In YouTube Analytics there is an option that lets you see how many of your subscribers actually watched your video: click on "Traffic Sources" and you'll find the box "Show only subscriber views (Web only)." 

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Before this option, you had to guess how many views came from subscribers by adding up the traffic coming from “My subscriptions” and “subscription feeds,” but now you can see the exact number of subscriber views regardless of the path they took to get to the video.  For example, this feature will count views from subscribers even if they arrive at your video from the “suggested videos” section or from an annotation.

Take note: YouTube only takes into account subscriber views that come from the “web."  They have still don’t have a way to track subscriber views coming from mobile devices so the number of subscriber views that you see is underestimated compared to the true figure (probably two thirds of the total)

Keep reading to see how you can use this feature to increase the loyalty of your subscribers...

Checking the "Show only subscriber views" box is very useful to:


1 / Determine the video themes that your subscribers prefer and the times of the day that they have the highest level of participation


- Once you have checked the box for subscriber views, look at the graph of traffic sources.  Here, you can see the videos that generated the highest peaks of subscriber views.  Use these as a reference to identify your subscribers’ favorite topics so that you can revisit them in future videos. To keep subscribers coming back, try to create video series or videos that have a continuing storyline and give subscribers a meeting date/time so that they know when to come back to your channel and see the next video release!


- Determine what days and times are the best to publish your videos.   If a video that you posted on a Friday night at 6pm received more views than a video that you posted on Monday at 6pm, it could be that your subscribers are more receptive during the weekend.  Note that if you send too many videos in a short amount of time (the same day, in a 2 day time frame, etc) you risk overwhelming your subscribers which could lead to less overall views on those particular videos.


2 / Find out the number of videos that your subscribers watch on average


With this feature, you can estimate how many videos one of your subscribers watches on average. To do this, take the number of subscriber views and divide by the total number of subscribers on your channel: this will give you the average amount of views per subscriber for this time period (aka how many videos one subscriber watches on average).  This will help you see if your subscribers are loyal to your video releases, and in what proportion.


Example: A channel has 30,000 subscribers, 4 video releases during the month of January, and 60,000 subscriber views during this period. 
60,000 subscriber views / 30,000 total subscribers = 2 videos on average viewed by subscribers in January out of 4 publications. This is a very good figure! 

If you want to improve your subscriber loyalty, then your goal should be to improve this score.  One of the simplest methods to do this is by multiplying your appearances in your subscribers’ newsfeeds (by posting bulletins, liking/commenting videos on other channels, etc).  Also make sure that if you post videos frequently, to select only a few videos to be announced in the feed.

Since subscriber views only take into account views on the web, the most important thing to look at is the evolution of this score over time! If you need help, your channel manager can tell you if your score is good and tell you where your channel stands compared to the average of other channels in the same category (video games, music, etc)

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