YouTube Analytics Adds ‘First 24 Hours’ Metric

YouTube is adding a new metric that allows creators to analyze the performance of a video within the first 24 hours after publishing.

Aside from the public view count, data from a video’s first 24 hours was previously never available to creators.

Now it can be accessed in the video analytics section of the YouTube creator studio. To retrieve this data, select “First 24 hours” from the date picker in the top right-hand corner.

Here’s more about the data you’ll finding after selecting the first 24 hours view in YouTube analytics.

YouTube First 24 Hours Data

After selecting first 24 hours from the date picker as shown in the photo above, you’ll see a full set of data collected from the first 24 hours after the video was published.

This is an example provided by YouTube:

Upon opening the first 24 hours view you’re greeted with a summary at the top of the screen. The summary quickly informs you of the total number of views and how that compares to the performance of previous videos.

As you go down the screen you’ll find the total watch time accumulated by the video in its first 24 hours. The report shows how many subscribers you gained or lost during that time, and how much revenue you earned if the video is monetized.

While the summary at the top is helpful in figuring out how the data compares to other videos, you can dig deeper than that.

On top of launching first 24 hours data for each video, YouTube is giving creators the ability to compare 2 videos side-by-side.

Compare Data Side-by-Side

Want to see how your new video compares to your last video? Or any other recent video?

Compare them!

Here’s an example:

The colorful graph is only the start. Below that you’ll see more granular data about the traffic sources of each video.

Traffic sources are broken down into the following categories:

• Browse features: Views received from YouTube recommendations.
• Notifications: Views received from subscribers clicking on a notification.
• Channel pages: Views received from people clicking on it on your channel page.
• External: Views received from people finding the video off-site, such as social media.
• Direct: Views received from people navigating to the URL directly.

The metric I would recommend paying attention to closely is views received from notifications.

If that number starts to drop off noticeably over time it means people who have opted-in to viewing your content are becoming less eager to watch it.

Comparing fluctuations in the ‘browse features’ metric over time could be an indication of how the YouTube recommendation algorithm is responding to your videos.

Although it isn’t everything, freshness is one of the factors considered by YouTube’s algorithm. That makes the first 24 hours of a video crucial as that’s when it gains the most from the freshness signal.

Other Information

Data collected from a video’s first 24 hours on YouTube will be available for all newly published videos.

Historical data is available for videos published from 2019 forward. Data for videos published before 2019 will not have the first 24 hours view.

First 24 hours data will not be available for live streams, which have their own set of analytics.

For more of the latest updates for YouTube creators, see the video below: