YouTube News Auto-Play Views Update And What This Means For Your Channel

[Stanley | Team TB]

From YouTube Analytics: "Auto-play views in the Home feed will now be treated as views when determining CTR. This might change your reported CTR"

In the past when a viewer was watching a video another would play automatically after the first video ended. While this counts as a view it did not reflect as a click, and therefore did not affect the Click-Through Rate (CTR) for the video that got played immediately afterwards. With this update that automatic view will now count as a click, and will therefore increase it's CTR.

What That Means For You...
YouTube values watch time, and has analytics in place that you are not privy to. One of these is 'Studio watch time.' If you have a five minute video and the viewer watching it also watches a ten-minute video (entirely) as a result of an end screen or card put on that five minute video then the five minute video will get credit for five minutes of watch time... but it also gets credit for fifteen minutes of Studio watch time. That may not be the official term for this (it isn't an officially tracked metric) but the reasoning is sound; A video which encourages the viewer to watch more videos deserves more credit than simply having been watched. Getting viewers to 'binge' watch multiple videos is something that YouTube is big on, and thus this change is going to increase the performance metrics for videos that accomplish these binge sessions. Increased CTR for videos that get played in auto-play means an increase in one of the most important metric YouTube uses to measure video performance.
Creators need to take advantage of this; it is a clear sign from YouTube that viewer binge-sessions are coveted and will not only increase views but the potential for virality. There are several ways you can take advantage of this shift. You should incorporate elements into the end of your video that intrigue the viewer into watching another video. A very easy way to do this would be to provide a simple 'in our next video' or 'if you would like more information on these other things we talked about' segments complete with verbal and visual Call to Actions at the end of your video, thereby reinforcing the viewers desire to either click on the next video or the end screen/card elements. Another way would be for Creators to take advantage of the value of Playlists. These already offer the ability to control a series of videos; you simply need to include more reasons why the viewer should be compelled to continue watching the next video.
This is a stellar move by YouTube and one that is going to further the gap between skilled creators who make videos that viewers enjoy from those who lean heavily into clickbait and sensationalism. It reinforces the value of making videos for the viewer and discourages creators more interested in their own sub counts than creating great content. And it is a phenomenal way for you to gain a step up against the competition.

 

[MattCommand1]

Some great suggestions here as usual! I am definitely a fan of encouraging viewers into playlists for binge-watching. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well if you are spearheading new content buckets! I also run out of steam after uploading the video, writing the title, designing the thumbnail, and descriptions.

I am plain whipped mentally for all the followup stuff at the end. One day, I am going to get some help. I can barely keep up with once a week now.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Some great suggestions here as usual! I am definitely a fan of encouraging viewers into playlists for binge-watching. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well if you are spearheading new content buckets! I also run out of steam after uploading the video, writing the title, designing the thumbnail, and descriptions.

I am plain whipped mentally for all the followup stuff at the end. One day, I am going to get some help. I can barely keep up with once a week now.

I absolutely hear you there. I take time off every few months to clear my head. Cuz that process from start to finish is sooo much more than people think it is.

 

[BraveStar]

I saw this story and to be honest I didn't understand it at first and had not put time into understanding it till now. If what you say here is what the story is then I learned a ton I didn't know about YouTube. I'm happy to see they decided to change this. I can see why it wasn't considered click through before but if the person is allowing the videos to keep playing they are either enjoying the content or fell asleep. Or in my youngest sons case, he doesn't even bother to stop his videos when he goes to sleep and since he uses a headset we don't even notice most of the time that the videos are still playing on his PC. So those he enjoys watching geta ton of views from my son even when he's sleeping and now their CTR will change too because of him.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

I saw this story and to be honest I didn't understand it at first and had not put time into understanding it till now. If what you say here is what the story is then I learned a ton I didn't know about YouTube. I'm happy to see they decided to change this. I can see why it wasn't considered click through before but if the person is allowing the videos to keep playing they are either enjoying the content or fell asleep. Or in my youngest sons case, he doesn't even bother to stop his videos when he goes to sleep and since he uses a headset we don't even notice most of the time that the videos are still playing on his PC. So those he enjoys watching geta ton of views from my son even when he's sleeping and now their CTR will change too because of him.

The auto-play feature only counts watch time for the first hour of a multiple-video viewing session... so falling asleep while watching someone's 12-hour playlist doesn't do them any favors after the first hour. If you are commenting/liking these videos that timer resets every time you do.