How to Measure the Performance of Your Gaming Content

Producing, editing, and uploading your content takes a large amount of time and effort – but creating the content is just one piece of the puzzle. If you’re looking to grow your channel or brand using gaming content, it’s just as important to regularly review the performance of your content to see what’s working, and what’s not. 

At MinMxD, we help you analyse how your content is performing and formulate strategies to improve the growth of your channel. Ahead, we’ll give you some guidance on how to measure the performance of your content via YouTube performance metrics and other reporting tools – helping you to maximise the impact of your content and efforts. 

Want to improve your content while cutting down on your time investment? Get in touch today! 

Reporting and analytics are key elements of measuring the performance of digital content. While the two are connected, they serve different functions and are presented in different ways:

Reporting: this includes the processing and distribution of information relating to a company.

Analytics: this concerns itself more greatly with examining given data and seeking insights into how a business may make changes to its product or strategy.

In the context of gaming content, frequently reviewing analytics data can inform creators regarding types of content that are generating the most and least traction, in addition to similar insights that help increase the performance of your content on a consistent basis.

Promoting your content can lead to a boost in your analytics, and reports can help you find out where to concentrate your efforts for the greatest results.

Find out more with our guide on affordable ways to promote your gaming channel >

When creating gaming content, it is essential to keep an eye on how what you post is performing. Luckily, for video content posted on YouTube, their built-in analytics tool gives creators an in-depth look at their content performance. 

YouTube provides a valuable source of performance analytics in its ‘YouTube Studio’. Analytics from the platform offer detailed insights into your video content – giving creators access to data that can inform key performance indicators (KPIs) and making it easier to take the next steps with your channel, content, and growth. 

Understanding YouTube analytics can help gaming content creators (like you!) to refine their YouTube marketing strategy. Here are some key metrics to keep track of when measuring the performance of your gaming content: 

Traffic Sources 

Traffic sources offer creators insight into where their audience comes from, such as through: 

• YouTube search 

• Suggested, featured, or ‘For You’ pages (FYP) 

• Google search 

Understanding what the trends are in your audience inflow can help you tailor your approach for content creation and YouTube SEO. For example, if your channel is gaining views through suggestions and playlists but not through YouTube or Google, you may want to improve your keyword usage by reviewing and optimising video titles, descriptions, and tags. 

Find out how to optimise your YouTube video thumbnails > 

Impressions and Click-Through Rate 

Impressions tell you how many times your gaming content has reached a potential viewer, while click through rate (CTR) tells you how many times a prospective viewer has chosen to click on your video after seeing the thumbnail. 

If a video has high impressions but a low CTR, your gaming content might not feature the keywords that match your target audiences’ search intent. It could also mean that presentation features such as title and thumbnail aren’t encouraging viewers to click your content. 

Watch Time and Average View Duration 

Watch time and average view duration are two metrics particularly important for gaming content on YouTube. These analytics offer your gaming channel insight into how long people spend watching your videos before clicking off. 

If YouTube spots a video achieving a longer view time, it is more likely to be recommended to other viewers. For businesses that work on brand collaborations and sponsored content, watch time offers creators insight into the most effective timestamps to include ads or promotional product content. 

Find out how to win brand collaborations for your gaming channel > 

Demographic Analytics 

Demographic analytics give gaming channels valuable information about who watches their video content, such as location, gender, age and language – YouTube shows this information in its audience section. 

These details can help you adapt and customise your content to those who watch it, tying into their key interests and viewing preferences. By doing this, not only will a gaming channel gain more click-throughs and longer watch duration, but it will also be more likely to attract return viewers.

In addition to the metrics offered by YouTube Studio, other analytics can be accessed through the use of third-party analytics tools such as Hootsuite. Resources such as these are especially useful if your channel branches across multiple platforms, allowing social strategy to be reviewed and presented. 

Check out our guide to social media marketing for gaming creators > 

Performance Marketing Metrics

Another way of measuring the performance of your gaming content is through the use of performance marketing metrics. Some approaches to performance marketing note already mentioned factors such as impressions, watch time, keywords, and CTR.

Other particularly notable performance marketing indicators include return on investment (ROI) and, if you’re selling a product or service through your gaming channel, conversions.

ROI and Conversions

Return on investment (ROI) refers to the ratio of how much has been earned through your channel’s marketing activities compared to the amount invested. ROI is also particularly important to any gaming channel that utilises YouTube ads. A factor of direct importance when looking at ROI for gaming content is conversions. But what does a ‘conversion’ equate to on a platform such as YouTube?

Put simply, a conversion takes place when a passive viewer becomes a customer, whether that be in the form of making a purchase or subscribing to your channel. In recent years, YouTube has even added some subscription and membership formats that are behind a paywall, meaning a channel will receive monthly payments in return for their content – this might also include uptake in subscriptions on third-party platforms such as Patreon.

Gaming content can be created for a whole range of purposes, including both entertainment and sales. If your gaming content is designed to bring about sales for a particular product or service, it is important to place conversions on your agenda for measuring performance.

Improve your reach with our guide to gaming content accessibility >

Once you’ve measured your gaming content performance, the next step is giving it a boost so your channel can continue to grow. At MinMxD, we help you achieve this through carefully planned strategies, extensive experience in the industry, and a hands-on approach that’s tailored to you.

Get in touch today to find out more, and begin the process of minmaxing your content’s performance!

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