Evan CarmichaelSpeaker / Author / Introvert

The Only MetricThat Matters On YouTube! | Evan Carmichael | #shorts

13 Jun 2023 · 0 min

Watch on YouTube

0:26

In this YouTube Shorts clip, creator Evan Carmichael explains that the single most important metric for a YouTube channel is watch time – the total amount of time viewers spend watching a video. He argues that a high click‑through rate (CTR) generated by sensational thumbnails or promises (e.g., “I’m giving everyone a million dollars”) is meaningless if viewers quickly abandon the video because the content does not match the thumbnail’s promise. He illustrates this with a hypothetical example of a 40‑minute video that only mentions David Goggins for two minutes, warning that such mismatch will “destroy” watch time and hurt channel performance. The core message is that creators must align thumbnail promises with actual video content and focus on retaining viewers, because watch time drives YouTube’s algorithm more than CTR alone.

The thing that matters the most for YouTube is how much are people watching the video. Watch time is the king. So if you say big David Goggins on the thumbnail and then you even put in your coming up a little clip of like you talking about Goggins, but then it's a 40-minute video and you only talk about David Goggins for like 2 minutes of it, you will probably get destroyed on your watch time because people aren't watching. If you just go for click-through rate, you could just say I'm giving everyone a million dollars for free, get a huge click-through rate, but they're not going to watch the video because you're talking about something completely different.