Check your YouTube impressions and watch time

You can use the Content tab (or Reach tab at the video level) in YouTube Analytics to understand your video’s traffic. Find out the number of times your video thumbnails were shown on YouTube, and how those thumbnail impressions turned into views and watch time. Learn more tips for using impressions and click-through rate data.

View impressions and click-through rate data

YouTube Android app

  1. Open the YouTube app .
  2. Tap your profile picture and then View channel.
  3. From the middle menu, tap Analytics to view a brief summary of your channel performance.

YouTube Studio app for Android

  1. Open the YouTube Studio app .
  2. From the bottom menu, tap Content .
  3. Select the video you’d like to see data for.
  4. Tap the Analytics tab.
  5. From the top menu, tap Reach.

Impressions and how they led to watch time

Note: For detailed analytics, please use YouTube Studio.

With the "All" filter selected, you can view the "Impressions and how they led to watch time" report which gives you a visual of your thumbnail’s impressions that led to views and watch time. You may also see what percentage of your impressions came from YouTube recommending your videos to viewers.

Note: You may see a difference in metrics between the key metrics card and the "Impressions and how they led to watch time" report. This difference is because the data in the key metrics card is updated more often.

Under the Videos, Shorts, Live, and Posts tabs the key metrics card gives you an overview of your impressions. This card also gives you info on views, click-through rate, average view duration, subscribers (Shorts), likes (Shorts), shares (Shorts). This data is available within a few hours of publishing your content.

Where are impressions counted?

Impressions are counted if the thumbnail is shown for more than 1 second and at least 50% of the thumbnail is visible on the screen. See details on where impressions are counted below.

Impressions are counted on:

Impressions are not counted on:
  • YouTube on computers, TVs, game consoles, Android, iPhone, and iPad
  • YouTube Search
  • YouTube homepage (includes auto-play)
  • YouTube feeds (subscriptions, trending, history, Watch Later)
  • "Up Next" recommendations on the right side of the video player (includes autoplay)
  • Playlists
  • External websites and apps (for example, links and embeds outside of the YouTube website)
  • YouTube mobile website
  • YouTube Kids app
  • YouTube Music app
  • Content within the video player (for example, in cards or end screens)
  • Email or notifications
  • Videos that play in the background tab (no visible impression)
  • Videos whose thumbnails are less than 50% visible or visible for less than 1 second
  • TrueView video discovery ads

Metrics to know

Impressions How many times your thumbnails were shown to viewers on YouTube through registered impressions.
Impressions click-through-rate How often viewers watched a video after seeing a thumbnail.
Unique viewers

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.

Views

The number of legitimate views for your channels or videos.

Note: YouTube has updated its view counting methodology for both YouTube Shorts and ad views (also known as "YouTube public views" for advertisers).

Views from impressions Views that originated from impressions for the selected date range.
Watch time (hours) The amount of time viewers have watched your video.
Watch time from impressions Watch time that originated from impressions for the selected date range.

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