YouTubeYouTube average view duration in the MacBook notch
Average view duration is how long a viewer stays, and it is the honest counterweight to a view count.
A ratio, not a sum
YouTube divides total watch time by views over the window. Because it is a ratio over the whole window rather than an average of the daily ratios, the headline figure is not the average of the points in the sparkline. A single day with many short views pulls the headline down more than it pulls any individual point.
Reading it against video length
The raw number means nothing without the length of what you published. Four minutes is excellent on a six-minute video and poor on a forty-minute one. Watch the direction rather than the value, and watch it in the weeks after a format change.
A sharp drop usually means the opening is wrong rather than the subject. Viewers leave in the first thirty seconds more than anywhere else.
Buckets are Pacific Time.
What YouTube average view duration means, exactly
Watch time divided by views over the whole window, rather than the mean of the daily averages, which would weight a quiet day the same as a busy one.
A length of time, held in seconds and shown in whichever unit reads best.
How the widget behaves
- Buckets
- daily, weekly and monthly
- Shape
- A figure with a sparkline
- Against last period
- Yes
- Fetched from
- youtubeanalytics.googleapis.com, www.googleapis.com, oauth2.googleapis.com
Questions
- How is YouTube average view duration calculated?
- Watch time divided by views over the whole window, rather than the mean of the daily averages, which would weight a quiet day the same as a busy one. Notch Metrics reports that number, unchanged, in the MacBook notch.
- Can I see YouTube average view duration over time?
- Yes. YouTube average view duration is bucketed daily, weekly and monthly, so the widget carries a sparkline alongside the headline figure, and a comparison against the previous window.
- What unit is YouTube average view duration in?
- A length of time, held in seconds and shown in whichever unit reads best.
- What does it cost to put YouTube average view duration in the notch?
- $9 a month, or $49 a year, with every connector included and no per-integration charge. The seven-day trial needs no card, so you can see your own average view duration before deciding.