Why Promoting Videos With YouTube Ads Rarely Builds A Real Audience

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We bring on VidIQ creator coach David to tackle real listener questions about focus, retention, Shorts vs long-form, finite-channel pivots, and the hidden cost of YouTube’s Promote button. Clear, direct tactics for packaging, topic strategy, and turning views into leads.

• defining a clear channel promise and ideal viewer
• using Shorts as springboards to long-form
• why Shorts views now act like impressions
• pivoting a finished build channel into maintenance and collabs
• retention cues: hooks, expectation match, pacing
• the limits of YouTube ads and “ad prison”
• troubleshooting content for search plus strategy for authority
• giving away expertise while selling time and judgment

Sign up for coaching with David: There’ll be a link in the description and in the show notes if you listen to the audio podcast

Transcript

Hooks, Intros, And Today’s Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm about to spill the beans on exactly what happens when you use the promote option on YouTube. And I'm about to tell you right now, if you're wanting the country in a long form, like you really got to understand and master that skill because it's different than shorts. The reality is they're they're they need different things. Hey, welcome to the only podcast that has more guests than we have hosts. Every single time, every single week. I'm here, Travis, as always. And I can't wait to help you grow your YouTube channels. And today I have a very special guest. I want to do something different because we have a lot of people that send in emails, and it's been a minute, but I got David here from the coaching hamer at VidIQ to help me out. How David, how are you doing, man? I'm doing wonderful, Travis. So glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yes, and if you're new here, we're here to help you grow your YouTube channels. And we do that in a couple of different ways. We've been interviewing a bunch of YouTubers here and talking about their journeys. But today we're going to answer questions that you guys and gals have submitted, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Looking forward to that. We haven't done this in a while. And uh I know people have been waiting, but we're back to it. So, David, tell us a little bit about yourself and like what you do here at VidIQ.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Well, I'm David. Hello, everybody. Uh, I am a creator coach here at VidIQ, and I help uh people that are getting on YouTube, maybe have been on YouTube for a while, get to the next level. Uh, and uh it's been my pleasure just to be here and and uh see that success with many, many of my creators over the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

And tell me a little bit about what that looks like. So when come when someone signs up and they get you as a coach, what's the like the first thing that happens and then uh to kind of walk us through what it is you do?

Coaching Basics And Common Mistakes

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Usually they um just come into our dash and then uh we try to re-respond promptly, and uh it the conversation starts uh as as it starts however they want to start it with us, you know. A lot of people come with different needs, different channels, different sizes. Uh, and uh even though we have um things that we like to ask first, uh, I just usually go along with the creators, you know, when they come in with questions, when they come in with just observations, things they want to know, things they want to learn. Uh a lot of them come in with uh uh desire to have their channel audited right away. And uh sometimes we just do that in our first response, we just do that right away. So um that's one of the biggest things that a lot of creators come in. Uh but then um coming coming forward, but then there's a lot of other things that uh, you know, nuances and questions and clarity that a lot of them come in. Um questions like, you know, what should I do next? I've been on YouTube for a while, trying to pivot. Or questions like, I'm just starting out, I don't know what my niche should be. Uh just giving them clarity, giving them next steps, giving them guidance to, you know, reach whatever goals they want to accomplish on YouTube. Uh and some of the first, some of those first conversations that we have together, we ask them about their goals, what do they want to accomplish? Because everybody has different goals on YouTube, right? Right? A lot of people come to YouTube and success looks different for everybody on YouTube, right? And that's kind of like why I like to get clarity around that right away. Um, and and yeah, that's what we do. Um a lot of creators, I would say 80% of them, um, come in with not even knowing um who their audience is and who they want to make videos for. So that's a big topic, right? And uh that's what we usually do within the first week. We try to figure out okay, who are we after here and and how do we reach those people?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah. So if you're a new creator or even if you've been around for a while and you want to talk to someone about it, you can literally sign up. There'll be a link in the description and in the show notes if you listen to the audio podcast, and you can literally ask questions. And and like David said, sometimes you just want someone to look at your channel and tell them what, tell you what they think about it. And David has seen a ton of channels, so he knows a lot about what to what to be looking for. What is like something that's kind of common that you notice that some creators are doing wrong? And it doesn't have to be anything like drastic, but like what's the common thing that when you open up a new customer and a new client, you're like, oh, yep, here we are again. This is the thing that seems like a lot of people do.

Channel Focus And Fast Clarity

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Honestly, um I think uh just opening up a channel, a lot of people don't have clarity about the focus of their channel and and where they're going, you know. Uh, it's almost like sitting in a car and just driving the car, but you don't really know where you're going, right? And and I think that's the just the biggest, the common thing that I see. Even you'd be surprised, even people that have um hundreds of thousands of subscribers, you know, they don't really know where they're going. Just following the GPS as the GPS tells them. Turn left, turn right, right? But they don't even they don't they don't really know what the end goal is and what the destination is. And I think that's probably one of the most common uh issues that a lot of people come at come with. And and we try to bring clarity to okay, what are we trying to accomplish here? Where are we going, right? And and what are some of the goals that we're trying to reach? And I think that's and and and it all starts with the channel focus. I think that's probably one of the biggest things. A lot of people don't talk about this, but it's like when I come to someone's channel, if I don't know what the channel, what the channel's focus is within the first couple seconds, you know, almost like uh driving down the road and see a big billboard and and you only have a few seconds to pay attention to that billboard, right? People coming, they're busy, they're just running around, they're viewing channels, and and if that clarity is not there, a lot of people are uh very keen on just leaving and never coming back, right? So grabbing those people right away um is I think the biggest, the biggest thing that I that I would that I that I've I've been seeing over and over again with creators coming into the program, um, not having that the that clear focus of the channel.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, super important to know because if you don't know what your content's about, how is anyone who's watching your channel ever supposed to know? And it's one of the things that uh we talk about quite a bit, but I think uh is um is more important than people will give it credit for. I think a lot of people will see, well, I this creator I watch, he they he, she does all the things they want to do. They they do whatever they want to do, and it seems to work for them. Well, uh a couple things. Number one, that's a very relative phrase. I mean, if you ask that creator, they would probably tell you no, that's actually not true. And secondarily, a lot of those creators have been doing this for years and they're just good at it. They just make it look easy, they make it look like it's nothing. And, you know, coming into YouTube, you're like, oh, I just gotta, you know, sit here and just say some funny things and everything's great. And and it didn't work. And like, what am I doing wrong? So there's just so much to it. So you can uh get a coach just like David. There'll be a link in the description and in the show notes if you're interested. But like I said before, uh, we got emails and text messages from the listeners here of the show. We've been uh I've been I've been uh putting it on a back burner because I've had all these interviews, but we're gonna get to it today. So the first one will be a text message, and that comes from the audio podcast listeners. If you're listening to the audio podcast, there's a link in the show notes to give you an opportunity to send us texts. And this one says, Hi, VideQ, my name is Sam, and I've been a fan for a long time. I'm at 7,000 views away from 350,000. So he's got 347,000 views, but I'm stuck at 600 subscribers, and it seems that most of my views come from shorts, but I mainly focus on long form content. Is there any way to bring my channel viewers back to long form? This is a great question. We get this quite often because um shorts are very easy to to grab views, right? But for someone who wants to do more long form stuff, uh it's like, well, how do I get those people to watch my long form? So what have you seen in helping creators with long form and short form? First of all, are they having the same problem? Do they even care? Or or are you is this kind of a an odd question for you?

Listener Q1: Shorts Vs Long-Form

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, that we've we've had this question so many times. People coming in and they are having um unfortunately, they have a lot of subscribers. A lot of their core audience is coming from shorts, and they're trying to pivot to long form, right? And uh, and we I mean, we have things that we talk to our creators depending on how long they've been around, how many subscribers they have, you know, the audience and that kind of stuff. Uh, it's not it's not hard to break out of that shorts um um lane. Uh it it's I I think the biggest the biggest issue here is obviously the audience that YouTube is trying to serve it to, right? Like you're trying to serve that to that short audience, and the short audience is not the same as the long form audience. Sometimes they correlate and they can you know cross over, but most of the time we always tell people, like, if you're trying to build the long form stuff, let's try to figure out a way to just focus on the long form. I mean, we'll do shorts, but that's not gonna be our main focus. Uh the focus, the only focus that we want to do when it comes to the shorts is to try to channel people from shorts to long form. So to have a sort of like uh have them almost like um like a springboard to the long form, right? Because we are really trying to uh get people to stick around. Um shorts, obviously great for discoverability. Uh, but if we want to get those long form, I would just say let's try to put our attention and our energy on long form uh for a little bit and had do that for a certain time, you know. We're still gonna do shorts, but it's not gonna be as extensive, it's not gonna be big focus, and really just kind of allow the algorithm to work with, you know, bringing in some more subscribers, some more views from the long form because that's where I think that the big discrepancy is there's a lot of viewers from the shorts, they don't really care, they just see something from the creator, they just aha they've seen so many shorts, but they're not really interested in long form, right? We gotta bring those long form and we gotta package it in such a way that and we gotta talk about the audience for the long form as well, um, and really uh go deep down into topics and and things that the long form um viewers will care about, and then try to get those people in. So, you know, there's work that needs to be done there. Um, and and uh it's possible. We've done it with many, many channels. It's just um, you know, that has to be the focus, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Right. And you know, a lot of times we'll see creators who will do YouTube shorts and not use the same niche for their long form. Like it's it's slightly different. And what's interesting about that is um it can kind of work on a channel as far as like one or the other will work. It tends not to work for both. And even by and large, most channels, there's very few channels you can look at where this the shorts views are pretty much in line with the long form. That's pretty rare. Um, so that's what what this person has experienced is actually fairly normal. But if you're wanting to concentrate on long form, what David said is perfect. Like you've got to concentrate on long form, like you really got to understand and master that skill because it's different than shorts. Um, shorts give you, you also have to remember that the way they count shorts now is completely different. The views you see on shorts are now basically impressions. So even if someone only watches for half a second, that's quote a view, even though I think to you and I, we wouldn't count that as a view. Um, there are the engaged metrics, which are the actual ones. But also you have to look back at the the concept of what a short viewer is and a long-form viewer. They're both human, yes, that's great. But the reality is they're they need different things. If I am, if I'm in the coffee shop and I'm just quickly swiping through looking at funny stuff while I'm waiting for my coffee, that need is completely different than someone who wants to sit down and watch a 10-minute video, right? Or a six-minute video. Like I have more time, maybe I I really want to spend time. Uh, otherwise, like I'm just kind of zipping, zapping through. And whatever catches my eye, I'm gonna watch, as long as it's quick, bite, it can be entertaining, educational, whatever it is, then I'm gonna engage with it and YouTube will see that. But what you're cultivating on your channel is more of that and less of the people who want to sit and and chill and vibe with whatever your content is. It's super important to understand what that means. And uh working with people like David will help you kind of figure out that mindset shift.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Exactly. I've I've even had I've even had creators come in and and actually just separate the two. Like they just said, you know what, like and this used to be the thing, like a big thing back in the day. Right now, it's kind of like maybe not really worth doing that, but I've had people say, you know, I have a lot of shorts I want to do. Well, let's just put them on a different channel then and just focus on that, and then just let's try to build this to the long form because you know, I would say focus your attention to what you want to see work for you, right? Um, and uh and long form is different audience, different needs, and um, yeah, depending on the niche too, like those are all the questions that you have to go through and figure out.

Packaging For Long-Form Viewers

SPEAKER_00 12:04

So we have a lot of uh newer um creators that listen to this podcast. So I just want to be clear about what I was said about the shorts views because they might not understand. So uh last year, YouTube changed the way that they count shorts views. Um and they made it more in line with what they believe TikTok does. So shorts views used to be what they now call engaged views, which is like you have to watch a certain amount of seconds for it to count. Now they're counting anytime that that it's not even a thumbnail anymore. It's like the first couple frames come up when you're zipping by it. That counts as a view. And again, I think to me and you, we wouldn't consider that a view. We would consider something someone watching for a couple seconds as a view. So you have to keep that in mind. Think about those as more of impressions, which is what long form has when someone sees your thumbnail, versus that being an actual view and like, oh, I won, I got a thousand views. Really, you probably had about a hundred views, uh, maybe, right? It's not really, you're not crushing it more than you are in your long form. If you start to look at that that way, like if you go into your metrics and you say you have, you know, 347,000 views, but you look at how many engaged views you have on shorts, it's probably closer to your view count on your long form than you actually realize. It's probably not as far off as you think.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Engagement is the key, and that's kind of like my top, top advice I give to all my creators as we work on things. Let's really work on engagement, whatever we need to do, let's try to get people to stick around for a longer period of time with those with the long form, obviously. You know, YouTube as a platform was started off as a long-form platform. That's what that's the foundation of it, that's what it was built for. And uh, and we have to kind of treat it like treat it like that. Yeah, they're trying to compete with TikTok and they're trying to compete with like Instagram and all this stuff, but at the end of the day, YouTube, that's how they started, that's what they reward the most, that's where you make the most money, that's where you build the most loyal audience. I mean, that's the bread and the butter of YouTube, right? And that's why I keep telling my creators. I mean, you you can you can make it as a shorts creator. Of course, we've seen it multiple times where we had people, you had guests probably making making big bucks for short in the shorts world. But I would say if you're on YouTube, um, you know, try to focus on what matters for your channel, if what matters for your growth, right?

Short Views Are Impressions Now

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Yeah. Uh next one is an email. Emails at the boost at VidacQ.com. This one comes from Greg and Danny. Hello, Vidacu team. Thank you for your wonderful podcast and all the other help you provide us. Lowly creator masters. Ah, you're not lowly. Stop it. We love you. Uh, my wife and I started a construction channel. That's interesting. Two years ago, when we decided to build our own family home. The channel grew slowly and eventually became monetized. Hooray, right? Well, unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to realize that once the house was done, so was our channel. Now we have a channel that wants to pay us money because they're monetized, and we have a small subscriber base who want to support us, but we have no content to produce. We're getting hit, we're getting by with small projects like a playroom for the kids, indoor rock climbing wall, and little odds and ends for now. Our long-term plan is to invest in another property and build again, but that's cost prohibitive for us right now. How should we pivot our channel to continue reaching our creator dreams? Homesteading, small cabin builds, DIY woodworking. They all seem possible, but seem like separate channels in their own right. Thank you for it in advance. That's a great question. This is really interesting. And some creators don't think about this. They'll come up with this idea for a channel and not realize that there might be an end. There like literally might be an end. Some gamers might play one game, and then after a while, that game dies. Then what? Um, these are things that you have to think about in advance. So if you were talking to Greg and Danny, David, what would you say to them and what would be your your strategy?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Um, it's it's a great question, man. Like, I I I would say um no need to start a new channel. Let's experiment. You know, that's the word that we like to do is it with coaches, you know, when people are pivoting and trying to figure out, you know, let's experiment with some of the things that you can do within that niche of construction, building, you know, how what does that look like? You know, how you know you guys have learned a lot through this process. There's probably a lot of video ideas that we could come up with. You know, what are some of the high-level things that you guys have learned that you can share with the world? You know, tips, tricks. Um, here's what, you know, here's unexpected things that popped up. I mean, they're probably documented that in different I I would have to look at the channel to kind of uh see what's been happening. But um, I mean, if they got monetized, they probably have a big following and that they have a lot of people already that love what they're doing, right? What love what they have to say, they already have value to give, right? And I think when you are starting, if you're if you're starting from scratch, it's much harder. Um, I would say start, continue with where you are, try to pivot, stay in the in the in the lane of of construction, but let's see what what does that look like for next next steps. And I would say let's experiment for at least a month to two months with maybe new topics, you know, tips, tricks, like whatever. I mean, they're probably a very knowledgeable, they probably have a lot of things they could cover. Um, and uh not only focused maybe on construction, that there's probably there's other there's other industries that are under that umbrella of construction, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Another I think what comes to mind for me is like if they were if they had the the hands-on to be able to actually build a house and stuff, um obviously they're gonna have to repair things, and that is interesting. And there are people who would watch that, especially you have to think about the viewers that you brought in in the first place. Like who watched that content? People who are either just living vicariously through you, or people that are handy themselves, or people that want to do this themselves. What comes along with that is and what David just said, this is like there's other things underneath that, which repair immediately springs to mind for me. I'm sure all of your stuff doesn't still work the way it did when you first put the house together. You should be documenting all that. It doesn't mean having to make a new playhouse. The toilet probably overflowed. Like, I mean, simple stuff that seems simple to you that you might not even be recording, you should be documenting all of that because it still will be interesting for your viewership. But again, like David said, you have to also think about what's going to be your next thing. You uh buying houses is not a sustainable thing for a YouTube channel for most of us anyway. Um, but you know, home upkeep totally is. Uh, and after you built it, I actually just came across a homesteading channel um like last night, and uh that's one of the things they do is like keep the upkeep is is content that uh people like to see and and and things like that. So like how do you unclog your toilet? How do you fix the sink when it goes bust? Like, what do you do there?

When To Separate Shorts Channels

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Exactly. And then you know, there's so many things to talk about here, but I would I would if I was if I was their coach, I would say, you know, uh what do you guys know any um builders in in town or real estate agent that you can call up and say, hey, do they have any projects they're going they're having going on right now? And then you guys can do some other stuff with them, you know. And I mean, it really depends on the time, on the effort, and all the things that you want to put in this, right? But they already have a good audience, and I think it would be valuable to just continue in that umbrella and see what clicks with the audience, right?

Listener Q2: Construction Channel Pivot

SPEAKER_00 18:48

I love thinking outside the box and going, well, you know, we also can maybe figure out if there's someone else that needs the help, or maybe we can uh go to a construction site and ask questions or something and have something educational to your channel. But that's really thinking outside the box. And sometimes when you when you come to an unexpected end of like whatever your thing was, uh you have to do that. But what you should be doing from the beginning is really considering what your channel would look like five years down the road. And if you're like, well, you know, this project I'm gonna do is only gonna be three months, uh you can either go into it like, okay, this is gonna be a channel that's only gonna live for a couple months, or you can go into it saying, okay, well, what would be the next natural pivot from there? If I do this, what would someone be interested who watches that uh next watch, which is what we always tell people to do for their content anyway? Same thing for channel. Um, you will likely have to pivot over time as any channel would, because things get dry after a while, some some topics dry up, and you just need to keep it fresh. People need to be interested in you all the time. What we were interested in five years ago isn't necessarily what we're interested in today. Um, we have another email. We have a lot, we have lots of messages because people love us. This one comes from Tim. Hi, Travis and Jen Rob Dan, or in this particular case, David. Delete or read out loud as appropriate. I know he put that there for me to do that, but I like to read it out. I think it's funny. Uh, and he's he's taking my intro. Welcome to the only podcast. That's it. Welcome to the only podcast. I love that, Tim. Thank you for that. Uh, I have a question about average view duration. I love average view duration, I love red tension, I love this. Say I'm uploading 10-minute videos and my average view duration is five minutes. Now I upload a video that's only five minutes and my average view duration goes down to two minutes. Will YouTube judge the video on the time or the percentage time? Because the reduced time certainly results in a downward gray audio uh arrow and must affect my one of ten rating. If YouTube is using this one of ten rating as a measure of success, why isn't the overall analytics view direction view percentage not minutes and seconds? And by the way, this is my third channel. Gentlemen, I'm just about to hit a thousand subs. So this is something that can be very confusing, especially to creators that are new. Um, and this comes when YouTube tries to be helpful, but then makes it sometimes more confusing than it should be. So, for example, he points out the gray down arrow on a video from like the watch time or something is going to be down because a 10-minute video will likely have more view duration than a five-minute, just by the nature of it being longer. So naturally, you're gonna get a down arrow, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Um, how do you explain this concept to people? I'm definitely gonna uh give up my two sentences because I love the subject, but what do you think when you read this?

Extending The Niche: Repairs And Upkeep

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Oh man, this is uh it's all the nuances and you know, yes, it's it's all the things we could talk about this for a long time. At the end of the day, I think what YouTube cares about the most is the percentage viewed, the retention, right? Percentage viewed. And and um uh you know, 10 minutes, you got a 10 minute video, uh, viewers watch for five minutes, that's 50 50% uh retention. You've got a five minute video, people viewers watch for three minutes, that's 60% retention, right? In in in in that situation, uh the shorter video is actually performing better. Uh uh even though the total videos, the total minutes are lower, right? And and that's why I think YouTube shows uh uh they'll show the both both both metrics. They're gonna have obviously you know both both of them always there. But I think it's um uh I think I think average view duration helps you uh see session time and average percentage view helps you see how engaging the video is relative to its length, right? And I think I think uh you know, uh uh trying to explain this and put this in perspective for everybody that's listening, but also people thinking about this, you know, I think both of them matter, uh, but I think percentage viewed views often tells the clear story when comparing videos uh of different lengths, right? I think the system ultimately reacts to to how viewers behave. Uh, you know, click, um, watch that depth, um, and and and the satisfaction signal are those are those are the biggest drivers. And I that's that's the first thing I tell to everybody when they come in the program. You know, in order for us to get discovered, these are the three big things: CTR, average iteration, and you know, and and and click screen, extending the session. That's it. Those three are the biggest signals we focus on, and and that's what we measure. I mean, we first, um, you know, whether they're new to YouTube or they've been around for a bit, you know, we are always like, okay, um, what's the CTR like? How can we improve that? What's the average iteration? How can we improve that, right? And we can improve everything all at once, uh, but but we definitely want to make sure that that in in correlation to this question, which is you know, uh average average percentage retention, well, retention of the video, I think I think making a shorter video will not automatically hurt you. What matters is whether viewers watch a larger portion of it and whether they stay engaged. That's basically it. One quick way, just one quick way to think about it is short videos need strong percentage retention. Long videos benefit from strong uh total watch time. And and you know, that's basically like I would what I would tell my creators, hey, here's the next step. Let's take a look at you know your last maybe five uploads and let's compare those two things. Let's see average percentage viewed, let's see where viewers drop off, you know, after that, those first 30 seconds to 60 seconds, you know, depending on what the what videos they're producing, how long they are. And then we see, okay, how can we, if we can improve that early retention, right? Almost, I think, I think almost every um that that that's what we're gonna be focusing on. So yeah. Sorry, I'm gonna go. So I think there's a couple things here.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

They also I think they're they're doing a little bit of causation here, which isn't necessarily correct. They're like, well, will this result, will this change my one of 10 because it sees these things? No, the one of 10 is just a numeric answer to how many views based on uh the last 10 that your video got. And it's totally possible that a shorter video will get more views than a longer video. That's totally possible. So they're not connected in that way. So, first of all, just let that part go. Um, what David said is really true. Like you should be looking at these percentages to understand are people staying? And watching the retention graph itself is really important to know where people are leaving and to look at what you did on screen during that moment. Were you on screen? Did you talk too long? Uh, you know, what were what was happening in that scene? Why did they leave? That's the important part. Because a popular video can have less than 50% retention because it gets pushed out to new people who aren't going to watch as long anyway, right? So what you're gonna see is typically the first couple days, your attention will start good. And I'll I'll sometimes hear messages from people that say, well, you know, three days later, um my percentage is like 30% now. I was like, Well, what happened to your impressions of views? Well, they went up. I have a thousand more views. Well, of course you do. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. Your attention will go down as new people get to see your video, which is exactly what you want. Um, the other thing is, and I think it's really important to understand that like this stuff, uh, you can learn certain aspects from it. And storytelling is one of them. Very important and something that the coaching staff can help you with. And that's how you get people to watch longer. But sometimes coming back to a video is a good signal as well. So, like, if it's a long video, like a 20-minute video, if you can get people to come back because they're so engaged halfway through, maybe they had to go to dinner or something, um, that's also a good signal to YouTube. And storytelling and being able to get your point across is so critical to getting this and nailing this that if you don't understand how to do that, that could be something that holds you back. Um, but definitely something to consider. And you know, view duration, I really, I really can appreciate because it can be very confusing to have a video get more views that has less view duration and less percentage viewed. But sometimes it's the topic, it's the season, it can be a lot of different things. It could be your thumbnail wasn't didn't give people the right impression of what they were going to get when they clicked into the video. A lot of people don't talk about the fact that the title and thumbnail absolutely can affect your view duration because if you set an expectation of one thing and they come in and they be like, this isn't at all what I expected, and they leave, you've literally just directly you just you just shot yourself in the foot.

Collaborations And Next-Step Content

SPEAKER_01 27:04

And that is the biggest, I would say it's the biggest mover when it comes to retention, getting people to stay longer to increase that percentage. It's that beginning, that opening. Like, did you meet their expectation? Why they clicked in in the first place? And that's we almost every creator I have my dash, we're working on the hook for every video. That's the one thing I want to, I want, I want, I want one of those things to get through my hands because I want to see I know the I know the promise of the video, I know I know what we're gonna be talking about, but I want to see that hook because the hook is where everything kind of falls, or you know, if it's not good enough, if if if we can improve, and this is maybe the answer to this question just directly, if we can improve that early retention, like in that hook, if we if we prove that almost every other metric is going to improve with it. Okay, so I've seen it across across the board, every channel I've worked with. If people start staying, they click and they start staying and their retention starts growing, everything else is just gonna keep on boosting because we're seeing engagement, and that's what YouTube likes, that's what YouTube wants. They want people to engage, be engaged, they don't want people to click and leave, click and leave. That's not what YouTube is about, right? So that's that's the biggest one right there.

Listener Q3: Average View Duration Myths

SPEAKER_00 28:17

I love that. Uh, next email comes from Barrett. Hey there, Travis and the VidI crew. I'm on a YouTube channel for our C oh wow, for our CPA firm, and most of our videos are interviews with business owners for our succession planning podcast. It's been going on for about a year and a half, and episodes average about 80 views each. A good performer might get up to 150. Okay. Over the past month, my last three episodes have been getting traffic from YouTube ads within a day of publishing, with those videos getting over a thousand views each. I'm a small channel, 180 subs with a thousand watch hours, and I'm not monetized yet. Someone else seems to be uh using my videos and ads. It feels weird to complain about it. It's been amazing for my views and total watch time. But it's tanking my average view duration. Ultimately, I don't want the algorithm thinking my channel isn't worth watching. Most concerning, I haven't seen a way I could stop this if I wanted. What's your take? So this is really cool because I can tell you stories about this. This doesn't happen to very many people, but when it does happen, it's very confusing. It's actually possible that some of your podcast uh guests have actually been pumping up the channel or or they uh or an agency that works with them does. It's pretty common. I've actually had um sponsors that have done this. And the reality is the views from organic versus paid are entirely controversial depending on who you ask. Some will tell you that it tanks the video and it never comes back, and some will tell you, including YouTube themselves, that they're completely separate. YouTube's stand on this is they are completely separate, they don't affect each other. But you can find a lot of evidence that shows that that's not necessarily the case. Which do you believe? I I leave it to you. This is what YouTube says. They say it doesn't affect. You can find a whole bunch of YouTubers on YouTube that'll tell you it does affect them. So I don't know what to tell you there. Um, as far as is it you can't stop it? No, you cannot stop it. Um there's nothing to do there. And uh again, it sounds to me like it's probably the people who were on your podcast bumping it up. Have you had anyone come through the program that had this problem? And and if so, or even let we can even talk about people who have just straight up used the the you know the promote platform and tell them what you've seen for that.

Retention, AVD, And 1/10 Rankings

SPEAKER_01 30:23

This is this is such a big topic. I mean, we could probably sit you and me, Travis, here for next podcast episode about this. We had our own uh we had our own talks uh internally about this. Like this is such a big you know what we love YouTube, YouTube has been great, and um we love that YouTube pays creators well. And uh the reality is in order for them to get in order for them to create uh to pay the creators, they need to run some ads, and in order to run some ads, they need to get money in, and people need to pay for them. So in all this to say this one simple thing, when people come into coaching, uh I can tell right away if I look at their channel whether they have run ads, whether they have not run ads. I mean, it's just very obvious when I come and look at the channels. I try to be very transparent and very honest with everybody right from the start because that's the only way that we can actually work together and move the needle. And I will say, from my perspective, for what I have seen and what I believe, Travis, is what you said. You know, it's it's up to people to believe whatever they want. What I believe is in most cases, ads have not contributed to the to the growth of the channel in a long term. Looking at the long-term picture and where things are going, it they have almost they have almost always um, I don't want to say destroy the channel, but they have just ruined things. And um, I if anybody comes in the program and I'll be very honest, I just tell them, okay, how about this? How about we just pause the ads for a moment and let's work on trying to build this organically, the way, the right way, right? Try to get the organic views because those people are coming because they want to be there, not because someone paid for them to see the video, right? And that's where the big difference is. You know, when was the last time, Travis, you you subscribe to a channel because an ad got served to you from the channel? No, probably never, neither did I, neither did anybody else. So when you really think about it from that perspective, as like ideal viewer, and that's why audience is so important, getting into the depth of like who are we making content for? Um, you know, if you don't know that, and if you don't, if that's not your starting point, and if you start sponsoring things, it's not gonna be good, it's gonna be a much harder up uphill battle, is the way I like to put it. It's an uphill battle, and uh, and it's not, you know, uh when I look at the sources, uh, when people come in and I just say, Hey, can you send me a source of you know for this video? I would love to see it. Like 95% is ads driven, like and it's all obviously money and stuff, but at the end of the day, that's not helping, it's actually just ruining things, you know. And we really want people to come because this is what successful channels are built built upon. They're built upon the loyal audience audience that keeps coming back for more, you know, ideal viewers, people that we always talk about this people that love your content for your content, and they want to keep keep coming back for more because of your because what you're giving and what you're doing is valuable, right? And that's where everything kind of differentiates. And I try to really encourage all my creators. There's still hope. I've had people come into the program that they've run ads. It was a frustrating journey. Um, I won't say how how long it took, it took a few months for us to break out of that. I call it ads ad prison. But once they broke out of it, man, it was just like amazing, right? So it's possible to switch things around for the channels. Um, it's much harder, uh, but it's possible to break out of that. And I would say right now to every creator watching this, if you don't have to run the ads, don't. Um just focus on you know the content, on the packaging, on you know, getting the right content out there for the and and let YouTube do its thing, you know, just let it let it do its thing, you know, because YouTube knows. YouTube knows what your content is about. It's it's much smarter than what you think. And uh they'll try to serve it. If it's pop properly packaged, if it's put together in such a way so that those people that were after click, then it's gonna bring the right people in, right? So yeah, it's a very controversial topic. I know, Travis, you probably have a lot of conversations around this, and we all do here. Um, and like I said, we love YouTube, YouTube is great. Um, but honestly, um, my piece of advice as a coach is like, let's try to let's try to stop and let's try to do take the right steps.

Hooks, Expectation Match, And Story

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Right. And here's I'll I'll actually, I don't know if I've ever said this on the podcast before. I'm gonna give you the exact way that it works and why it doesn't work for channels growing. And and I know this because I've talked to YouTube directly about it. So a couple things changed a couple of years ago. Let me let me do the part where in the intro you got the hot take and you're like, oh my gosh, I gotta watch this episode. I'm about to spill the beans on exactly what happens when you use the promote option on YouTube. And I'm about to tell you right now. See, the editor will use that in the beginning of the podcast. It's gonna be great. He's gonna be amazing, right? He's gonna be great. And I actually am gonna do that. So let me explain. A couple of years ago, they actually did change something the way this works, because uh when it used to, when you used to use it, what would happen is you get a lot of views, but nothing else. And then it would just die. As soon as you turn it off and stop paying, it would stop. That part's the same. Like that part, as soon as you stop paying, your views stop. That part hasn't changed. One thing has changed. Um, and that is that you will find that you actually do get a number of subscribers from them. And that was something that is wildly different than it used to be. I know why this is. Uh, like I said, this is the part that I've actually talked to YouTube about. Um, but before I get there, I'm gonna help you understand why using ads in general, uh using the promote tab, doesn't do anything. So the way YouTube recommendation engine works is it it works based on the uh viewer's watch history. That's one of the number one ways that it figures out who's gonna watch what, right? It looks in your watch history, tries to find things that are similar, finds other people with similar watch histories, and then aggregates that and figures out, okay, this might be good for this person. When you watch an ad, it does not go in your watch history. So you're not being promoted, which is exactly why as soon as you stop paying, you don't see any more impressions because none of those impressions actually ever existed. The person watched, maybe part of it five seconds skipped, like everyone does, right? It's in the beginning of a video, five seconds I'm out of here. And that doesn't exist in their watch history. So when YouTube's looking at them to promote uh channels, yours isn't one of them because they quote have never actually seen it. So that's one reason why as soon as you turn it off, it stops working. Why are there more subscribers though? Well, I actually had to talk to YouTube about this because I was kind of concerned when we first found this to be the case, uh, myself and another creator. And we got on a call with YouTube. And what happened is is they switch the way that uh they run the ads and they run them in specific countries that are going to get you the most pound, uh most bang for your buck. So if you spend$10 promoting this video, they want to get you as many impressions as possible. They're gonna send it to a lot of countries, um, including India, is one of the countries. And the reason I bring up India specifically is because of something that we talked about on a previous podcast, which is they have they do something that we've coined as hyper subscribing. So they look at the button, the subscribe button differently than David and I, or even most people listening to this podcast. They don't look at it as subscribe. I'm gonna watch this channel. They look at it as like a thumbs up, thank you, almost like the like button. They use it like that. And when I heard that, I heard that from YouTube, I was like, that's interesting. It's a concept that they had seen that happened to a lot of creators, and they were getting complaints from creators going, I'm getting a whole bunch of people that are you know subscribing, but I don't I don't know where they're coming from because they were getting the same situation. Someone's paying for ads on some other stuff. So we have um our newest uh VidIQ India channel, and we had our host on here, and I asked straight up, and there's an episode here on the podcast channel you can watch. I said, Is this a thing? Is this something that happens in India? And she said yes, it's actually a thing, and she has tons of channels she subscribed to. So uh yeah, it's kind of a thing. So that's one of the reasons why it doesn't work when you turn it off and why you get subscribers based off this. But none of those subscribers, just to be clear, are subscribers that are going to be going forward to watch more of your content. So that's kind of all the things.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

All in one. That's it. You you got it, Travis. I think I think we might have just uh um solved some big questions for some of the creators watching this.

Listener Q4: Unexpected YouTube Ads Traffic

SPEAKER_00 38:46

And I hope so. I'm happy for you. I hope so. We got one more email. This one's from Priya. Priya says, Thank you for this podcast. I've been binge listening for a few weeks now, not just enjoying it, but also learning a lot. For instance, in one of the podcasts, Travis mentioned coaching a very niche YouTube channel, a real estate tax agent. That's true, I did, uh, who had the goal of generating leads through YouTube rather than making that primary source of their income. And I'd love to hear more about those strategies if possible. Okay, I'll see what I can remember. The stats about me and my channel. Chocolate. Whitaker's milk chocolate above all else. I will die on this chocolate hill. I don't know if I've ever had that chocolate. Interesting. Interesting. Uh channel. Their channel is helping small business owners with Google Workplace Strategic Advice and Troubleshooting. Okay, that's cool. Uh, she aims to upload a strategic advice video, about five to eight minutes every week. Note February of 2026 was not a good month for me in meeting this target. Okay, that's fair. No fluff troubleshooting um videos when necessary. And she's based in what I call the upside down, the down under is what she says. Primary audience is Australian business owners, but I do have clients across the globe. And it's faceless, but I do create voiceovers and capture visuals. Thanks again for all you do. So I think what she's asking is like, how so let me tell the story because David isn't aware of this, um, that I told on the podcast episode. So uh back when I was still doing one-on-one coaching, there was a content creator that had, like I like she said here, um, kind of a business that was, I think it was real estate tax. And I I say that because I it it was something about that, but I can't remember. They're based in the UK. And when it came to me, they were only getting like about 100 or so views per video. Um we only worked together for about two or three months, but it wasn't because they felt it had failed. Uh, by the time they left, we we had like tripled their numbers, which you might think, oh, 300 views, not that big of a deal. But the reason that they stopped and he was overly happy was his business tripled. So we were focusing on the right viewers. So it didn't matter that he wasn't getting a thousand views per video. His business got so many. He told me, literally, he told me, he goes, I can't get any more views because I don't have enough room to bring in more clients. Like I'm full now. This has completely filled me up. I'm more than happy with this. I don't need any more. Thank you so much. So that just goes to show about finding the right viewers. So what Pri is asking here is like for strategies, really, the strategy isn't specific to him, it's specific to anybody. How do you get the right viewer? So, David, in this particular instance, and it doesn't have to be specific to Pre. Let's let's give an answer that'll be uh applicable to most people. How do you find the right viewer? What does that even mean to you?

Why Promote Rarely Builds Real Fans

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Oh man, that's uh that's again a topic we can have a whole podcast on, you know, and we have specific questions. We have specific questions that we ask. Um, what who who it is who is that right viewer in their mind, like when they're thinking about this right viewer, from from the creative creator's perspective, who is this person, right? A lot of creators will talk about themselves because they're making the videos for themselves, you know. But they don't really think about okay, well, well, for this particular one, she's actually trying to solve. Um, is it what did she say? Google Workplace, something so yeah, she's got like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this is now this is like, okay, well, these people, now I'm thinking, she's thinking about these people. Who are these people? What are their fears? What are their desires, like all the basic questions that we ask? And then um, I think I think the one thing that I would encourage her, strategy-wise, because I now now kind of have an idea where she's going. I would encourage you to think about the intent behind the videos that she publishes, right? Like right now, she mentioned there's two types of content. She said uh there's a strategic advice videos, they're you know, weekly, five to eight minutes, and there's a troubleshooting videos when needed, right? I think both of those are great. Um, but they I think they serve a little bit of a different uh discovery path, if that's the way I can put it. You know, I think troubleshooting videos, you know, they they tend to perform really well in in search because people are actively looking to fix the problem, right? Like I've seen that happen a lot. Uh, you know, for example, a small small business owner might search something like you know, Google Work workspace, email not syncing, or you know, how to share a Google Drive folder with external users, you know, just simple stuff like that, right? And and these these videos can bring the new people in in the world, but I think strategically uh I would think about how do you build trust and authority with these people, um, and and these and help help someone think, oh wow, she really understands uh how businesses should use this, right? And and and if the goal is to obviously lead generation, that's the main goal. Uh, I think the magic often happens when someone finds you through uh a troubleshooting video, then starts watching the strategic videos and realizes that you're actually expert that they are they're needing, you know, you're the one, right? Uh and and another thing that stands out to me in in this is is that obviously her channel is faceless, so it's a little bit of a challenge. Ah, tiny bit, you know. It's fine. I've seen it work. It it's it's it can work. Um, you know, screen recordings, voiceover, that kind of stuff. Uh, I think the key is always like if you don't want to show up on a camera, make sure that whatever video you make, you really have that value there, extremely clear. You know, this is the title. This is the topic and here's the value, right? You know, if if, for example, like talking about intent and the business people and stuff like that, you know, for example, if she's doing like a if she's targeting the small business owners, you know, what what what are the outcomes that they usually care about? You know, they care about saving time, they care about avoiding mistakes, they care about uh making their team more efficient, they care about preventing security issues, maybe. So the framing of the of the topic can can make a huge difference, right? For example, instead of like instead of just like, and this is what where most people would go, you know, and what chat GPT would give you this title. It's gonna be like Google work workspace tips for small businesses, you know. But instead of that, try to try to take take frame it in uh in this sense. Five Google workspace mistakes that cost small businesses hours every week, right? I mean, it's a it's a little bit of a mouthful. I mean, you can shorten that, but it's like you are adding the value to this title, you're tapping right into that fear and emotion of that business owner that's watching. He can save hours, you know, by looking at these five mistakes that she's gonna share with me, right? It's the same topic, but it just connects differently to that, to the pain point, right? Um, so yeah, I think uh that's where I would kind of start. I would I would start with like there, and I would start outlining you know, 10 video ideas that kind of fall into those two buckets, but really just look at the intent and and try to kind of pursue that.

The Ad Prison And Breaking Out

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Yeah, and I think that was a great uh example. I think that's awesome. What a great title idea, too. Um one thing that I would do remember that I told him, and I I say this to this day, is you can give away a lot of stuff for free. The thing is, is once people this goes back to what David said. Once you've established that you know what you're talking about, people will pay you for uh one-on-one knowledge. Um, it's not like you can't find how to grow on YouTube advice, it's been out there forever. But people come to the coaching program because they want, they want to be able to, even sometimes the question is the same question, but they want to know that they're being heard and seen and understood, and that connection is worth money. Um, so to be able to go to David and message him and go, hey, I you know, I feel bad about this thing. Like the thing is, is you could, I guess, put that into Chat GPT, but like it's not a human telling you that, buddy, I understand, I've been there, I've felt it, you know, it, I understand, and we're gonna get you through it. Like, that's you're not gonna get the same thing. So I think it's super important to understand that people will pay you for your time and your expertise once they believe you. So giving away free advice should be part of the plan. Like, don't feel like you're some people are afraid, like, oh, I don't want to give away for everything for free. You'd be surprised at how many people give the whole bank away for free and still get people to pay them for the same exact advice. It's absolutely crazy. 100%. 100%. I agree. So, David, I thank you so much for joining me here on this episode. And if you want David to be your coach, it's possible. It's possible. I can't guarantee anything. But there'll be a link in the description and in the show notes if you listen to the audio podcast. And uh, David, thank you for coming through. It's uh a pleasure. Maybe we'll have you come through again.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Hey, anytime, anytime. I I I love my creators, they're like my best friends. We work on great things together. I've had some great success stories. Um, you know, uh, I would love to see you guys come in, join up, and um we can work together and accomplish great things. And the only question that matters candy corn or cadbury eggs?

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Which one? We only choose one. Oh my god, you gotta go. All right, we're out of here. We'll see y'all in the next one.