What is the Channel Audit?
The Channel Audit feature is designed to understand your channel's performance comprehensively. This insightful tool analyzes a YouTube channel's statistics, content performance, and audience engagement.
The main benefit of the Channel Audit feature is its ability to help you identify what's working and uncover opportunities for improvement. By providing valuable metrics such as Views per Hour (VPH), engagement rate, YouTube subscribers gained, total and average Watch Time, top audience retention, top YouTube Playlists, and traffic being sent by videos uploaded by other channels.
How to get started with the Channel Audit:
This feature is available within the vidIQ extension (click here to download it). After downloading the vidIQ extension, you will see the Channel Audit from the toolbar on the left:
Also, you can find the Channel Audit inside the toolbar at the top:
Utilizing the Channel Audit Tool is a simple process. After selecting 'Channel Audit', you will be presented with a broad overview of your channel's performance. Let's break down each section:
Stats at a Glance
Views, subscribers, and minutes:: You can hover over each section, and you will see the exact amount of subscribers and minutes watched over the timeframe selected as well as the last period with the same timeframe (previous 30, 60, or 90 days).
Changing the timeframe is only available on the Boost and coaching paid plans.
Content to Double Down On
These are your best-performing videos on YouTube over the last 90 days. Please look at this video's topic, content, and production to see why it's so successful and try to repeat it.
Each subsection inside the “Content to Double On” explained:
Views: This section lists your most viewed videos. We recommend examining the traffic sources to understand why they are performing well and apply these insights to your future content.
Subscribers Gained: Here, you will find your videos with the best impressions based on views. We suggest you look over the titles and thumbnails of these videos to understand their success and use those strategies for your upcoming projects.
Competitors (by VPH): This section showcases your competitors' most viewed videos ranked by Views Per Hour (VPH). We encourage you to learn from these videos and consider how you might incorporate similar strategies into your channel.
Total Watch Time (minutes): These videos have the longest watch time, and we recommend creating more content in a similar style to capitalize on this success.
Avg. Watch time: Here are the videos with the best average watch time. We suggest studying their theme and production techniques to reproduce their success in your work.
Top Retention %: Your audience loves these videos and likely wants to watch more of this content. This is prime double-down content.
Top Playlists: Straightforward, your most-watched playlists.
Top suggested (non-owned): The top videos suggesting your content. We advise creating similar content, analyzing the correlation, and then expanding in that direction.
Top search terms: Here are the highest-ranking keywords your channel is associated with.
End screen Click Rates: Shows how often viewers click on your end-screen elements, expressed as a percentage of total viewers who saw them.
Card Click Rates: Indicates the percentage of viewers who click on your info cards during playback. They help with engagement and could help increase your watch time.
Content That Could Use Work
These are your lowest-performing videos on YouTube over the last 90 days. Study the content, community response, and audience retention to determine why.
Lowest Avg. Watch time: These videos have the lowest average watch time in your channel for the timeframe selected.
Lowest Retention %: This section lists the videos with the lowest retention rates. We suggest you look them over to see if changing the video length or improving this type of content is necessary.
Lowest Views: Here are the videos that received the fewest views. Studying these videos might help you decide whether to continue producing this type of content.
Average Metrics Over the Last 30 and (60/90 Days)
These are average metrics for videos you've uploaded in the last 90 days. Click on a metric to see a list of videos with links to edit these values.
Now, here you can find the criteria for each one of these metrics:
Title Length: Titles should be between 20–60 characters.
Description Length: Descriptions should be longer than 300 characters.
Tags Length: All tags combined should be longer than 200 characters.
Playlists: Every public video should be in at least one playlist.
Actionable SEO Score: Optimizing your video titles, tags, and descriptions ensures your content has the maximum potential for audience reach. Try to keep this score above 40. However, we have a new Optimize score that you can use based on the latest YouTube algorithm updates.
Videos Without Cards: The videos listed do not have any cards.
Videos Without End Screens: The videos listed do not have any end screens.
Videos Without High-Res Thumbnails: The videos listed do not have high-res thumbnails.
Videos Not Added to Playlists: The videos listed are not in enough playlists inside your channel.
Posting Schedule: Consistency is king on YouTube! The more videos you publish, the more often you impact your audience. Once a week should be your minimum target. Once a day is fantastic.
The Channel Audit feature empowers you to make data-driven decisions that elevate your content strategy. By understanding what works, what needs improvement, and where opportunities lie, you can focus on creating content that resonates with your audience and drives growth. Dive into the Channel Audit Tool and take your content to the next level. If you’d like to learn more about vidIQ’s suite of features in the vidIQ extension, click here to explore more.