Discover the Top 8 Cost-Free Videography Suites for Digital Filmmakers

The Best Free Video Editing Software for YouTube (Top 8 Reviews)

Richard Bennett

Dec 02, 2022• Proven solutions

What makes a YouTube video good? The most important element is obviously you, the creator. Your personality, ideas, and unique viewpoint are what will make your content special and turn viewers into subscribers.

The next most important thing – even more important than the camera you use – is editing.

Editing a YouTube video doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it should be simple. Your focus when you’re perfecting your video should be on that ‘most important thing’ we mentioned earlier – your creativity. Editing for a YouTube video should be art, not mechanical engineering.

Below is a list of the top free video editing software ranked according to how appropriate it is for YouTube videos.

Rank	Editor	Make Cuts	Audio Features	Multiple Video Tracks	Video Effects	Intuitive Score (1-5)	Compatibility
1.	OpenShot Video Editor	Yes	Fade In/Out, set volume levels	Yes	Transitions, text, ability to animate. Blur/Saturation/Brightness controls.	5	Windows, Mac, Linux
2.	Shotcut	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	You can customize color presets and other effects. No animations.	4	Windows, Mac, Linux
3.	Hitfilm Express	Yes	Audio effects and transitioning.	Yes	Every imaginable picture customization. Some FX (more if you pay). Text tool.	4	Windows, Mac
4.	VideoPad Video Editor	Yes	Noise removal, equalizer, audio effects.	Yes	Moving text, transitions, filters.	5	Windows
5.	Lightworks	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	No premade effects, but you can add text/color edit.	3	Windows, Mac, Linux
6.	VSDC Video Editor	Yes	Some audio features blocked in free version	Yes	Filters, transitions, text, and more.	1	Windows
7.	Machete Video Editor Lite	Yes	None	No	None	3	Windows
8.	Avidemux	Yes	Some audio features	No	Some picture adjustments	2	Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Ready to upgrade to a simple, powerful, paid software that’s perfect for YouTube? Check out the free trial of Wondershare Filmora . It is an advanced tool that is focused more on newbie editors who are new to the videography world but want to compete with professionals!

1. OpenShot Video Editor – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Easy to use
Includes transitions
Keyframing
Alpha Channel
Unlimited video tracks

OpenShot Video Editor Review

OpenShot completely lives up to the claim that it was designed to be ‘easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful’.

The first time you use OpenShot there will be helpful tutorial notes to guide you through the program. The interface is intuitive enough that you may not always need them, but having them should erase any confusion.

All of the basic editing features, like cutting clips up, are easy to access in the timeline. You have unlimited tracks, and it’s easy to drag your clips between them. There’s a helpful magnet feature that fits clips together if you slide them together, but which still allows for blank space if you choose to leave it.

Most other functions – setting volume levels, adjusting the speed, adding movement/zoom effect – are accessible simply by right-clicking on your clip in the timeline and choosing what you want from the menu that pops up.

Is OpenShot Video Editor good for YouTube?

OpenShot is a great, free, choice for YouTubers at any editing skill level.

Beyond simply ordering your clips, OpenShot includes text and transition options within the program. You can even animate the text, and access Animated Titles if you use OpenShot in tandem with a free animation program called Blender. Titles and transitions are vital to a lot of popular YouTube styles.

OpenShot does not provide the same level of detail as the runner up, Shotcut, when it comes to color correction or audio editing. However, the features it does have (volume levels, control of saturation) will satisfy most YouTubers.

2. Shotcut – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Detailed audio editing
Color grading, ability to save presets
Fairly intuitive timeline

Shotcut Review

Shotcut delivers a smooth, detailed, editing experience for free. It is not as easy to jump into as some of the other programs on this list, but it still only takes a half-hour or so of playing around to understand it well enough to make a video. There are also tutorials up on Shotcut’s site that can help you.

You can edit using multiple video tracks in Shotcut, making it easy to combine multiple clips, and basic functions like splitting or copying clips are as easy as clicking the right icon on the toolbar.

All of the video and audio effects, including things like chroma key, you might want to apply to your video are found under the Filters menu. It will look empty when you first open it, and you have to click the plus sign to see what your options are. If you want to create a color tint (like what you might think of as an Instagram filter) then you can do that through the Color Grading option. If you want to do something like invert your colors or add an ‘old film’ look, you’ll find that here as well along with all of the audio editing features (balance, bass and treble, and gain to name just a few).

Is Shotcut good for YouTube?

Shotcut is a great choice for YouTubers. It allows you to do some advanced editing, and it’s easy to learn compared to a program targeted at professional editors.

The only complication with Shotcut for entry-level editors who will primarily use the program for YouTube might be that animations – like moving text – are not available through the program (you can add and customize text, but it just sits there). You can get them from elsewhere and use them in the program (Shotcut has an alpha channel), but it’s a bit more involved a process than simply customizing something that’s already provided.

3. Hitfilm Express – Windows, Mac

Pros

Compositing mode (2D and 3D)
The Most effect customization
Helpful User Guide & tutorials

Cons

Can be overwhelming
Its main strength is FX, but you only get a couple for free. Most have to be bought separately.

Hitfilm Express Review

Hitfilm Express is the best free editor if you want to add special effects to your projects. OpenShot’s alpha channel will be enough for most people, but if you think of yourself as an aspiring filmmaker then it’s hard to beat Hitfilm’s range of functions.

This is an editor designed for people who want to make movies, and it’s a lot more intuitive than most professional-grade software. Film-quality FX (lasers, explosions, etc.) are available through Hitfilm Express for a reasonable price ($10-$50, depending on what you want), and even without paying extra for the packs, there’s a lot you can do to give your video a ‘film look’ using compositing layers and the multitude of customizable effects provided through the program.

Another highlight of Hitfilm Express is the extensive selection of tutorials and helpful information they have available both through YouTube videos and their User Guide. You will need those because this program can be overwhelming. It has so many functions and areas you can customize that it is easy to get lost.

That said, basic editing in Hitfilm Express is not difficult to jump into. It’s only when you start getting fancy that things get dicey.

Is Hitfilm Express good for YouTube?

Yes. It will not be the best option for everyone, but it’s not a bad option for anyone either.

If what you want to make is a vlog where you have a series of clips, and intro, and maybe a couple of title effects, then Hitfilm express might be overkill. You don’t want to have to master compositing just to add some text.

If what you want to make is a vlog that’s interrupted by an alien invasion and turns into an action sequence with lasers and falling debris, it’d be hard to do better than Hitfilm Express.

4. VideoPad Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Easy to jump into
Moving text
Huge audio waveforms
Audio and visual effects
Lossless exports

Cons

No longer updated

VideoPad Video Editor Review

VideoPad Video Editor is an extremely easy to use program. It may be the easiest program on this list to jump into, which you could also realistically create your entire video inside (there are easier programs, but you can only do some of your work in them). Part of its simplicity comes from not being as feature-rich as the programs ranking higher than it on this list, however.

You do not get the same range of functions with VideoPad as you do from the top 3 free editors, but it has enough to satisfy people who are just starting out. Creating moving text effects is easy, you have huge audio waves to work with while you’re syncing, and effects like transitions and filters are easy to find.

VideoPad does suffer a bit from being dated. This program is no longer being worked on, and the interface doesn’t look particularly modern. This is a bit more than a cosmetic issue because some features, while not difficult to find, are placed a bit oddly compared to other editors.

One slightly annoying feature of VideoPad is that it will prompt you to buy the commercial version sometimes (the free version is only for non-commercial use). There have been reports of exports being blocked in the free version, but I exported several times for the sake of this review and the issue never came up.

Is VideoPad Video Editor good for YouTube?

VideoPad makes a decent YouTube editor. You can jump right in and start making cuts, adding filters, and ordering your clips. If you have the kind of channel where voiceovers are important (like in gaming or makeup), then you’ll be happy with the size of the audio waves you have to work with for syncing.

The thing about VideoPad is that you’re probably going to outgrow it quickly as you become a more capable editor.

5. Lightworks – Windows, Mac, Linux

Pros

Detailed color and audio editing
Multicam editing

Cons

Exports limited to 720p for the free version
Difficult to learn compared to other free software

Lightworks Review

On their website, Lightworks claims to have an ‘intuitive interface’ and ‘easy timeline editing’. This is true if you compare it to other professional-level editing suites. Compared to the other programs on this list, Lightworks is complicated.

The first thing I attempt when I review this program is to simply split a clip, and it took me a ridiculous amount of time to figure this feature out in Lightworks (a more advanced editor could have found it faster, but these reviews are meant to help people with less experience). Lightworks does have a whole tutorial series on using the software, so if you are interested in learning to use it there is ample material out there to help you.

Lightworks has a wide range of functions (i.e. detailed audio editing and color correction), and it has been used for big movies like ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. It is the most professional program on this list, and it’s a great free alternative to something like Adobe Premiere Pro.

Note: there is no time limit on the free version of Lightworks, but it will ask you to renew your free license every 7 days. When it says your license is ‘expired’ it isn’t kicking you off the free version, you just need to renew.

Is Lightworks good for YouTube?

Whether or not Lightworks is right for your YouTube channel depends on your goals as a video editor.

If what you want is to jump in and start making YouTube videos quickly, Lightworks might not be a great choice. It’s not an easy program to just jump into, you’ll have to either take time to learn it or accept that it’ll take some trial and error to get the hang of.

If what you want is to become a professional-level video editor, then Lightworks is a great program to start on (although, Hitfilm Express may still be better). Taking the time to learn it could certainly pay off in the long run.

However, if one of your priorities is for your YouTube channel to come across as professional, then the free version of Lightworks does have some disappointing limitations. You can only export videos in 720p, which is lower quality than viewers on YouTube expect (you probably want at least 1080p). Your output format is limited too. The royalty-free audio and video content Lightworks offers are also not free; you can just buy them through the program.

6. VSDC Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Diagrams and charts
How To Get Started Guide
Lots of features

Cons

Very confusing
Paid features show up in the free version, but they’re blocked

Review of VSDC Video Editor

There’s a lot to like about VSDC Video Editor, but you have to do a lot of work to uncover any of it. Accessing even the most basic features is confusing.

One of the first things I tried to do as I tested the program was make a jump cut (where you cut out part of a video so the playback ‘jumps over’ the deleted segment) and, while I was able to do it, it was not an intuitive process. There is a multitude of toolbars and icons surrounding your preview window in VSDC, and none of those icons was for making cuts to your clips. To make any cuts you have to find the ‘cutting and splitting’ option under the Editor tab at the top of the page, which will open a second window in which you still cannot make any cuts. Instead what you can do is place markers, and when you click ‘apply changes’ to exit the window cuts will be made where you placed markers. There is nothing in the window to explain what the markers are for.

Other basic functions, like adding text, are just as complicated.

Is VSDC Video Editor good for YouTube?

I would not recommend VSDC for YouTube. It ranks higher than two other items on this list because they are, do to functional limitations, unable to create full YouTube videos without the support of other programs (at least realistically). You certainly could create your full YouTube video in VSDC, but it’d be a headache.

7. Machete Video Editor Lite – Windows

Pros

Great for harvesting clips from longer footage
Lossless exports

Cons

Cannot swap or add audio
Only supports two formats (AVI and WMV)
Slightly awkward timeline

Machete Video Editor Lite Review

Machete Lite claims that you’ll be able to edit your videos “within a few minutes after downloading the program, even if you’ve never edited a video before”, and that is true. It might even be better if you haven’t edited a video before because the interface is slightly awkward if you’ve come from a program with a more traditional timeline setup. Machete Lite is easy to use for the most part, but it doesn’t work like most other editors and that can be awkward to navigate around.

Instead of seeing a timeline with all of your individual clips, Machete treats your entire video as one clip. You will only be able to see where you have inserted a separate video clip or cut out a portion of the video by watching the video back or jumping through it (Machete Lite does allow frame-by-frame scrolling). You won’t be able to see this information at a glance, and you won’t be able to adjust the lengths of clips you’ve added separately.

To take out any portion of your overall video you’ll need to find a keyframe at the beginning, set that as the beginning of your selection, then find a key frame at the end and set that as the end of your selection. You will then be able to delete that selection. This will not work if the frames you have set as the beginning and end are not considered keyframes by the program, so it can be difficult to be precise, but since the program allows you to jump through keyframes it’s not difficult to find a point that works.

Is Machete Video Editor Lite good for YouTube?

Machete Lite is not a good choice for YouTubers unless it is used in combination with another program.

It doesn’t work as a YouTube editor because you cannot edit or swap audio, the transition between clips, or create layers of videos and images.

However, the thing Machete Lite is really good at is cutting out clips from longer videos. You can create a selection of a part of your longer clip and then export it (with no quality loss) as its own video file.

This is what the Machete Lite toolbar looks like when you’ve created a selection. Tools like cut and copy which were greyed out before are now available, as is the save icon on the far right. If you click the save icon, you’ll be able to save that selection as its own video.

You can’t create a complete YouTube video in Machete Lite, but you can harvest clips to use in a different program.

8. Avidemux – Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Pros

Can add subtitle files

Cons

Not intuitive
Doesn’t support MOV or WMV
The website is not informative, no tutorials

Avidemux Review

Avidemux is not an easy program to jump into. I almost wrote that it couldn’t do anything besides make cuts to a clip before I saw a YouTube tutorial about how to find the contrast and brightness tools. If you decide to try it out, remember that you have to choose your output format before Avidemux will let you access tools like Hue/Saturation and Contrast (click Filters under Video Output to find them).

There are no official tutorials for Avidemux you can access from their site, so you’ll have to rely on the forums and tutorials from users if you want to learn it.

You can import multiple clips into Avidemux, but you have to import them in the order you want because you can’t drag them around the timeline after. Everything becomes one big clip.

Is Avidemux good for YouTube?

No. It has more functionality than Machete, which is ranked higher on this list, but the difference is that Machete is excellent at one thing. They both suffer from the same main weakness – you could not complete your full YouTube video either (at least not without a lot of trouble). Machete could still be useful to a YouTuber, though, because it allows for the lossless exporting of segments of clips. You can use it to harvest clips for your larger project in another program.

In theory, you could do some picture editing and snipping in Avidemux and then put your project together/add titles in another program, but your other program can probably do all that just as well if not better. Avidemux isn’t a bad program, but it doesn’t excel at anything. There are a lot of better options which are also free.

What has your experience with free video editors been like?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Dec 02, 2022• Proven solutions

The next most important thing – even more important than the camera you use – is editing.

Below is a list of the top free video editing software ranked according to how appropriate it is for YouTube videos.

Rank	Editor	Make Cuts	Audio Features	Multiple Video Tracks	Video Effects	Intuitive Score (1-5)	Compatibility
1.	OpenShot Video Editor	Yes	Fade In/Out, set volume levels	Yes	Transitions, text, ability to animate. Blur/Saturation/Brightness controls.	5	Windows, Mac, Linux
2.	Shotcut	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	You can customize color presets and other effects. No animations.	4	Windows, Mac, Linux
3.	Hitfilm Express	Yes	Audio effects and transitioning.	Yes	Every imaginable picture customization. Some FX (more if you pay). Text tool.	4	Windows, Mac
4.	VideoPad Video Editor	Yes	Noise removal, equalizer, audio effects.	Yes	Moving text, transitions, filters.	5	Windows
5.	Lightworks	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	No premade effects, but you can add text/color edit.	3	Windows, Mac, Linux
6.	VSDC Video Editor	Yes	Some audio features blocked in free version	Yes	Filters, transitions, text, and more.	1	Windows
7.	Machete Video Editor Lite	Yes	None	No	None	3	Windows
8.	Avidemux	Yes	Some audio features	No	Some picture adjustments	2	Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

1. OpenShot Video Editor – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Easy to use
Includes transitions
Keyframing
Alpha Channel
Unlimited video tracks

OpenShot Video Editor Review

OpenShot completely lives up to the claim that it was designed to be ‘easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful’.

Is OpenShot Video Editor good for YouTube?

OpenShot is a great, free, choice for YouTubers at any editing skill level.

2. Shotcut – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Detailed audio editing
Color grading, ability to save presets
Fairly intuitive timeline

Shotcut Review

Is Shotcut good for YouTube?

Shotcut is a great choice for YouTubers. It allows you to do some advanced editing, and it’s easy to learn compared to a program targeted at professional editors.

3. Hitfilm Express – Windows, Mac

Pros

Compositing mode (2D and 3D)
The Most effect customization
Helpful User Guide & tutorials

Cons

Can be overwhelming
Its main strength is FX, but you only get a couple for free. Most have to be bought separately.

Hitfilm Express Review

That said, basic editing in Hitfilm Express is not difficult to jump into. It’s only when you start getting fancy that things get dicey.

Is Hitfilm Express good for YouTube?

Yes. It will not be the best option for everyone, but it’s not a bad option for anyone either.

If what you want to make is a vlog that’s interrupted by an alien invasion and turns into an action sequence with lasers and falling debris, it’d be hard to do better than Hitfilm Express.

4. VideoPad Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Easy to jump into
Moving text
Huge audio waveforms
Audio and visual effects
Lossless exports

Cons

No longer updated

VideoPad Video Editor Review

Is VideoPad Video Editor good for YouTube?

The thing about VideoPad is that you’re probably going to outgrow it quickly as you become a more capable editor.

5. Lightworks – Windows, Mac, Linux

Pros

Detailed color and audio editing
Multicam editing

Cons

Exports limited to 720p for the free version
Difficult to learn compared to other free software

Lightworks Review

Is Lightworks good for YouTube?

Whether or not Lightworks is right for your YouTube channel depends on your goals as a video editor.

6. VSDC Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Diagrams and charts
How To Get Started Guide
Lots of features

Cons

Very confusing
Paid features show up in the free version, but they’re blocked

Review of VSDC Video Editor

There’s a lot to like about VSDC Video Editor, but you have to do a lot of work to uncover any of it. Accessing even the most basic features is confusing.

Other basic functions, like adding text, are just as complicated.

Is VSDC Video Editor good for YouTube?

7. Machete Video Editor Lite – Windows

Pros

Great for harvesting clips from longer footage
Lossless exports

Cons

Cannot swap or add audio
Only supports two formats (AVI and WMV)
Slightly awkward timeline

Machete Video Editor Lite Review

Is Machete Video Editor Lite good for YouTube?

Machete Lite is not a good choice for YouTubers unless it is used in combination with another program.

It doesn’t work as a YouTube editor because you cannot edit or swap audio, the transition between clips, or create layers of videos and images.

You can’t create a complete YouTube video in Machete Lite, but you can harvest clips to use in a different program.

8. Avidemux – Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Pros

Can add subtitle files

Cons

Not intuitive
Doesn’t support MOV or WMV
The website is not informative, no tutorials

Avidemux Review

There are no official tutorials for Avidemux you can access from their site, so you’ll have to rely on the forums and tutorials from users if you want to learn it.

You can import multiple clips into Avidemux, but you have to import them in the order you want because you can’t drag them around the timeline after. Everything becomes one big clip.

Is Avidemux good for YouTube?

What has your experience with free video editors been like?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Dec 02, 2022• Proven solutions

The next most important thing – even more important than the camera you use – is editing.

Below is a list of the top free video editing software ranked according to how appropriate it is for YouTube videos.

Rank	Editor	Make Cuts	Audio Features	Multiple Video Tracks	Video Effects	Intuitive Score (1-5)	Compatibility
1.	OpenShot Video Editor	Yes	Fade In/Out, set volume levels	Yes	Transitions, text, ability to animate. Blur/Saturation/Brightness controls.	5	Windows, Mac, Linux
2.	Shotcut	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	You can customize color presets and other effects. No animations.	4	Windows, Mac, Linux
3.	Hitfilm Express	Yes	Audio effects and transitioning.	Yes	Every imaginable picture customization. Some FX (more if you pay). Text tool.	4	Windows, Mac
4.	VideoPad Video Editor	Yes	Noise removal, equalizer, audio effects.	Yes	Moving text, transitions, filters.	5	Windows
5.	Lightworks	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	No premade effects, but you can add text/color edit.	3	Windows, Mac, Linux
6.	VSDC Video Editor	Yes	Some audio features blocked in free version	Yes	Filters, transitions, text, and more.	1	Windows
7.	Machete Video Editor Lite	Yes	None	No	None	3	Windows
8.	Avidemux	Yes	Some audio features	No	Some picture adjustments	2	Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

1. OpenShot Video Editor – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Easy to use
Includes transitions
Keyframing
Alpha Channel
Unlimited video tracks

OpenShot Video Editor Review

OpenShot completely lives up to the claim that it was designed to be ‘easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful’.

Is OpenShot Video Editor good for YouTube?

OpenShot is a great, free, choice for YouTubers at any editing skill level.

2. Shotcut – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Detailed audio editing
Color grading, ability to save presets
Fairly intuitive timeline

Shotcut Review

Is Shotcut good for YouTube?

Shotcut is a great choice for YouTubers. It allows you to do some advanced editing, and it’s easy to learn compared to a program targeted at professional editors.

3. Hitfilm Express – Windows, Mac

Pros

Compositing mode (2D and 3D)
The Most effect customization
Helpful User Guide & tutorials

Cons

Can be overwhelming
Its main strength is FX, but you only get a couple for free. Most have to be bought separately.

Hitfilm Express Review

That said, basic editing in Hitfilm Express is not difficult to jump into. It’s only when you start getting fancy that things get dicey.

Is Hitfilm Express good for YouTube?

Yes. It will not be the best option for everyone, but it’s not a bad option for anyone either.

If what you want to make is a vlog that’s interrupted by an alien invasion and turns into an action sequence with lasers and falling debris, it’d be hard to do better than Hitfilm Express.

4. VideoPad Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Easy to jump into
Moving text
Huge audio waveforms
Audio and visual effects
Lossless exports

Cons

No longer updated

VideoPad Video Editor Review

Is VideoPad Video Editor good for YouTube?

The thing about VideoPad is that you’re probably going to outgrow it quickly as you become a more capable editor.

5. Lightworks – Windows, Mac, Linux

Pros

Detailed color and audio editing
Multicam editing

Cons

Exports limited to 720p for the free version
Difficult to learn compared to other free software

Lightworks Review

Is Lightworks good for YouTube?

Whether or not Lightworks is right for your YouTube channel depends on your goals as a video editor.

6. VSDC Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Diagrams and charts
How To Get Started Guide
Lots of features

Cons

Very confusing
Paid features show up in the free version, but they’re blocked

Review of VSDC Video Editor

There’s a lot to like about VSDC Video Editor, but you have to do a lot of work to uncover any of it. Accessing even the most basic features is confusing.

Other basic functions, like adding text, are just as complicated.

Is VSDC Video Editor good for YouTube?

7. Machete Video Editor Lite – Windows

Pros

Great for harvesting clips from longer footage
Lossless exports

Cons

Cannot swap or add audio
Only supports two formats (AVI and WMV)
Slightly awkward timeline

Machete Video Editor Lite Review

Is Machete Video Editor Lite good for YouTube?

Machete Lite is not a good choice for YouTubers unless it is used in combination with another program.

It doesn’t work as a YouTube editor because you cannot edit or swap audio, the transition between clips, or create layers of videos and images.

You can’t create a complete YouTube video in Machete Lite, but you can harvest clips to use in a different program.

8. Avidemux – Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Pros

Can add subtitle files

Cons

Not intuitive
Doesn’t support MOV or WMV
The website is not informative, no tutorials

Avidemux Review

There are no official tutorials for Avidemux you can access from their site, so you’ll have to rely on the forums and tutorials from users if you want to learn it.

You can import multiple clips into Avidemux, but you have to import them in the order you want because you can’t drag them around the timeline after. Everything becomes one big clip.

Is Avidemux good for YouTube?

What has your experience with free video editors been like?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Dec 02, 2022• Proven solutions

The next most important thing – even more important than the camera you use – is editing.

Below is a list of the top free video editing software ranked according to how appropriate it is for YouTube videos.

Rank	Editor	Make Cuts	Audio Features	Multiple Video Tracks	Video Effects	Intuitive Score (1-5)	Compatibility
1.	OpenShot Video Editor	Yes	Fade In/Out, set volume levels	Yes	Transitions, text, ability to animate. Blur/Saturation/Brightness controls.	5	Windows, Mac, Linux
2.	Shotcut	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	You can customize color presets and other effects. No animations.	4	Windows, Mac, Linux
3.	Hitfilm Express	Yes	Audio effects and transitioning.	Yes	Every imaginable picture customization. Some FX (more if you pay). Text tool.	4	Windows, Mac
4.	VideoPad Video Editor	Yes	Noise removal, equalizer, audio effects.	Yes	Moving text, transitions, filters.	5	Windows
5.	Lightworks	Yes	Detailed audio editing	Yes	No premade effects, but you can add text/color edit.	3	Windows, Mac, Linux
6.	VSDC Video Editor	Yes	Some audio features blocked in free version	Yes	Filters, transitions, text, and more.	1	Windows
7.	Machete Video Editor Lite	Yes	None	No	None	3	Windows
8.	Avidemux	Yes	Some audio features	No	Some picture adjustments	2	Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

1. OpenShot Video Editor – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Easy to use
Includes transitions
Keyframing
Alpha Channel
Unlimited video tracks

OpenShot Video Editor Review

OpenShot completely lives up to the claim that it was designed to be ‘easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful’.

Is OpenShot Video Editor good for YouTube?

OpenShot is a great, free, choice for YouTubers at any editing skill level.

2. Shotcut – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Detailed audio editing
Color grading, ability to save presets
Fairly intuitive timeline

Shotcut Review

Is Shotcut good for YouTube?

Shotcut is a great choice for YouTubers. It allows you to do some advanced editing, and it’s easy to learn compared to a program targeted at professional editors.

3. Hitfilm Express – Windows, Mac

Pros

Compositing mode (2D and 3D)
The Most effect customization
Helpful User Guide & tutorials

Cons

Can be overwhelming
Its main strength is FX, but you only get a couple for free. Most have to be bought separately.

Hitfilm Express Review

That said, basic editing in Hitfilm Express is not difficult to jump into. It’s only when you start getting fancy that things get dicey.

Is Hitfilm Express good for YouTube?

Yes. It will not be the best option for everyone, but it’s not a bad option for anyone either.

If what you want to make is a vlog that’s interrupted by an alien invasion and turns into an action sequence with lasers and falling debris, it’d be hard to do better than Hitfilm Express.

4. VideoPad Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Easy to jump into
Moving text
Huge audio waveforms
Audio and visual effects
Lossless exports

Cons

No longer updated

VideoPad Video Editor Review

Is VideoPad Video Editor good for YouTube?

The thing about VideoPad is that you’re probably going to outgrow it quickly as you become a more capable editor.

5. Lightworks – Windows, Mac, Linux

Pros

Detailed color and audio editing
Multicam editing

Cons

Exports limited to 720p for the free version
Difficult to learn compared to other free software

Lightworks Review

Is Lightworks good for YouTube?

Whether or not Lightworks is right for your YouTube channel depends on your goals as a video editor.

6. VSDC Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Diagrams and charts
How To Get Started Guide
Lots of features

Cons

Very confusing
Paid features show up in the free version, but they’re blocked

Review of VSDC Video Editor

There’s a lot to like about VSDC Video Editor, but you have to do a lot of work to uncover any of it. Accessing even the most basic features is confusing.

Other basic functions, like adding text, are just as complicated.

Is VSDC Video Editor good for YouTube?

7. Machete Video Editor Lite – Windows

Pros

Great for harvesting clips from longer footage
Lossless exports

Cons

Cannot swap or add audio
Only supports two formats (AVI and WMV)
Slightly awkward timeline

Machete Video Editor Lite Review

Is Machete Video Editor Lite good for YouTube?

Machete Lite is not a good choice for YouTubers unless it is used in combination with another program.

It doesn’t work as a YouTube editor because you cannot edit or swap audio, the transition between clips, or create layers of videos and images.

You can’t create a complete YouTube video in Machete Lite, but you can harvest clips to use in a different program.

8. Avidemux – Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Pros

Can add subtitle files

Cons

Not intuitive
Doesn’t support MOV or WMV
The website is not informative, no tutorials

Avidemux Review

There are no official tutorials for Avidemux you can access from their site, so you’ll have to rely on the forums and tutorials from users if you want to learn it.

You can import multiple clips into Avidemux, but you have to import them in the order you want because you can’t drag them around the timeline after. Everything becomes one big clip.

Is Avidemux good for YouTube?

What has your experience with free video editors been like?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Thrive in YouTube: Mastering Analytics to Elevate Channel Reach

How to Use YouTube Analytics to Grow Your Channel?

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

YouTube data is valuable because it can show you why you aren’t getting more subscribers and why certain videos aren’t getting the views you expected. Data can also identify all the positive results and give you insights into what worked.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

Overview
Realtime
Revenue
Ad Rates
Watch Time
Audience Retention
Demographics
Playback Locations
Traffic Sources
Devices
Translations
Subscribers
Likes and Dislikes
Videos in Playlists
Comments
Sharing
Annotations
Cards
End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

The Overview dashboard breaks down all your key stats. If you want a deeper dive, you can click into each of the section headers and it will give you an in-depth look at the analytics of that specific category.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

In Overview you can see where the majority of your audience is from, what gender they are, how they are discovering your videos in Traffic Source, and where they are watching your video in Playback Locations:

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

The Realtime report is a fantastic tool for seeing the immediate performance of your channel, which automatically updates every 10 seconds. There are two main views: The last 48 hours and the Last 60 Minutes.

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

If you notice that you are getting a lot of views from the US, but also notice that people are about to go to sleep and the trend shows that it drops at that point in the past 24 hours, you can decide whether to schedule the post for the next morning or you can see if a boost at this point can keep the audience awake.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

For example, if you published a video this morning and shared it on your Facebook page, and you checked in this morning and saw that there was only a small amount of views, you may want to share it on a different platform so that it can get more exposure.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

Dropdown menu

Calendar

Slide Bar

You can also change how you view your data, whether Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc. This way you can see exactly how much you made each day, week, or month, and determine if you can correlate a particular dip or spike to an event that occurred.

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Different countries have different rates for how much creators can make off Adsense. Click into Geography and see how much you are making in different countries and consider which audience is best to focus your attention on with the intention of increasing revenue.

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

This tells you that while Views may be an important metric, it won’t affect your revenue. This can mean that you haven’t been reaching the audience that will engage with the ads, consider a slight content shift.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

Playback-based CPM: This is an estimation from YouTube on how much money you can make if you had 1,000 views from a monetized video. This is based on the parameters of the advertisers, your current number of views, and where your viewers are from.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

This allows you to not only see the estimated earnings but also how many times the ad was shown. On top of that, the CPM gives you an idea of what YouTube deems to be more valuable content for advertisers, which gives you a better idea about the capabilities of the video and offers insight into the type of videos you make in the future.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

But as you accumulate more and more monetized videos, and you will start seeing which videos are stronger in getting you ad engagements and which aren’t. The result might surprise you and help inform your next phase of videos.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

YouTube puts a lot of weight on this metric because they know that the more time people spend watching your original content, the more time they will have to show ads to your audience. Overall, you’ll want to see a steady rise for your Watch Time as it will indicate that you have a growing dedicated viewership.

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

Like Watch Time, Audience Retention is a metric YouTube uses to determine how valuable your video is and how worthy it is in being discovered by your audience. It’s important to learn where in your video you are losing viewers.

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

While you should aim to have 100% audience retention, if you can get an average above 50%, you are doing something right. Anything under, you may want to consider changing up your strategy (content, structure, pacing, etc.).

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Absolute Audience Retention: This report shows you the number of views at every point in the video as a percentage. This will let you know which part of the video is most popular, which part is causing a big drop off, and which part viewers are skipping to or rewatching.

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

Audience retention can give you a lot of insights on how you should be structuring your videos. If you notice a steep drop in viewership, you can assume that what the viewer is watching is not that interesting.

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

In the example below, we see that there is a peak at the point in this video where a specific part of a tutorial is shown. Viewers were most likely rewatching to confirm they understand the information, so they can apply it themselves.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

The first thing you’ll see when you enter the Demographic dashboard is the segmentation of your audience by age and gender. This gives you a good indication of who your overall channel is currently attracting.

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Not only will you be able to see which region the majority of your viewerships are from, but you can also segment and compare by demographics. This will give you a more insightful view of how your channel is performing across the world for different people.

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

Understanding which group makes up the majority of your viewership will help you decide how to strategize the next phase of content. Will you keep growing that audience or will you want to grow in another demographic?

If you noticed that you have an underperforming female demographic in India, you can plan out some content that focus on that community. Without this report, you cannot see where you are missing opportunities.

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

If your video is only promoted organically your views will likely be coming from the YouTube Watch Page, but if other media publications embedded your video, and it’s getting a lot of views, you can see it here.

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

By clicking into the Embedded in External Websites and Apps report, you’ll be able to see all the different websites and apps that your video is featured on. This will give you a good indication of which sites and apps are driving the most views.

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

You can reach out to the website that has embedded your video and thank them for sharing your content, and maybe they will be happy to share more. This way you create a relationship with them, which can increase your network and also improve the chances of your videos being discovered.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

If you see that you are getting a lot of viewers coming from Suggested Videos, go to that report and see which external video was directing viewers to yours. These suggested videos can be your own or it can be from another YouTube creator.

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

By clicking into the YouTube search, you can see what viewers searched in order to find your video. This can be useful in understanding your viewers’ mindset: were they trying to solve a problem or answer a question?

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

The way viewers watch content on their mobile phones is very different from the way they watch on television. By understanding how the majority of your viewers are watching your content, you can better design and structure your video.

For example, if you see that you have a large following that watches your content on mobile, then it might not be a good idea to load your video with too much text, as it’ll be hard for them to read.

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

If you see that you are getting a lot of conversions from the YouTube Watch Page, you can dig in and see which video specifically you should give credit to for earning your subscribers — and which ones are causing people to unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

If you see a video is earning you a lot of subscribers, it might be a good idea to give it a boost and make sure more people discover it. However, if you see a video is causing people to click unsubscribe, even though it might be a video you love, consider removing it from your channel as it might be doing more harm than good for your channel growth.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

In addition to seeing the total Likes and Dislikes your channel received, in this report, you can see the Likes and Dislikes of individual videos. This gives you a quick glance at how your viewers are enjoying your channel and videos.

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

See if there is a correlation between the channel’s performance and how viewers give Likes and Dislikes. Does increasing views get you more likes? Did a dip in views cause people to stop liking your videos?

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

Knowing how your subscribers and non-subscribers are responding to your content will give you a good idea at how effective your video is at delighting those that know your content well, and those that are newer to your videos.

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

As a creator, you always want to know how your videos are received. Knowing how your audience feels about your content, even if it’s just a Like or Dislike click, is a good indication of whether the public found your work: educational, inspirational, or entertaining.

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

By having a report to see which videos have been added to the playlist, you can see that there is an interest in this type of content. With this knowledge, you can decide that perhaps the audience may be interested in a series around this topic.

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

Identify if there are any direct or indirect effects of having videos in the playlist by comparing it to important metrics such as Watch Time. If you see that there is a boost for days when more videos are added to the playlist, you can start planning more strategies to get video features along with other related content.

How to Use Videos in Playlist

The Videos in the Playlist report give you another perspective on the popularity of videos. Unlike Views or Watch Time, adding a video to a playlist means that the audience will likely watch it again, as they are saving it amongst related content or as a favorite video.

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Select a time period and see how many comments your channel and videos got at that point. Knowing which video gets you the most comments and when it happens, gives you a good idea what type of conversations your audience is interested in having.

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

However, there are also benefits of using an external analytics tool like Sotrender . You can adjust the amount of time you want to analyze, visualize the metrics in different ways, and even customize what you want to show in the graphs. What’s more, Sotrender has it’s own metric called the Activity Index, which indicates to what extent your audience is engaging with your videos. You can use this metric in combination with others to see what content your audience is really invested in.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

This report shows you how frequently your audience is sharing your videos to their networks. In addition to Views and Watch Time, knowing the shareability of your content helps guide your videos in achieving viral status.

Know which platform your audience is most active on. Understanding this can help you tailor your content to be more shareable on those channels or you can discover your audience’s account on those services and thank them personality.

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

Understand how your videos are getting shared by your viewers. Do you see a spike in shares the first few days after publishing and then it becomes forgotten or is it an evergreen video that keeps getting consistent shares through its lifetime?

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

Understand what videos you create are more likely to get shares. If you are making a lot of how-to videos, a lot of people might be searching for the content, but unless it is highly relevant, it won’t get shared. The type of content that gets shared are the ones that have an interesting story and delights people.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

When you add annotations to your videos, you would want to know if your audience is actually engaging with it. This report gives you an overview of how frequently your viewers are clicking on the links.

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

Click into a specific video to see which type of annotations are getting engagement and at what time it is happening. If you see that many annotation clicks are happening at a certain point in your video, going forward with your new videos that is where you can insert it.

How to Use Annotations

By finding out when in the video your audience engages with annotations and what type of annotations performs the best, you will have more insights on designing your videos and where to position the annotations to get the optimal results.

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

See what is happening on screen that is making the card more click-worthy, this can help you plan out your next video so that you direct your viewers’ attention to the clickable card teaser so they see it.

How to Use Cards Report

This report helps you understand the different cards and how they are performing within your videos so that you can better plan your content to increase the chances of your audience engaging with your cards.

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

The End Screens report is great for letting you know which of your existing content the audience is interested in seeing after they finished watching one of your videos. As you learn more about your viewers and accumulate more videos, with the help of the End Screens report, you can determine which videos to use to increase Views and Watch Time.

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Learning how to use analytics is not always a skill YouTubers think about when they are making videos, but it plays such an instrumental part throughout the whole stage of creation, from ideation to distribution.

Understanding how your videos are performing shines a light on your process, helps you evaluate what is working and what isn’t, and empower you to think beyond the lens and create videos that really resonates with your growing audience.

If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Filmora, which is equipped with its own footage stock Wondershare Filmstock and will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

Overview
Realtime
Revenue
Ad Rates
Watch Time
Audience Retention
Demographics
Playback Locations
Traffic Sources
Devices
Translations
Subscribers
Likes and Dislikes
Videos in Playlists
Comments
Sharing
Annotations
Cards
End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

Dropdown menu

Calendar

Slide Bar

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

How to Use Videos in Playlist

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

How to Use Annotations

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

How to Use Cards Report

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

Overview
Realtime
Revenue
Ad Rates
Watch Time
Audience Retention
Demographics
Playback Locations
Traffic Sources
Devices
Translations
Subscribers
Likes and Dislikes
Videos in Playlists
Comments
Sharing
Annotations
Cards
End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

Dropdown menu

Calendar

Slide Bar

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

How to Use Videos in Playlist

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

How to Use Annotations

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

How to Use Cards Report

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

As a YouTuber, you know those famous metrics: Views, Subscribers, and Watch Time. Those YouTube analytics are easy to understand. But YouTube offers much more data.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use YouTube Analytics to gain knowledge, take action, and grow your channel.

YouTube Analytics:

Overview
Realtime
Revenue
Ad Rates
Watch Time
Audience Retention
Demographics
Playback Locations
Traffic Sources
Devices
Translations
Subscribers
Likes and Dislikes
Videos in Playlists
Comments
Sharing
Annotations
Cards
End Screens

When you enter your YouTube Creator Studio, you will find the Analytics Tab on the left-hand-side menu. Click into it and you will see a whole list of features, each linking to its own dashboard.

But with all this information, it can get a little overwhelming for new YouTubers. Don’t sweat. Let’s walk through each section to identify:

- What information it is displaying

- What issues it addresses

- What you can do to improve the results

1. Overview

Use Overview Report for Quick Analysis

The Overview report is the first page you land on when you click into Analytics, and it’s what you want to see when you are checking in.

Personalize Your Overview

By default, the dashboard will show you the stats from the last 28 days, but you can personalize the time frame to see the data of that specific period.

If you only want to focus on the performance of your channel on a specific region, you can customize that as well:

Note: You will be able to change the time frame and region for all the data within YouTube Analytics.

See Your Top Performing Videos In Overview

The Overview dashboard highlights your Top 10 videos. Right away you can see the Watch Time, Views, and Estimated Revenue of those high performing videos.

Get Insights On Your Audience In Overview

How to Use the Overview Dashboard

The Overview dashboard is your mission control. I recommend popping in weekly to get a top view of your channel’s performance.

If you notice anything unusual or surprising, such as a spike in Shares, you can then dig into the individual data and identify the cause.

2. Realtime

See The Performance of Your Channel

See Performance of Your 25 Most Recently Published Videos

In the Realtime dashboard, you will see the last 48 hours and last 60-minute performance of your 25 most recently published videos.

If you have recently shared a new video, you should log into the Realtime dashboard to get a quick glance at the performance.

See How and Where Your Videos Are Being Viewed At the Moment

If you want to find out how many people have viewed your videos from a mobile device or how big your audience currently is, you can do that in the Realtime report.

- Select Device to see if you have more viewers on Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet.

- Select Operating System to find out if you have more Android viewers or iOS viewers in the past two days.

- Select Geography to see which region you are getting the most views and when viewerships are dropping because most likely people in that area are sleeping.

How to Use the Realtime Dashboard

If YouTube sees that your recently published video is performing well right off the bat, then it will give your video a better chance of trending, ranking higher in search, and reaching more viewers.

Getting early insights on a recently published video may help you adjust your promotion strategy as needed.

3. Revenue

See How Much Money Your Channel Has Made

Select a specific timeline and see how much your channel has made from ads and YouTube Red viewers during that duration.

There are 3 ways to change the timeline:

Dropdown menu

Calendar

Slide Bar

Identify Your Highest Earning Videos

In the Revenue report, you can see which videos are earning you the most. Consider how these videos are successful:

- Was the content great?

- Was it the perfect length?

- Was it a well-structured video?

- Was the video’s pacing fast?

Once you’ve done a full evaluation, see if you can apply it to your other videos.

Which Country Is Earning You the Most Money

Compare Estimated Revenue Earning to Other Metrics

Know more about how your data are related by comparing to see if Revenue is affected by the performance of metrics in other categories such as Views. Does a rise in view change your revenue?

How to Use the Revenue Dashboard

Figuring how to make money on YouTube is tricky and any insight you can get can give you an advantage, steer you in the right direction, and help you focus on what matters.

As you can see in the example in the graph from the section above, the View count has been fairly consistent, however, the Revenue is sporadic.

4. Ad Rates

Understanding the Ad Rates Report

YouTube Ad Revenue: This is the estimated gross total of all the money you made from ads sold via Google and Google partners.

Estimated Monetized Playbacks: This is the number of times your audience is shown an ad.

CPM: This is the estimated amount you will earn for 1,000 ad impressions.

See Which Monetized Videos Are Earning Your Ad Revenue

Unlike the Revenue dashboard, the Ad Rates report dives deeper into the performance of individual monetized videos.

See How Each Ad Type Is Performing Within Individual Video

Click into Ad Type and you will be able to see the performance of different types of Ads (skippable video ads, display ads, bumper ads, and non-skippable video ads.)

You can see these details from the channel level or from an individual video level.

How to Use Ad Rates Report

Ad performance might not be something you think about at the early stages. You want to make videos, and not worry too much about ads, after all.

5. Watch Time

See The Aggregated Time Your Viewers Spent Watching Your Videos

In the graph, you will also be able to see the combined Views of all your videos, as well as the segmented performance of YouTube Red viewers.

YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription plan. It is currently only available in Australia, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.

YouTube Red offers ad-free content that can be enjoyed offline. Since the viewers with YouTube Red won’t see ads, YouTube will give you partial revenue from Red viewers.

Compare Performance of Videos in the Graph

Put your videos side by side to compare the performance over the course of a time period.

How to Use Watch Time Report

If you want to be in YouTube’s algorithm’s good books, then you will need to put some attention on your channel’s Watch Time. Always consider ways in which you can improve this metric.

Some strategies include:

- Add videos to optimized playlists

- Improving titles and thumbnails

- Increase YouTube subscribers

- Add annotations to your videos

- Add end cards to your videos

6. Audience Retention

See How Long Your Viewers Spend Watching Your Videos

In Audience Retention, there are two main categories you can see.

Average View Duration shows how much time all your viewers from a certain time frame spend watching your video.
Average Percentage Viewed shows how much the average person watched from your videos.

In this example, we see that the average length of a video watched is 1:14 and the average viewer will watch 53% of the video.

See Audience Retention of Individual Videos

Relative Audience Retention: This report gives you a visualization of how your video’s audience retention performance compares to all YouTube videos of a similar length.

If the line indicates that you are above average at a certain point, that is where your video is doing a better job holding the viewer’s attention at that point compared to most other videos.

How to Use Audience Retention

However, if you notice a sudden peak in the middle of your video, you can assume that a) viewers are skipping to it or b) viewers are rewatching that section.

Knowing this, for the next video you make, you can better anticipate where your viewers are going to need more time on a specific part or whether you should skip ahead to something more interesting.

7. Demographics

Understand the Average Age and Gender of Your Audience

See Most Popular Videos Viewed By A Specific Demographic

Learn about the videos that are most popular within that demographic to get better insights to what is most appealing for that group.

You will also see the Watch Time percentage that each video gets in comparison with all the videos in your channel.

Data Split by Age:

Data Split by Gender:

See Geographic Distribution of Different Demographics

Additionally, you can click into specific videos on your channel and see how it is performing in different regions.

How to Use Demographics Report

8. Playback Locations

Find Out Where People Are Watching Your Videos

There are a number of ways people can watch your YouTube video:

- YouTube Watch Page

- YouTube Channel Page

- Embedded Video Player (Website or App)

- Other

Which External Source Are Your Videos Being Watched

How to Use Playback Locations Report

Knowing where your videos are being played back is important, especially if you are getting a lot of views from an external source.

9. Traffic Sources

Find Out How People Are Discovering Your Videos

In the Traffic Sources report, you can see what is the most popular way your video is being discovered.

This can include advertisements that you pay for, external referrals such as links from other websites, suggested videos, and searches on YouTube to name a few.

See Which Videos Are Suggesting Yours To Viewers

See What People Search For To Discover Your Video

Knowing this, you can improve your keyword research.

How to Use Traffic Sources Report

Because there are so many ways for a viewer to discover your videos, it’s important for you to know what is most effective.

If you have a new video coming out and you want to promote it, understanding where your previous videos are being discovered will help you strategize, giving it the best opportunity immediately.

10. Devices

Know What Devices Your Viewers Are Watching From

You cannot control how people watch your content, but by better understanding their preferences, you can design your content to make it the best for their ideal situation.

11. Translations

See If You Need to Include Multi-Languages or Translation to Your Videos

The Translations report is where you can see how your viewers are watching your videos in terms of using translations and subtitles.

If you are creating content that targets international viewers, it’s good to know if they are engaging with your translation assets, including subtitles.

For example, if you see an increase in viewers from Brazil, do a quick translation of your transcript and upload the Portuguese subtitles and see if it increases viewers.

12. Subscribers

In the Subscribers report, you can see where most of your subscribers came from and where people unsubscribe.

Find Out Which YouTube Keywords Are Leading to Subscriptions

Click into YouTube search to see the most popular search terms that have lead to people subscribing to your channel.

See Which Date You Got The Most Subscribers

Click into Date and find out if there was something significant that happened that day that made people subscribe to your channel more than others?

How to Use the Subscriber Report

Understanding which video drives viewers to become subscribers and which videos turn people off so that they unsubscribe will tell you a lot about the content you should be creating.

13. Likes and Dislikes

See the Likes and Dislikes of Individual Videos

Compare Likes and Dislikes with Other Metrics

Getting more of these data will help you plan new tactics to increase engagements.

See Which Date You Got the Most Likes and Dislikes

Identify the days you got a lot of Likes or Dislikes, and ask, was there something particular that happened that led to the high numbers?

Compare Subscriber vs Non-Subscriber Likes and Dislikes

How to Use the Likes and Dislikes Report

14. Videos in Playlists

Find Out How Many Videos Are In Playlists

When a video is added to a playlist, it means someone thought it was relevant or they enjoyed it so much they added it to their Favorite list.

Having videos added to playlists is a good thing because it increases the chances of being discovered as people looking for a bunch of content within a category can watch it all linearly.

See Which Video Is In The Most Playlists

See If There Is a Correlation Between Videos in Playlists and Watch Time

How to Use Videos in Playlist

15. Comments

See How Many People Have Commented On Channel Or Specific Videos

Compare Different Videos and Time Period to See How Your Videos Are Engaging Audience

Evaluate how your videos are performing by comparing them, and identifying what makes a more engaging video for your audience.

How to Use Comments Report

If there is a video that triggered a debate within your community or if a video led to a lot of questions, this may inspire you to create more content around that topic.

16. Sharing

See How Many Times Your Videos Have Been Shared

See How Frequently a Video is Getting Shared

By comparing Shares to other metrics such as Views and Watch Time, you can see if there is a correlation to performance and the amount the video is shared.

If you find that a lot of people are sharing your content on a specific service, you may consider that as the platform to best expand your channel on.

17. Annotations

Find Out How Many Annotations Were Click Within a Period

This report also shows you how often viewers choose to close your Annotation completely, giving you an indication that they have no interest in the link.

Compare Performance of Different Annotations

This report allows you to see which type of annotations are performing the best for your audience.

See Annotation Performance of a Specific Video

How to Use Annotations

18. Cards

See Which Card Teasers and Cards Are Getting Clicked

Find out which videos are driving the most Card clicks and which type of Cards your audience is most interested in.

Are viewers more interested in watching more videos or are they wanting to read a post from your blog (associated website)? This report is where you can find out by clicking into Card Type.

Find Correlation Between On-Screen Content and Click-worthy Link

How to Use Cards Report

19. End Screens

See How Often The End Screen Is Shown And Clicked

By seeing how many times the End Screen is shown, you can have an idea of how often viewers reach the end of your videos.

Then it’s good to see what percentage of them actually click to engage with your channel and content more.

See Performance of Each End Screen Elements

In this report, you can see which End Screen Element is driving the most clicks and better understand the viewer’s motivation at the end of your videos.

See Which End Screen Element Is Most Popular Within The Same Video

Because you can have multiple elements in the End Screen, you would want to see which one is performing the best.

See Which Videos YouTube Chooses As Best For Viewers

In this report, you can also see the performance of different End Screen Element Types.

One of these elements is the Best for Viewer, which allows YouTube to determine which of your video is best to present to the viewer in relation to their browsing history and interests.

By clicking into the Best for Viewer section you can see the top-performing videos that YouTube suggested to your viewers. Does it align with what you think is your best video?

How to Use The End Screens Report

Conclusion

Television producers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to data companies to get the same set of analytics that YouTube offers its creators for free.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Youtube Videos

"[New] Discover the Top 8 Cost-Free Videography Suites for Digital Filmmakers"

Discover the Top 8 Cost-Free Videography Suites for Digital Filmmakers

The Best Free Video Editing Software for YouTube (Top 8 Reviews)

Richard Bennett

1. OpenShot Video Editor – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

OpenShot Video Editor Review

Is OpenShot Video Editor good for YouTube?

2. Shotcut – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Shotcut Review

Is Shotcut good for YouTube?

3. Hitfilm Express – Windows, Mac

Pros

Cons

Hitfilm Express Review

Is Hitfilm Express good for YouTube?

4. VideoPad Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Cons

VideoPad Video Editor Review

Is VideoPad Video Editor good for YouTube?

5. Lightworks – Windows, Mac, Linux

Pros

Cons

Lightworks Review

Is Lightworks good for YouTube?

6. VSDC Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Cons

Review of VSDC Video Editor

Is VSDC Video Editor good for YouTube?

7. Machete Video Editor Lite – Windows

Pros

Cons

Machete Video Editor Lite Review

Is Machete Video Editor Lite good for YouTube?

8. Avidemux – Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Pros

Cons

Avidemux Review

Is Avidemux good for YouTube?

Richard Bennett

1. OpenShot Video Editor – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

OpenShot Video Editor Review

Is OpenShot Video Editor good for YouTube?

2. Shotcut – Open Source (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pros

Shotcut Review

Is Shotcut good for YouTube?

3. Hitfilm Express – Windows, Mac

Pros

Cons

Hitfilm Express Review

Is Hitfilm Express good for YouTube?

4. VideoPad Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Cons

VideoPad Video Editor Review

Is VideoPad Video Editor good for YouTube?

5. Lightworks – Windows, Mac, Linux

Pros

Cons

Lightworks Review

Is Lightworks good for YouTube?

6. VSDC Video Editor – Windows

Pros

Cons

Review of VSDC Video Editor

Is VSDC Video Editor good for YouTube?

7. Machete Video Editor Lite – Windows

Pros

Cons

Machete Video Editor Lite Review

Is Machete Video Editor Lite good for YouTube?

8. Avidemux – Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD

Pros

Cons