YouTube Analytics adds ‘new’ and ‘returning viewer’ metrics

Abner Li | Mar 3 2021 - 9:25 am PT

The Analytics tool in YouTube Studio is adding new and returning viewer metrics to help creators better “understand different trends in your audience over time.”

Available on the desktop web, the Analytics > Audience page is getting a “Returning” tab to join “Unique viewers” and “Subscribers.” Two metrics are charted in this graph, with users able to adjust the time period from the top-right corner of the page.

New viewers: a metric that shows how many people are watching your channel for the first time in the selected time period. Note that viewers watching from private browsers, who deleted their watch history, or haven’t watched your channel in over a year may also be counted as new.
Returning viewers: how many people who already watched your channel previously returned to watch it in the selected time period.

These additions come as YouTube says it hears how creators “often struggle to understand their audience.” The Google video site hopes to address:

Better understand your audience: See how many of your viewers are new to your channel, and how many are returning to watch more.
Inform your content strategy: Decide whether to attract new viewers by experimenting with new topics and formats, or create more consistent content to build audience loyalty.
Decide videos to make next: For example, if you get a spike in new viewers from a particular video, you could entice those viewers to return by making another video about a similar topic.

The new and returning viewer stats in YouTube Analytics are widely rolled out today.