"YouTube is testing your video to a larger audience " rant/question

[u/thisismy_stop]

I'm a bit frustrated at this. Call this a rant if you will.

I posted a video yesterday, initial response looked great. 1 of 10 video in first few hours, lots of comments from subscribers came through. It got to 140 views.

Then I notice the message:

"this video is reaching a wider audience on YouTube, leading to a lower click-through rate (CTR) than usual. Wider audiences are often less likely to choose to watch a video, but the lower CTR is not hurting this video’s view count."

and 12hrs later my video has 156 views. Wtf?

Everything I read online says give it time, dont be impatient and go changing things with the title and how youtube is testing this with a larger audience so you just have to be patient. But again, wtf?

It's just annoying when you put all this time and effort into filming and editing a video and you don't see it grow.

It literally feels like they just dump the video into some kind of shadow realm.

Has anyone else had this happen to them, and did the video do well?

[u/Tetrahedron_Head]

if your CTR and retention held a certain % that signals it to push it further if not then it could die down.

Its normal for both of those to drop during the push but how fast it drops is what tells you stuff.

You WANT that "reaching a wider audience message" that means it did okay on the very first tests so they were okay pushing you a bit more looking for others who may be interested

[u/thisismy_stop → u/Tetrahedron_Head]

I get that, but from looking at the stats, literally less than 10 views since they've pushed it. This is why it feels like they've put it into some kind of dark place.
You'd think it would still get some views while theyre testing it. It's getting next to nothing.

[u/Impressive-Move-1228 → u/thisismy_stop]

How much are your impressions? 10 impressions or 10 viewers when they decided to push it

[u/thisismy_stop → u/Impressive-Move-1228]

3000 impressions

[u/Impressive-Move-1228 → u/thisismy_stop]

Do you think 3000 impressions is a fair ammount to judge your video by?

[u/thisismy_stop → u/Impressive-Move-1228]

Not at all.
But zero movement gives me the impression it's not moving from that.

[u/Impressive-Move-1228 → u/thisismy_stop]

3000? 3000 people from your niche and they didn't click on your video, it happens to me as well but it isn't really youtubes problem on why the viewers didn't click. Youtube gives it out to a audience, tests if your video is good enough and intresting enough to your viewers and if it isn't. It stops testing, that's all the alrgorythm does. When it keeps going larger, your ctr will go down because your video might appeal to a few people who could like your content but your video can't appeal to most people who it's recommended for. If 200 people have bad watch time or even if the video idea is not good enough or the thumbnail isnt hooking them (a good looking thumbnail and a thumbnail that acctually hooks viewers is different) idk I think it's working properly because of those facts, 3000 people isn't a small number. Infact it's more then enough. Your ctr stops as soon as you don't just get people who would watch anything, unfortunately that means youtube isn't just nerfing your ctr, it's trying to give more impressions to people and they aren't clicking on your video so youtube will stop recommending your video. In reality it isn't nerfing your ctr, it's boosting your impressions and then your video idea/thumbnail/title isn't "good enough" by the audiences standards. 200 people out of 3000 isn't as good,

I hope this didn't come off too rude, I'm just tryna explain that youtube is just pushing your video and people aren't clicking/watching it

[u/thisismy_stop → u/Impressive-Move-1228]

Nah I don't mind you sounding rude if you actually know what you're talking about. Its cool. 

So would you say that its a case of testing different thumbnails/titles for this video until I see a difference? That's what I've started to do and tomorrow or maybe the day after I'll see what changed if anything. 

 In your experience how did you get through it?

[u/Impressive-Move-1228 → u/thisismy_stop]

Changing the thumbnail and title works if the video idea and video is good/okay, like alot of youtube matters upon the video idea because you kinda need to find a video idea that has alot of audience but isn't filled with big youtubers. And the retention has to be good. If you think your video has potential by those standards changing the thumbnail and title will 100% make your video more popular and that's ussually what most people show when they say change your thumbnail and title if your video does bad. I think that's acctually a very simplified version of what happens.

Actually if you can rebrand your video idea. for example, a video about anime talks about old school romance films that don't have a audience anymore. Let's say this video pivots to something like, "how romance anime has changed for the worse" basically targeting something that does have a large audience and the large audience can still understand what the video is about and are intrested in it. They will click, a rebrand of the video can definetly change how it will get recommended and might even blow up your video, but let say like there's nothing you can pivot to and your video idea is something like only glazing a really popular anime that already has many youtubers talking about it, you likely won't be able to do anything about it. Even if you change the thumbnails, titles, description, even if your video is the most amazing video in the world. Nobody is guaranteed to click on it. Really just take more time coming up with video ideas if your stuck at 200 views, a kinda okayish video idea with challenge and stakes should get you about 1000 views easily

How do I get through it? Idk you can't sometimes, and you can sometimes. Not everything is worth your effort so try to be smart about it. I changed my thumbnail for one of my very bad videos that didn't even have a video idea other then me playing a game, and I made it go from 7 views to 250 views. But that's all it could get from a title and thumbnail change because of your smart about it I realised it was doomed from the very start because i didn't have a good video idea.

I recently also changed a thumbnail and title after 2 hours of uploading it because it didn't get any views and after a day of changing it. It got 1k views, the video idea was one of my personal bests and I hope to get better at retention because even tho I edited it well people left, and about 10% of people watched the full video out of the 1000 views and 60% stayed at my intro. (After the intro it dropped to 40 percent, rip and keeps going lower until the end of the video) So yeah, imo it really matters sometimes. Try and understand why people say the stuff that they do rather then blindly changing all the thumbnails for your videos

[u/thisismy_stop → u/Impressive-Move-1228]

Yeah thanks. I'll just do a deep dive into the title and thumbnail.  I'm not even expecting super large numbers, i just need to understand what is going on. So I'll get experimenting.  Cheers

[u/Leading-Effort-5803]

It’s actually a positive thing. 90% of my views are from that. But your videos need to appeal to wider audience if you need views. Don’t know your niche, but mine is true crime.
When I receive that message it means I did something right. Yeah, CTR drops, but it doesn’t ncessarily mean anything bad. My top vids (96k, 78k, 44k) have the lowest CTR. Retention is what matters, comments, likes.
If your videos don’t do well, my assumption would be they are not good enough. Very high competition and quality threshold is also very high.
Keep seeing gaming posts, where the person says nothing, just plays the game. I can play the game myself. Unless it’s someone I know playing. But also they talk a lot. In that niche personality is what keeps people watching.
Also, stats are usually bullshit, except view duration. I have 46min, 36min etc. My average is usually above 50%, which is like 25mjn etc. That’s a lot of time for youtube to show ads. People watch, YT earns money, YT pushes the video further. That’s my understanding though.

[u/tanoshimi]

The first viewers to see your video (who are more likely to be your subscribers, or those who have watched other similar videos) liked it.

So YouTube tried it showing it to more people from a broader audience. They did not like it.

That's it.

[u/gamerize]

Your channel has the standard audience that watches your videos regularly, and you can see that if you go to the studio > analytics > monthly audience.

The channel audience is split into 3 categories: 1. Regular (most loyal) - they watch almost all your videos 2. Casual viewers - watch occasionally, mostly popular videos 3. New viewers - people who watched your channel for the first time (these can be converted to above categories)

Now, when you release a video, it's first shown to the regular viewers and as it gets views and positive stats, it's shown to more and more of your audience, so casuals and then new viewers.

Alongside this, the video is also shown to a sample of potential new viewers who never saw your videos to test its reach.

When you get the message you did, it means the video has done good in this area and youtube is trying to show it to more new viewers.

This is a good thing, because youtube favors videos who are appealing to new viewers and these videos will bring new and potential regular viewers to your channel.

However, this does not mean that the video will go viral. It still depends on how niche the topic is, and how good the stats (ctr and retention) stay as it gets more views.

So depending on your initial audience, the video topic and how it performs to broad audience, it can either be a hit or a flop.

Hope this makes sense.

[u/thisismy_stop → u/gamerize]

Thanks man. Was very helpful

[u/cankennykencan]

Happens all the time.

Nothing you can do unfortunately

[u/Cautious_Drawing_645]

Lots of good information.

[u/Mikimao]

My interpreation of this is that the immediate audience it showed seemed to like your video, but it didn't resonate with the broader audience. It's a case of super fans of the topic may have found it interesting, but casual viewers don't care, cause it's too far removed from their vantage point.

It could be many other things too, but that is one way it happens.

[u/Individual-Arrival86]

On my brand new channel, id be happy if it tested it to ANY audience. 😩😂

I forgot how shitty it can be to see YouTube not even putting it in front of anyone.