Retaining YouTube subscribers is one of the most important video marketing metrics you can track and optimize. It’s a proxy for your audience’s trust in your content and signals to YouTube that your videos are engaging and valuable, helping you rank higher on the platform.

Retention is also a powerful signal that helps YouTube’s algorithm evaluate the quality of your content. As a result, channels with high viewer retention tend to outrank newer channels. This is because established YouTubers have built up their viewership over time, earning them a “seniority clause.” In a nutshell, Retention is a factor in how YouTube ranks your videos, alongside Views and Engagement.

You can see your channel-level audience retention data by logging into YouTube Studio and selecting the Analytics tab from the left-hand menu. You can also dive deeper at the video-level by clicking on the Engagement tab, which displays all pertinent video engagement analytics.

You can use these reports to identify the moments that keep or lose viewers’ attention and then use this knowledge to improve your videos. You can also track the average viewing duration of your videos, which is a key retention metric for YouTube that indicates how long people watch your content on average. Retaining YouTube subscribers