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4 months of youtube: the numbers nobody asked for

mar 5, 2026 — apr 3, 2026

views: 734 (last month: 589)
watch hours: 47.5 (last month: 49.5)
subscribers: 7 (last month: 5)
average view duration: 3:53 (last month: 6:41)
impressions: 9,987 (last month: 16,505)
average click-through rate: 4.4% (last month: 1.7%)

top 3 in views

top 3 in watch hours

top 3 in avg. view duration

top 3 in CTR


my best guess

Total watch hours just passed 114. Subscribers grew by 7 this month, up from 5 last month.

I have two video formats right now: one with just keyboard and mouse sounds, and one with subtitles and numbers in the title — revenue, downloads, things that might make someone click. Looking at the numbers, both formats show up across views and watch hours — no clear winner. The videos with the highest CTR had too few views and impressions to mean anything. There's not enough data to say which one works better, and I'm not sure there will be for a while. Impressions dropped from 16.5K to about 10K, but CTR went from 1.7% to 4.4% — I think the title changes had something to do with that. Fewer people saw the videos, but more of them clicked.


next month's delusions

Last month I said I wouldn't quit before 100 videos. I'm at 79 now. At three uploads a week, that's about seven weeks out. Last month I also wrote about wanting to quit — that feeling's not there right now.

Last month I said I needed to work on both titles and thumbnails. I only did the titles. Half of it is that I'm afraid of trying things and seeing no difference. The other half is just laziness. Having low expectations doesn't help here — it makes it easier to not bother. Next month, I want to try changing thumbnails on a few videos — not a full overhaul, just enough to see if it makes any difference to CTR.
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