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Tomorrow is Solitude Day, Reader... Let’s all 🎉 celebrate together, but separately.

In today’s edition:

• Today's 👉 Tip of the Day is for YouTube

• Substantial 🌐 YouTube reach

• Instagram #️⃣ hashtag updates

• Google 📊 measurement changes

• 📣 Additional industry news from Threads and Snapchat

If your YouTube ads aren’t converting and you’ve refined the content, the issue might be in your targeting.

3 Ways to Target Customers Who Are Ready to Buy

One of the most powerful aspects of YouTube advertising is the ability to precisely target your ideal customers at the exact moment they're ready to make a purchase. YouTube's advanced targeting options allow you to reach people with a "credit card out," eagerly looking for a solution like yours.

• Target the top 10–30% of income earners within your target demographic.

• Target In-Market Audiences

• Target ads to show on your competitors' YouTube channels and videos and to people who have recently visited their websites.

Today's tip is inspired by Ben Jones, a featured presenter in the Social Media Marketing Society.

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Creating Viral Reach on YouTube Even if You’re Brand New

Whether you have an established channel or you’re just starting out on YouTube, once you have some videos published, this data will be your guide to fine-tuning your content strategy for maximum growth.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Your CTR measures the percentage of impressions that turn into views. In other words, when your video thumbnail shows up, how often do people actually click to watch? A high CTR means your titles and thumbnails are doing their job of enticing people to click. If it's low (under 2–3%), try experimenting with more compelling titles, thumbnails, and descriptions to improve your video's searchability and appeal.

Average View Duration

Also known as "watch time," this metric shows how long viewers stay engaged with your video on average. YouTube wants to promote videos that keep people watching, so the higher your retention, the more your video will be surfaced to new viewers. Take a look at where the dips are in your retention curve—are people dropping off at the intro? The midpoint? Use this info to tighten up your storytelling and keep viewers hooked until the end.

Audience Retention

Going hand-in-hand with average view duration, audience retention measures what percent of viewers are still watching at every moment of your video. Ideally, you want to see a steady retention curve throughout the video's length. If you see sharp drop-offs, scrutinize those sections and think about what might be causing people to click away. Is there an awkward transition? A boring or repetitive part? A chance to re-engage the viewer with a pattern interrupt or change of pace? 

Views Per Viewer

The key to growing a devoted subscriber base is getting viewers to keep watching more of your content. Check your stats on views per viewer—how many videos do people watch from your channel after clicking on your initial video? Do people tend to watch just one video and then bounce, or do they stick around to watch two, three, or more videos per session? If your views per viewer are low, you may need to work on creating more binge-worthy content and optimizing your end screens and playlists to boost your chances of pulling viewers into that next video.

Ongoing Analysis

The goal is to not just look at these metrics in isolation but to synthesize them into an overall understanding of how your channel is performing. Some additional tips:

• Check your analytics frequently, but don't obsess over every little dip or fluctuation. Focus on the macro trends over weeks and months, not days.

• Whenever you upload a new video, check back on the stats after a day or two and note what's working or not. Look for any positive or negative patterns across your last 10 videos.

• Once a quarter, do a deep dive and analyze your data from the past 90 days. How does it compare to the previous period? Has your average view duration gone up? Your CTR? Your views per viewer? Celebrate your successes and also pinpoint areas for improvement next quarter.

Remember, YouTube is an algorithm designed to mimic human preferences. Ultimately, the videos that perform best are the ones that viewers find genuinely interesting or exciting and want to keep watching.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Liz Germain.

🗞 Instagram Hashtag Search: Instagram has announced an update to simplify the hashtag and search experiences within the app. When users tap on a hashtag, Instagram will direct them to the search results for that specific hashtag. This change streamlines the process of discovering relevant content, as users no longer need to navigate multiple screens or tabs to access the desired information. Source: Mosseri via Threads

🗞 Google Measurement Alignment: Google is aligning how conversions are defined across Google Ads and Analytics, giving users a consistent view of their Google advertising performance. This update introduces key events in Google Analytics, replacing the current conversions with behavioral analytics. Source: Google

🗞 Snapchat Sponsored AR Filters: The newly launched augmented reality (AR) ad offering allows brands to expand their reach by placing ads in the post-capture Filter Carousel, accessible after Snapchatters capture content with the Snapchat Camera. This feature enables brands to integrate into major events and everyday moments seamlessly, maximizing brand awareness and engagement. Source: Snap

🗞 Threads & the Fediverse: Meta has announced that its social media app, Threads, is now integrating with the fediverse, a decentralized social networking ecosystem built on open protocols like ActivityPub. As part of a beta experience, Threads users with public profiles can share their posts to other ActivityPub-compliant servers, allowing cross-platform interaction. Building Threads as a federated platform presented new engineering challenges for Meta, requiring unique interoperability considerations and solutions. Source: Meta

Did You Know?

The Amsterdamse Bos is home to 400 ornamental cherry trees, each with a unique name. Two hundred trees have a Japanese name, and 200 have a Dutch name.