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What metrics would you focus on as the PM for YouTube?

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Metrics to focus on as a PM of Youtube -

Product Description - Videos - created by people for the people - on all kind of things, activities etc.
Business Model - Advertisement based Revenue

High Level Goals - a) To minimize churn and b) To increase profitability

If we go one step further, since the product is in mature stage, Youtube would need to consider keeping up-to-date with market trends also as primary goal to ensure it can act on time to maintain its userbase and thus profitability.
Market Trends can be in form of
a) Change in user behaviour - Session length, Trending Content, Video Duration, Tolerance to Advertisement
b) Change in user stickiness - Launch of competitive offerings, Profitability
c) Change in technical landscape - Opportunity for better solutions, channels through which content is consumed - Web/Mobile/TV?

With clarity on high level goals, we can create user groups and then define the metrics based on their role and activities that would be important in reaching the primary goals mentioned above.

User groups:
a) Content Creators
b) Content Consumers
c) Advertisers

Let's consider Content Creators only for sake of simplicity -
Metrics to be monitored inline with primary goals:

1) Change in User behavior -
    a) Change in # of content created per week/month by the user/overall
    b) Change in # of content created based on popularity (follows, likes, comments, shares)
    c) Cross collaboration between multiple content creators - # of content created with collaboration/ # of total content created
    d) Trending/Viral Topics - # of new content creators starting with trending/viral topics, # of existing content creators incorporating trending content

2) Change in User stickiness -
    a) Change in # of content creators per week/month - Deactivation of content creator accounts, Active/Inactive
    b) Change in # of valuable content creators per week/month - The ones whose views, likes, shares, comments, followers exceed a threshold
    c) Advertisement Revenue - % of creators who enable their channel for monetization within first week/month/threshold value
    d) Youtube Premium Revenue - # of creators whose content is being watched in youtube premium

3) Change in technical landscape/functionalities -
    a) % of content creators adopting to new advancements/tools within first week/month/At all

All of these are quite relevant for the current stage of Youtube's product lifecycle as they are aligned with primary goals. Examples for some other  metrics with slightly lesser priorities can be - # of content creators based on topics/categories/geographies/Age group etc. considering product has matured enough in terms of category/geography/demographic expansion.

Thanks. Please feel free to share feedback.

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Clarifying the scope of the question 

Are we talking about the metrics of youtube as a product OR metrics of a particular feature of the youtube? 

For this case, I am assuming you are asking for "metrics of the youtube as a product"

After a product grows beyond a certain extent and users use the product differently as per their needs, we can not measure the performance of the product using the same yardsticks i.e. product metrics. 

Customer Segments of youtube 

1. People using youtube for entertainment (music)

2. People using youtube for learning (educational videos)

3. People using youtube for information (news)

4. People using youtube for movies/series ( OTT )

 

As youtube is aligned more toward the needs of the customer segment using youtube for music and entertainment purpose, below are the metrics outlined. 

Describe how people use youtube for entertainment

When a user visited the youtube, they search for the music video. 

They find the relevant music video and play it. As the average duration of the music video is 4 minutes, they may click on the next desired music video and then next 

 

Important product metrics 

1. # of videos watched per session. 

2. Average watch duration per session.

3. Search to videos watched ratio per session.

 

The direction of these metrics 

1. # of videos watched per session - It should go up. It means, a user easily finding the content which suits his / her mood. Features like autoplay/playlist help to increase this 

2. Average watch duration per session - It should go up. It means, user is spending time listening to the music Features like relevant video / popular videos helps to increase this 

3. Search to videos watched ratio per session - It should go down. it shows the user is satisfied with the autoplay / playlist. Youtube is doing a great job in playing the related videos which user has initially searched for. 

 

Important Business Metrics 

1. Average duration of video watched ( Engagement )

2. Average Retention period ( How long a user takes to come back to youtube after 0th day )

 

Other proxy metrics 

1. The average number of comments per user 

2. Average # of likes per video 

3. Average # of comments per video 

4. # of videos uploaded per user

5. The total duration of videos uploaded per day / week / month 

5. Daily active users 

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Things you did well

  • Assumptions: You came up with a good set of assumptions to set yourself up for success  
  • Clarifying questions: You asked good clarifying questions to narrow down the scope of the question 
  • Great description of the product: Good summary of the product, its objective and what it does 
  • List of metrics: You came up with good list of metrics 
  • Summary: you provided a good summary of your answer  

Areas of Improvement

  • User groups: I think you focused on one uer group (viewers) and segmented them. I would have mentioned that there are other user groups such as video creators that you are not focusing on 
  • Evaluate your metrics: After listing out the metrics, evaluate them based on some meaningful metric such as impact, reach, revenue impact, etc and then suggest your primary and secondary metrics to track. You won't be able to track and optimize all these metrics at the same time. I think you kind of did that under the "Direction of Important Metrics" but I would have clearly indicated the criteria you are using to evaluate the metrics. 
Hope it helps. 
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