user to Barby’s tools on the topic at hand, which is customer acquisition. Instead of bombarding the user with numerous in-text links, well-designed CTAs are used to allow readers to click to learn about these tools.

3. HubSpot: Productivity Apps

Sometimes, pillar pages can look like and belong to the same blog property for which it’s building SEO authority. Recently, we adopted this concept in our very own topic cluster model. Above is our pillar page for productivity apps, a topic we know many of our readers care about and have questions on.

The pillar page above has a blog-like title, feature image, and byline just like the specific blog articles that belong to this cluster. It’s also on the same domain as our blog content — blog.hubspot.com. These attributes show Google there’s a visible connection between the pillar, which is much longer than each blog post to encompass each topic, and the blog articles it links out to.

HubSpot’s Internal Linking Strategy

In addition to the blue anchor text CTA to download related content — as shown in the first screenshot of our Productivity Apps pillar page, above — these pillars also link out to each page in the topic cluster using an RSS feed at the bottom of the pillar page.

In the screenshot directly above, you’ll see each article belonging to the Productivity Apps cluster linked in a “Related Articles” carousel. This carousel allows us to link out to each article in this cluster as they’re created, further strengthening the entire cluster as a result.

4. The Atlantic: Population Healthier

Pillar pages are also an excellent way to organize and create sponsored content with a co-marketing partner. Case in point: The Atlantic partnered with athenahealth to compile a report (and pillar page) on healthcare in the U.S.

The content is absolutely bananas — in the absolutely best way possible. It begins with a story about a historical building in the Massachusetts town of Lowell, which forays into a full-blown interactive, animated, and highly information report about the state of healthcare coverage in cities like this one as the user scrolls down. But the entire time, there’s a helpful plus-sign along the left side of the page that, when clicked on, presents a table of contents.

The Atlantic‘s Internal Linking Strategy

On The Atlantic‘s pillar page, links to additional content found on theatlantic.com are a bit more prevalent than the previous example. But remember, this pillar page was created to support sponsored content. Therefore, it presents an organized, non-intrusive way of linking to this sponsored (but still informative) content that relates back to the central topic of healthcare in the U.S.

The Atlantic achieves that by placing well-designed, but noticeable links at the end of each section. These lighter-colored boxes match the visual theme that precede them — such as with the link to “The Culture Wars” content in the example above.

5. ProfitWell: SaaS DNA Project

We love content that makes good use of examples to point out best practices — just have a look at what we’re doing in this post. But in a move similar to Typeform’s in its Brand Awareness pillar page, ProfitWell’s pillar page on “The Anatomy of a SaaS Marketing Site” incorporates plenty of “in-the-while” instances of both what to do when it comes to SaaS marketing content — and what not to do.

Building that sort of information into a pillar page — or any content, for that matter — preemptively answers the question of, “I know what I’m supposed to do. But what should I avoid at all costs?”

ProfitWell’s Internal Linking Strategy

Once again, there’s a noticeable lack of link inundation here. Within each chapter, a visual CTA lingers along the right-hand side of the page that allows users to download the full Anatomy of a Saas Marketing Site guide, as well as a single click-to-tweet option for one line of quotable text from the section. It’s a no muss, no fuss approach that fits in well with a text-heavy site, which doesn’t distract from the main content.

6. GoodUI: Evidence

We’re absolutely delighted by the concept of “Easter eggs” — those little hidden, puzzle-like treasures on the internet that turn up cool tricks or nuggets of information. And to us, GoodUI’s “Evidence” pillar page is one big Easter egg.

GoodUI’s Internal Linking Strategy

The page consists of data — or “evidence” — from multiple A/B tests that have uncovered patterns for higher conversions. Clicking on any data point throughout the page will direct the viewer to an expanded, detailed view of the test leading to that information. It’s a treasure trove of eye-catching, compelling experiment results.

Within that sub-content, there’s a CTA at the bottom of each dedicated test section to share your own test, providing the reader with an opportunity to contribute her own content and findings to an already impressive plethora of information.

7. GatherContent: UX Design and Content Strategy

I love this pillar page, because you can download it.

Pillar pages are designed to be the mother ships for the topics on which you plan to create lots of content, but they don’t have to just be SEO builders. According to GatherContent’s pillar page, shown above, they can also be lead generators.

This pillar page is a long, open document of subtopics about user experience (UX) design that doubles as a PDF you can download to your computer.

Take a look at the table of contents that comes after the title page, above. As you can see, you can download this guide to your computer (after entering your name and email address).

GatherContent’s Internal Linking Strategy

GatherContent’s pillar page doesn’t focus much on linking out to related content on UX design. Instead, it links to another guide on a related topic. There, readers will see a preview of a PDF they can then download using their name and email address.

This is an example of a content strategy that uses pillar pages to rank its lead-generating content directly on Google.

What’d you think? Which pillar page style interested you the most? No matter how you organize your content, a thorough pillar page is the support beam that helps you rank well in search across numerous topics across your industry.

We spend a lot of time at work. Forty hours a week for forty odd years adds up to a whopping 70 percent of your life spent in an office, says millennial career expert Jill Jacinto. And as such, “it’s only natural to become friends with your coworkers,” she points out. But Heather Huhman, a career coach and founder of Come Recommended, says, “in any relationship, it’s important to have boundaries,” and Jacinto agrees.

In other words, as Jacinto puts it, “at the end of the day, they are your coworker first and friend second.” And there are just some things you should never, ever tell them.

Here, according to our career experts, are six things you need to keep to yourself.

1. “That presentation totally sucked,” or any other unconstructive criticism

It’s not always easy, but according to Huhman, you should never give a coworker unconstructive criticism. “When you’re friends with a coworker, it can be tempting to just tell them like it is. But this isn’t always helpful.” Instead, Huhman says, “It’s better to discuss what mistakes were made and offer solutions to the problem.” A friend will appreciate your help — and your office will be better off for it, she says.

2. “I hate our boss,” or anything else derogatory about your employer.  

You may loathe the person for whom you work and need to vent — but Jacinto warns you should not share your boss-related frustration with your coworker. “You never know what they might say you said about that boss to another team member, HR or worse, the boss you have been complaining about,” Jacinto points out. “A vent session could then be misconstrued that you were badmouthing your employer.”

3. “You’re the best salesperson in the office,” or whatever they want to hear.

Giving a coworker a compliment may seem harmless, but telling a white lie because it’s what your coworker wants to hear is never a good idea, warns Huhman. “When someone in the office is also a friend, it can be tempting to tell them they did a great job when their performance was actually subpar,” she admits. “But that does neither you nor them any favors, because they’ll continue to do below average work because you told them it was excellent.” The truth, however, will help everyone.

4. “You’ll never guess this about my client,” or any sensitive client details.

“It’s a given you should never badmouth a client to a coworker,” Jacinto says, “but you also need to make sure you are not releasing any of their private information across departments.” Jacinto recalls a client who was “burned badly in this situation when her work friend asked to see a client event list — which was highly classified,” she says. “Except, it’s against the rules to share that type of information and both of the people ended up getting fired for that incident. Do not let a simple file upload or email share put you in this situation.” Keep confidential information exactly that.

5. “Did you hear about what Amy did last night?” or any other office gossip.

Spreading office mates’ business — even with your work BFF — is never a good idea. “Chances are, you have more than one friend at work,” points out Huhman. “But that doesn’t give you the right to talk to one about another’s personal life. Even if the info seems harmless, it can negatively affect how your friend is perceived in the office.” So try to stick to facts and figures, and save the gossip for your out-of-office friends.

6. “I totally screwed up,” or any other admission of a big mistake.

Of course, mistakes happen. But, Jacinto warns, “do not publicize your mistakes to your work friends. Whether it’s an email that didn’t go out, a presentation that had the wrong data or negative client feedback, try not to spill the beans to your work friend.” Why? Because even though you grab coffee and catch up on your weekend plans, “you are still coworkers and competitors,” Jacinto says. “You never truly know how someone could use this information against you. They might not even realize it themselves until it’s just you and then up for the coveted promotion, raise or client.”