Understand your YouTube audience

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The Audience tab in YouTube Analytics gives you an overview of who’s watching your YouTube videos and insights on their demographics. It provides a quick snapshot of key metrics like new viewers and subscribers.

Note: Some data, such as geography, traffic sources, or gender, may be limited in YouTube Analytics.

Monthly audience

Your monthly audience shows the total unique viewers who watched your content in the last 28 days. You can use this metric to estimate the size of your active audience.

Monthly audience is calculated daily, always looking back at the previous 28 days from that specific day. This metric gives standardized data points for accurately measuring how your audience develops over time.

Your monthly audience is split into three groups based on watch behavior: new, casual, and regular viewers. You can use this data to create content that targets different viewers in your audience. Learn more about new, casual, and regular viewers.

Note: Even if you select a date from the date picker, your monthly audience will still be calculated based on the previous 28 days from the most recent day of the selected date range.

View your Audience reports

  1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
  2. In the left Menu, select Analytics .
  3. From the top menu, select Audience.

Audience reports

When your viewers are on YouTube

This report shows you when your viewers are online across YouTube in the last 28 days. You can use it to help build your community, understand when to schedule a Premiere, or to plan your next live stream.

Device type

This report tells you what percent of your watch time comes from each device (ordered from highest to lowest). Supported devices: mobile, computer, TV and tablet. Additionally, you can look at these analytics by content type.

Subscriber bell notifications

This report tells you what percentage of your subscribers get bell notifications from your channel. Learn more about subscriber notifications.

Watch time from subscribers

This report tells you what percent of your watch time comes from subscribers and viewers who aren’t subscribed.

Age and gender

This report shows you which age ranges are adding most to your watch time and the gender distribution of your audience.

Channels that your audience watches

This report shows you what other channels your viewers consistently watched outside your channel over the past 28 days. You can use it to find out what channels your viewers are interested in and for collaboration opportunities.

What your audience watches

This report shows you what other videos, Shorts, live streams, and podcasts your viewers watched outside your channel over the past seven days. You can use it to find topics for new videos and titles. You can also use the info for thumbnail ideas and collaboration opportunities. If you have an Official Artist Channel, you won't see videos where you're the primary artist, even if the video is outside your Official Artist Channel.

Formats your viewers watch on YouTube

This report shows you what other types of formats people are watching in the last 28 days. The formats could either be videos, Shorts, or live streams. You can use this to see what formats people are watching the most to adapt your content to that format.

Top geographies

This report shows you which geographies have the most watch time for your channel.

Top subtitle/CC languages

This report shows your channel's audience by subtitled language.

Get tips for learning who your viewers are and what they are watching.

Metrics to know

Note: Viewers who watch any form of your channel’s content will be included in viewer metrics. This includes Shorts, Video On Demand, Lives, and videos uploaded to your channel.
Monthly audience

Estimated total number of viewers in the past 28 days. This metric is calculated daily, always looking back at the previous 28 days from that specific day.

This metric gives standardized data points for measuring how your audience develops over time.

Note: Even if you select a date from the date picker, your monthly audience will still be calculated based on the previous 28 days from the latest day of the selected date range.

New viewers

The number of viewers that watched a video on your channel for the first time in the selected time period. Viewers who watch from a private browser, deleted their watch history, or haven't watched your channel in over a year are considered new viewers.
Casual viewers The number of viewers that have watched your channel occasionally for a while. Casual viewers have watched your channel at least once per month for one to 5 months in the past year.
Regular viewers The number of viewers that have been watching your channel consistently for a long time. Regular viewers have watched a video on your channel at least once per month for more than 6 months in the past year.
Unique viewers

The estimated number of viewers that watched your content within the selected date range.

For Shorts, this is calculated from engaged views and their corresponding watch time.

Subscribers The number of viewers who have subscribed to your channel.
Watch time (hours) The amount of time viewers have watched your video.
Views The number of legitimate views for your channels or videos.
Returning viewers The number of viewers who already watched your channel, and returned to watch in the selected time period.

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