Blog #35 5 Lessons from my Analytics
Having published 35 Tiktok videos and a similar number on Youtube Shorts, I think it’s time to share some learnings.
I’ve learned a lot from posting two videos a week over the last few months, and I wanted to share them with you.
Some you will already have guessed, but some may surprise you…
Here are the 5 Lessons from my Analytics:
Demographics - do demographics influence what content you publish? It should, but it can also provide insight on how you should adapt your content. For example, on my Youtube analytics page, my audience is made up of 96.2 percent male and 3.8 percent female.
Because of that information, I could take 2 different approaches. The first would be to double down on my male content; if my audience is mostly male, I should make content for males. The other approach would be to make more content for females; I lack a large female audience, so I should compensate.
I’m going for a mix, where I make some content for males and some to entice female viewers. Of course, Youtube has a majority male audience, so this approach will only go so far.
While we’re on the topic of demographics, I should point out that more than a quarter of my audience is from the U.S. Next in line is the UK, Canada and India. Ireland is down in 9th. There are no surprises here; big countries with a predominantly English-speaking population rank highest. These countries also have the highest average watch-times, which is a vital point of growth for channels.
But! different platforms have different demographics. On Tiktok, the biggest viewers of my content is the UK, with over 30 percent. Also, surprisingly, more than a third of my viewers are female! Ten times the amount on Youtube.
Video length - this may surprise no-one, but the optimal video length seems to be sub 30 seconds. At the beginning of my journey, I was busting my ass making 2 minute shorts that didn’t perform well. I discovered—by accident—that shorter videos perform much better. Why?
Well…they’re easier to digest, have higher completion rates and the algorithm prefers them. The bonus for creators is: they’re easier to make!
While this approach may work for Shorts, it seems the opposite is true for landscape Yotube content. The algorithm prefers longer content; that way it can cram in more advertisements, in the video. My advice is: make your shorts punchy and make your full-length content masterpieces. Easier said than done…
Countdown - when I was making early videos, I ran an experiment—I added a coundown to the beginning of my videos. What I learned from this was shocking: my average view time went up about 5 seconds—the length of the countdown. Why is this? Because people want to see what happens at the end of the countdown.
I got this idea from watching others’ content and noticed they added a countdown at the start, to create hype around the finished result of their video. It works.
You can do this with a loading bar too, for similar results.
In the end, I got rid of them, because I felt it was deceiving and people would only stick around so long before they got sick of the trick. But…the results were fascinating.
Loading bar/Countdown experiment
4. Comments are gold - I haven’t got too much data on this yet but I have noticed that videos with (more) comments are favoured by the algorithm. The algorithm favours engagement—likes, comments and watch time. Comments are very important, because it shows the algorithm that people are engaging with the content. This highlights the importance of making comment-worthy content. From my experience, asking people their opinion at the end of a video helps, but is not a game-changer—people tune out when they hear it. So, the best option is to make engaging content. Easier said than done…
5. Boost in website traffic - In the description of every video, I leave the following note: “To see the written blog entries for each video, visit newtownproductions.ie/blog”
Does this bring traffic over to the blog on the website? Absolutely yes.
If you have a struggling blog in 2026, the best thing you can do is make videos that link to your blog. They work together, in harmony, supporting one another. The website is a place for viewers to learn more and the videos are a place to engage. This also improves your S.E.O. standings, providing external validation to your website.
To me, it’s a no-brainer. Most of my web traffic comes from people coming over from my videos, but it’s still early days and the website is learning to stand on it’s own now, in search results.
Those are my thoughts. I find this stuff fascinating. Hope you found something useful in here.
Thanks for reading and if you’ve any comments, let me know down below.
Good luck out there.
-D.C.