Need Advice Your experience with chapter marks

[Tito Tim]

Do you use chapter marks? Do you think they help or hurt retention? I could see that they allow people to skip over parts they do not want, but that gives less view time. Or do they allow people to move ahead, instead of clicking off?

Most of my vlogs are 'day in the life' kind of stuff. So I do not regularly use chapter marks. I like the theory, but most of my vids do not have any particular 'chapters'. I use them for some vids, though. I did a vid about utility cost in my condo. For my retirement/expat/cost of living kind of vid, it should be a good topic. I put a chapter mark at the beginning of each section. You can see on the picture that there are a few peaks. I checked the time stamps and each of these coincides with a chapter mark. So it seems some people (how many does it take to show up on the graph?) are getting the information at the beginning of each chapter, then skipping ahead to the next.

For example I say how much we pay for electrical, then talk a little about what we use, how much aircon etc. Then I say how much we spend on groceries, then talk about blah, blah, blah.

The CTR is only 4%, which is below my average, but the retention is pretty good. Impressions are up, which can lead to a lower CTR (seems counter intuitive, but I get it). Also unique viewers are up, which I like. Average view duration is over 60%, and I still have over 45% of viewers at the end. Decent enough. It is only 2 days old, but most of my vids have a 3 or 4 day life at best. The CTR is down, but the views and retention are up, a fair amount. (I just noticed the "impressions CTR" is 4%, the triangle chart shows 11%. I have not noticed 2 different CTRs before.)

I think the chapter marks help in this case. If someone is bored with the electric use blah, blah, blah, they can skip ahead to the next chapter. If there were no chapter marks, and they were bored - would they scrub ahead, or click off?

I am curious have any of you done much research into the analytics with chapter marks v no chapter marks? Do you think they help retention or hurt? As a viewer I really appreciate the chapter marks, but freely admit that they allow me to skip over some parts of the vid...

 

[The Kitchen Gamer]

I used chapters and I feel that they're great since it allows people to choose which part of the video they'd like to see and which is relevant. As I've found some people have don't want to see the beginning instead they just want to jump right into it while others just want the important information.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

This is a fantastic discussion. Here's my 2 cents. They are individually searchable. I think that trumps every other flag with them. These chapters can show up in Google search on their own and provide a viewer access to a portion of a video that gets them to click and watch the video. I know there are concerns with retention; chapters allow a viewer more than anything to click away from a portion of the video that they are watching. But the idea behind this is that the viewer is at that point uninterested in what they are watching and clicking back into a video at least provides a second chance to keep them watching. From everything I have heard they at least do nothing to hurt your video. But the fact that they show up in Google Search with their own little carousel makes them worth having in my opinion.

 

[BensTechLab]

I totally agree with @Stanley Orchard here.

1.) First off as a viewer, I get annoyed with people make a video "Top 5 reasons/ideas/products" then put chapter markers with lame titles like "Point #1", "Point #2", etc. That is a huge turn off to me and dissuades me to watch the whole video or subscribe. Honestly this should only be done by channels so popular that people will watch based on reputation alone - and even then I think they are getting short term gain for long term loss by doing this.

2.) I also view chapter markers as a chance to rescue the watch time from a potentially bored viewer. Your sample posted above shows a fairly steady decline in retention which may be very normal. But maybe don't look at a "good performance" video, look at a few others. I this as a learning opportunity for me to see what parts people are getting bored with and what parts are so interesting/valuable that it is bringing people back! Checkout this example below:

Clearly a dip before this point and clearly a spike where people are being engaged with like 60% of viewers wanting to see this segment. Good learning opportunity for me as a creator.

3.) But also the chapter markers themselves are indexable content for SEO. So by describing the things you are covering you make it easier for google to rank your content for people searching around your subject area.


So all in, I think chapter markers are good for users and good for SEO - AND any loss of watch time is "deserved" and should be learned from as you improve as a creator IMHO.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

I totally agree with @Stanley Orchard here.

1.) First off as a viewer, I get annoyed with people make a video "Top 5 reasons/ideas/products" then put chapter markers with lame titles like "Point #1", "Point #2", etc. That is a huge turn off to me and dissuades me to watch the whole video or subscribe. Honestly this should only be done by channels so popular that people will watch based on reputation alone - and even then I think they are getting short term gain for long term loss by doing this.

2.) I also view chapter markers as a chance to rescue the watch time from a potentially bored viewer. Your sample posted above shows a fairly steady decline in retention which may be very normal. But maybe don't look at a "good performance" video, look at a few others. I this as a learning opportunity for me to see what parts people are getting bored with and what parts are so interesting/valuable that it is bringing people back! Checkout this example below:

View attachment 10738
Clearly a dip before this point and clearly a spike where people are being engaged with like 60% of viewers wanting to see this segment. Good learning opportunity for me as a creator.

3.) But also the chapter markers themselves are indexable content for SEO. So by describing the things you are covering you make it easier for google to rank your content for people searching around your subject area.


So all in, I think chapter markers are good for users and good for SEO - AND any loss of watch time is "deserved" and should be learned from as you improve as a creator IMHO.

Absolutely excellent points here. Thank you!!!

 

[Amanda Summers]

So if a person watches the intro and then skips to the first 10 seconds and then on to each other chapter like this with 5 seconds in each chapter, how does this affect watch time?
Someone said to make them intriguing so they don't just get the answer in a phrase. A viewer could potentially read the description to get the main points and not even watch the video. I like to look at the description while the commercial is playing. Then I look at the comments to see if they are active in the comments. I really miss the 'dislike' feature. I like to know if it's worth watching and if I saw a lot of dislikes I move on.

 

[Tito Tim]

I have been using chapters marks more, recently. But I have also been doing more keyword research & SEO work than I was. I cannot be sure which has had what effect...
But my average watch percentage is up. My views are up. My subs are up. I am getting more views from new viewers (I attribute that to better keyword & SEO).
The chapter marks certainly do not seem to be hurting my numbers in any way. I still see peaks where they jump to the next chapter - but doesn't that mean that my video is not engaging enough? Or that I babble too long? (which I tend to do) Instead of dying after 3 or 4 days, my vids continue to grow for at least a week. Still not amazing, but better.

So if a person watches the intro and then skips to the first 10 seconds and then on to each other chapter like this with 5 seconds in each chapter, how does this affect watch time?

I would guess that the amount of time they spend is cumulative. Four minutes viewing is four minutes, whether it is straight through or in sections, right? Maybe? Jumping around and staying a little longer seems better to me than if they click off the vid.

 

[The Jungle Explorer]

Personally, I use them and was glad to see them. I think they help retention because they allow viewers to know what info is available in the video quickly and how to get to the portion of the content they want to see, which if they did not know was in the video, they might have jumped ship and be gone. I know that I use them a lot when they are available. I think that few viewers are aware of them and that with time, as people learn to use them more, they will be not only available, but expected, and channels that don't use them will be looked at as unprofessional and in a not so positive light by viewers.