31 Annotation Extravaganza LOL

markkaz

markkaz

I Love YTtalk
My channel did 14.8 million views in December and only had 228K clicks on annotations. Not very impressive and some would wonder if it is cost effective considering the time it takes to do them. I will still use them at the end of every video because there are people who do like to use them.

I did a Top Ten video looking back at my ten most popular uploads from just 2014. 31 annotations linking each video mentioned and playlists that were related. What a chore but I'm going to use this video as my recommended video for awhile to draw attention to other videos and particularly, playlists.

YouTube is introducing 'Cards' that work on mobile devices. They are much like annotations in that we can recommend other content. To be honest, I'm not putting much effort into them. I'm already invested into annotations and we can put the links in the description anyway.

How was your annotation views last month?
What's the most number of annotations that you did for a video and how did they perform?
 
markkaz said:
My channel did 14.8 million views in December and only had 228K clicks on annotations. Not very impressive and some would wonder if it is cost effective considering the time it takes to do them. I will still use them at the end of every video because there are people who do like to use them.

I did a Top Ten video looking back at my ten most popular uploads from just 2014. 31 annotations linking each video mentioned and playlists that were related. What a chore but I'm going to use this video as my recommended video for awhile to draw attention to other videos and particularly, playlists.

YouTube is introducing 'Cards' that work on mobile devices. They are much like annotations in that we can recommend other content. To be honest, I'm not putting much effort into them. I'm already invested into annotations and we can put the links in the description anyway.

How was your annotation views last month?
What's the most number of annotations that you did for a video and how did they perform?
Click to expand...
Turns our your click-through rate is much better than ours! I wonder how much of our audience even sees the annotations because many portable devices don't display them. I still put them up, particularly for subs, but I wonder if it's worth it.
Click through.png
 
So many views... so many clicks!

I think I've had 1 annotation click since I've started posting videos. :( (But I still add them to every video!)
 
Yeah I have only gotten one click since I started to try and use them more. I'll keep trying to remember to use them just incase some people would like to use them.
 
The longer you keep a viewer on your channel, the more likely they are to subscribe if they haven't already. I'd venture that your annotations are helping to facilitate that, so I suspect the end value may be a bit higher than is initially seen. Now, if you can do another few videos and get good numbers on those instead of spending the time on annotations, a case for sun-setting them could certainly be made. :)
 
Since the topic has bounced back, let me give an update. The following video is the one being discussed. I did use it as my recommended video for 6 weeks but have switched back to 'my most recent video' to be recommended at the end of my videos. If you aren't aware of this function, here's the link

https://www.youtube.com/featured_content

I am rarely using annotations now. With over 70% of my views coming from mobile devices, and annotations do not work on mobile, I will only occasionally use an end-card annotation.

Keep in mind that I benefit from good side-bar recommendations. Over half of the recommendations are my own videos. Therefore, I want to get to the end of the video and get those recommendations presented.

I tend to put information in my descriptions. I told my viewers that I'm not using annotations anymore and that they links will be in the description. I want viewers to get used to looking at the description. I could put more recommendations there than I can annotate in the video. Those recommended videos always relate to the video!

Furthermore, I'm putting related playlists as the top lines so that people don't even have to expand (click to see more). I'm not getting caught up in any description-spam complaints.

Here's my annotation extravaganza. While I won't be using annotations very much anymore, this is an example that you can do for your channels as well. It doesn't have to be a Top Ten video. It can be a video talking about the playlists that are available on your channel.

 
I love cards but I'm having a hard time letting go of annotations. I haven't found a way to use cards to get a 1-click sub (associated website won't let you use a sub direct link), plus I just hate the idea of leaving any potential views on the table!
 
amberly said:
How do you make it so your annotation is to subscribe?
Click to expand...

In the annotation editor, you can check the box towards the bottom that says "Link," and then there is a drop-down menu that you can select "Subscribe" and then type your username into the field.

Or, once you check the "Link" box you can paste the following URL into the field (I hope YTTalks lets me post a generic link..?) :
htt p://ww w.youtube.com/user/####?sub_confirmation=1

Where the "####" is replaced with your YouTube username and the spaces are removed from the URL.

It's interesting what you all have to say about annotations! 1.8% of my traffic came from annotations last month..I thought it was low because I have a tiny new channel, but that percentage doesn't look too different from what you guys were getting. Not very many people watch my videos on their cell phones, but Cards sound like a good plan - I think I'll try to use both!
 
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