As always, the end of the year marks the time I dig into YouTube Studio’s analytics section and my treasured, manually compiled (yeah, I’m one of those people) profit and loss spreadsheet.
It has been, without question, the biggest and most successful year ever for Mark Ellis Reviews. The subscriber count swung past 100,000 in April and I recorded a record fiscal end of year in July for the business as a whole.
There are, however, two red flags I’ve discovered during my analysis, and one of them, in particular, is very rarely talked about by us YouTubers.
The Mark Ellis Reviews YouTube channel encouraged 58,192 people to hit the subscribe button this year, which is a 13% increase over 2022. It also achieved an average clickthrough rate of 5.2%, which is 16% up from 2022 and proves that pulling silly faces in thumbnails is still a good tactic. Views for regular videos increased by 32% to 9,433,566, and the 280 shorts we published increased views of my vertical YouTube content by a frankly bonkers 1,176% (a total of 3,048,194 views if you’re interested).
Impressions? They were up 30% to 146,896,196. The CPM for the channel as a whole (which is what YouTube pays via AdSense for every 1,000 views) increased to £8.63 - a 19% uplift from the 2022 figure. That resulted in an incredible 50% increase in AdSense revenue.
What’s fascinating is that this all came during a year when I only published four more regular videos than in 2022, and I’m pretty sure that relatively minor additional effort didn’t contribute solely to the aforementioned increases in metrics. Equally, publishing 145 YouTube videos in a year is still really pushing it for a business as small as mine.
The net result of this might have revealed itself in two less-than-stellar figures. In 2023, I lost 14,308 subscribers (an increase of 16% over 2022’s loss). The average view duration (AVD) for my videos also fell by 31 seconds to 04:29.
The number of lost subscribers is a hard pill to swallow, and that number gets more unpleasant every time I look at it. There’s a caveat here, which is that YouTube does periodically undertake spring cleans of the subscriber base to clear out dead accounts - but I’d never rest on that being the reason for any drop in subscriber count at my end. As far as I’m concerned, the responsibility always rests solely with Mark Ellis Reviews. The same goes for the AVD. It has dropped significantly, and that definitely doesn’t have anything to do with YouTube’s behind-the-scenes tidying.
This might sound narcissistic, but I love this kind of thing. Since starting my career as a full-time content creator, I’ve realised that for every number that increases, there’s usually another heading in the opposite direction. The only way to grow, improve, and ensure the increasing numbers are bigger than those that are falling is to be honest with yourself. What is your audience telling you beyond the comments they leave? Which elements of the content creation process do you need to improve? What are you going to do next year to step things up a gear?
In this business, it’s only worth spending time on the numbers you can influence. The number of videos published, the percentage that are sponsored, the AVD, and the click-through rate, fall squarely into that bracket. The drop I’ve witnessed in subscribers and AVD this year tells me that I need to focus on increasing the quality of my videos in 2024. It’s that simple. And there’s only one way to do that.
I’m proud of every video we publish. Given the time and resources available, every production is always the best it can be. The problem, I think, is the number of videos that have been published this year. I won’t lie - it has been exhausting, and, as noted earlier, I don’t believe for one minute that the stellar increase in performance of the channel in 2023 was a result of those four additional videos.
Imagine if ten fewer videos had been published. What impact would that have had on the numbers? Would the additional time have resulted in higher-quality productions that kept people watching for longer and feeling less inclined to reach for the unsubscribe button?
We’ll find out in 2024!
Thank you for being a part of this journey - it gets better every year.
P.S. As you may know, creating content like this is something that forms a big part of my career. It wasn't easy reaching this point, however, and my journey of becoming a full-time content creator hasn't been without its hurdles.
That's why I've been working on a project aimed at simplifying the path of turning content creation into a career (for those who have an eye to doing so).
It's called the Creator Academy, and it will feature all the tools, strategies, and resources I wish I'd known about when I was first starting. And of course, I'll be there every step of the way to provide personalised feedback, accountability, and coaching.
We'll be launching The Creator Academy at the end of January, and I really can't wait.
If you're interested in learning more about The Creator Academy just click here!