When I first heard how HubSpot’s YouTube team bumped one channel’s views up by over 400%, I begged for permission to share the story. (I’m not above debasing myself on your behalf.)
It’s a lesson that applies to nearly all content marketing — and one I promise you’re not going to hear anywhere else.
Are you ready for it? Not all distribution is good distribution. And that includes your own.
Below, I chat with our head of YouTube about how and why cutting off all external distribution actually increased our YT performance. And his advice for when you should consider picking up the axe, too.
The Road to the Chopping Block
When Carl Mueller joined us as HubSpot’s head of YouTube earlier this year, he noticed that one of our YT channels had a problem the others didn’t. If a video was six minutes long, most viewers were dropping off after only a minute or two.
Though, to be fair, that’s still longer than my kid made it through Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Carl’s been producing video for over 10 years for names like Business Insider and Morning Brew. Which is to say, where media and marketing mash up, Carl knows his s***.
So when he says the content wasn’t the problem, I know he’s not just trying to avoid hurt feelings.
“I got here in late February, and the first thing I did was watch our content from a quality perspective,” he says. “But then I looked at the metrics, and the numbers were surprisingly low. I don’t think the metrics reflected the quality of the videos.”
But if the content wasn’t the problem, what was?
The call is coming from inside the house.
As Carl investigated the problem, he noticed that around 90% of the views for this particular channel were coming from external sources. That includes Facebook, Instagram, blogs, newsletters — everything except YouTube.
“What I’ve noticed is that when you’re asking someone to jump from another platform to YouTube, you’re asking them to change their consumption behavior,” he explains. “Is that person sitting down with time to spare to watch a 10-minute video?”
The answer to that depends heavily on what platform they’re jumping from.
And about 90% of those external views were coming from The Hustle newsletter.
“Which, at first glance, makes a lot of sense. It seemed like good, targeted distribution. But it meant that most of our total viewership was coming from the newsletter.”
That seems like the opposite of a problem, right? As I’ve not-so-subtly mentioned before, The Hustle has an audience of over 2.5M and above-industry-average engagement rates. It’s the kind of audience most marketers would trade a body part to get in front of. (And I mean a useful body part. Not just a pinky toe.)
And in the vast majority of cases, they’d be right. The Hustle is an absolute catapult for content, often driving thousands and thousands of views to blogs, short-form videos, and content offers. So why didn’t that work here?
Carl lays it out:
“The newsletter goes out at, what, 5:30 in the morning? People open it in bed.” They click on a video, “watch a few minutes, and then leave.”
Or they save it for later and then forget about it in a sea of tabs. (Guiltyyyyy!)
“If you were in their shoes, are you going to watch that whole video? For me, the answer is probably not,” Carl laughs. “Maybe sometimes if I’m laying on my couch. But if the average newsletter reader is not in a position to watch a long-form video, then that is a lot of bad retention metrics.”
For this otherwise highly engaged audience, that was about a 20-30% retention rate.
Let’s do some quick math. What does it equal when 90% of your audience has a 20% retention rate? An unhappy algorithm.
As Carl puts it: “YouTube won’t promote your content if your own viewers aren’t watching it.”
We needed surgery, stat.
Making the Cut
“We decided as an experiment to pause all direct external distribution,” Carl says.
But why all distribution, and not just the mismatched audience?
“We wanted to first see if we had a core audience on YouTube. We wanted to serve the videos only to our subscriber base and see if they liked them.”
And it worked. Better even than Carl predicted.
“I was warning everyone that we were going to perform worse before we performed better. A few thousand guaranteed views were going away,” Carl recalls. “But it was pretty immediate. The first video after the shift got 27,000 views. A couple of videos later we had one hit 300,000. Then after that 450,000.”
About 90 days after pausing distribution, the channel’s average views and average watch time both rose by 420%, and our subscriber count jumped 257%.
This goes against everything I’ve learned about content marketing, where more distribution equals more views. What gives, Carl?
“It’s compounding success. If something performs great, YouTube is more likely to promote the following video.”
An audience built on YouTube is ready to watch a YouTube video. And if the majority of your viewers are watching the majority of your content, it sends positive signals to the YT algorithm. YouTube then serves your videos to a wider audience, and a virtuous cycle is born.
“Not all distribution is good distribution,” Carl says. “That’s a universal takeaway for all channels and all content. Make sure you’re targeting the right audience at the right time.”
Ask your doctor if pausing distribution is right for you.
Here’s where I hit the pause button, because I can sense that some of you are getting antsy to DIY.
I asked Carl what he would say to readers who are now thinking about axing their own distribution.
“Make sure your channel is in the same circumstances as our channel. It had a heavy reliance on external distribution and low watch times. If you have that combination, then likely those unengaged external views are impacting your performance.”
So, to be clear: If you don’t have low engagement, your distribution is likely doing its job, and axing it will not help you grow further.
Similarly, if the majority of your views aren’t coming from external distribution, then it’s probably not the cause of any low metrics.
But Carl’s not letting the rest of you walk away empty-handed. Here are some takeaways for everyone:
1. Consider behavior patterns when sharing with a potential audience.
This is sound advice for any kind of marketing, not just video marketing.
Before you distribute your content through any channel, consider the consumption habits of that audience.
Are they in the right place to share a social media post? Download a PDF? Listen to a podcast?
“There is value in external distribution, but you have to make sure that it’s to the right people at the right time, and at the right stage in the content’s lifespan.”
2. Seek on-platform distribution.
“On YouTube, I would always prioritize on-platform partnerships, video swaps, or call-outs. Targeting people on YouTube is the best place to get people to watch your video on YouTube.”
And that generally holds true for most kinds of content. Consider, for example, that you’re most likely to find TikTok viewers on TikTok. Or that newsletter readers are often willing to be blog readers. (And, like magic, here you are.)
3. Optimize for the platform, not the distribution channel.
“Let YouTube do its thing for a little while,” Carl advises. “If that’s not working, change thumbnails, change titles. Do everything you can to optimize for YouTube.”
Not to be a broken record but, again, that applies to any kind of content or platform. Optimize first for search, social, or wherever your audience primarily finds your content.
“And if that’s not working, then it might be worth taking the risk of putting it somewhere else.”
4. Set clear expectations.
If your audience clicks a link without knowing it leads to a video, a lot more people are going to abandon ship. Same for long-form written content.
To avoid this, you need to set the expectations for what they’re about to encounter.
“If we do share — because there is value in sharing videos with the newsletter audience — we make it very clear that it is a video,” then he switches to a mock-stern voice. “All caps. WATCH VIDEO. You are leaving. ARE YOU PREPARED?”
Now you are.
How to See YouTube Reports in HubSpot
Marketing Hub Enterprise users can actually pull their YouTube performance data straight into HubSpot so you can see all of your glorious success in one place.
You can check out custom reports on watch time, views, shares, subscriber counts, engagement, etc. — allowing you to be the Carl Mueller of your company.
First, you’ll need to connect your YT account to HubSpot.
In HubSpot, click on the settings icon in the top navigation bar.
Choose Marketing then Social.
Click on Connect account in the top right.
Select YouTube Reports in the box that pops up.
Select the YouTube account to connect.
Review permissions and click Allow.
Now that you’re all connected, here’s how to access your reports:
Navigate back to Marketing and then Social. (Unless you’re already there from the first part. Then skip this part.)
Click the tab that says Analyze.
Click the dropdown menu that says All accounts and make sure YouTube is selected.
Apply filters for date range, campaign, etc. to your heart’s content.
