Understand unique viewers data

You can use unique viewers data to get a clearer picture of your audience size, or the estimated number of viewers who came to watch your videos over a given time period. Whether they watch on a computer or mobile, or watch more than once, that counts as one unique viewer.

Note that these metrics are meant to give a general sense of your audience and reach. You can review your other channel and video metrics to get an overview of your performance.

The data measures the total reach of a video by accounting for cases when a viewer may watch content on different devices or when multiple viewers share the same device. The system includes data from devices and includes both signed in and signed out traffic to estimate the number of viewers.

For data quality, the total number of unique viewers is available for time periods of up to 90 days. You can compare different 90-day timeframes to see changes over time. Data for unique viewers is available from August 1, 2017.

Find Unique viewers data in YouTube Studio

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. In the left Menu, select Analytics.
3. Click the Reach or Audience tab to view your Unique viewers.

 FAQ about unique viewers

How can I use this data? 

Some ways you can use the data about "Unique viewers":

• You can check your average number of unique viewers that have watched on your channel by looking at the  “Average views per viewer” metric in the SEE MORE tab.
• Compare your audience size to your subscriber base and identify videos that helped you tap into a wider audience beyond your subscribers.
• Identify cases where your video appealed to a new audience base by comparing your channel’s unique viewers before and after publishing the video.
• You can use this info to guide your content strategy.

Why do I see fewer unique viewers than when I add up viewers for my videos?

If a viewer watches more than one video on your channel, it will show as a unique viewer for each of the videos. But, those views will be combined into one unique viewer for your channel.

Why do I have fewer unique viewers than my number of subscribers?

Subscribers number is not the most accurate way to estimate the size of your audience. Viewers, on average, are subscribed to dozens of channels and may not return for every new upload for every channel they're subscribed to.

If you have fewer unique viewers than subscribers, this may be because your subscribers don't have channel notifications turned on or aren't immediately watching your newest uploads.