How would you set goals as a Product Manager for Youtube?
Over the pandemic, watch hours on the internet have taken a huge upward curve and Youtube has been a major contributor to that. Youtube has been social media’s big winner during the pandemic. The Google-owned video service saw usage grow from 73% of U.S. adults in 2019 to 81% in 2021. With this boost that Youtube has, it would be interesting to see how they set its goals for the post-pandemic phase. In this blog, I’ll talk about the steps that I as a Product Manager at Youtube would take to do this.
1. Keep in mind Youtube’s mission
“Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice and that the world is a better place when we listen, share, and build community through our stories.”
Along with Youtube’s core mission, people go to Youtube for entertainment, to consume educational content, and to learn new things about various topics.
2. Deciding on a specific goal as a success metric
Here, I could go for either an engagement metric or a revenue metric. Both of these metrics are key to any product's success and them doing well would mean that the product is doing well. In my opinion, a higher engagement rate is the priority because a higher engagement from the users would mean that they like the product or the service that they are getting and are coming back to the product. Once we have that, monetization will follow — if users like something they will be willing to pay for it. Youtube has some great upsell products such as Youtube Premium and Youtube TV which can be used to increase that topline revenue. Further, Google’s AdSense is another great way to help with monetization.
So, throughout this exercise, I will have User Interaction and Engagement as my overarching metric which will act as a north star for me.
3. User Actions that will lead to higher User Engagement
It is important to note that when we talk about users on Youtube, there are essentially two sides to it — Creators and Consumers. It is easy to forget about creators but they form an important part of this metric too. But, since our north star metric is user engagement and most of it will come from the content consumers, I will focus on them explicitly for now.
Content Consumers can engage with the platform in two ways — watch time and interact with the videos. So I will think about specific metrics under these two buckets.
For watch time, we have —
i. Number of videos watched (Per user and Overall topline numbers)
ii. Length of session (Per user and Overall topline numbers)
For other interactions, we have —
i. Liking the videos
ii. Commenting on the videos
iii. Subscribing to channels
4. Picking Metrics
Here, I would like to have four categories of metrics based on the function they play for me —
i. Tracking Metrics: These metrics are essentially early indicators or leading that suggest that things are going well and we are on track.
- Average watch time per user — Letting me know how long a user is watching
- Average number of videos watched per session — Giving me insights about users’ overall watch habits and trends and also information about the stickiness of Youtube’s recommendation algorithm.
- A blended metric with likes, comments, and subscribes — Almost like a ‘like through rate’ that can help me get a sense of the probability of a user coming back on the platform to watch more.
ii. North Star Metric: The north star metric will be Watch Time on Youtube. This is the most important metric that I want to key in mind because eventually, this is what will help me monetize Youtube and upsell sub-products. An important thing to keep in mind is that as newer content formats come up, the length of the videos will keep changing. This will lead to a variation in watch time but could give us additional insights that can help us drive future business strategies.
iii. Counter Metrics: These metrics are measured to make sure that the north start metric is still prioritized but while doing that, other parts of the products are not taking a hit.
- Watch time distribution — We want our users to interact with the content on the platform but if the user is only interacting with one form of content or a topic, then it affects the rest of the content on the platform. So, ideally, we would want a distribution of engagement across different content areas on the platform.
- Threshold Watch time — While we want our users to use the platform, we don't want them to not have a life outside of it. So some sort of a threshold would be nice to look out for and in case the average watch time for the users is exceeding that value, then strategies can be formed around that.
iv. Other General Metric: More general in nature which I think could be useful to look out for.
- Churn Rate — This would indicate if the users are coming back to the platform after watching the videos. A higher churn rate could mean that there is something wrong with the videos and the users are not satisfied with what they are watching.
- Reported Videos — We would want to have videos with integrity that meet certain standards which help users, not upset them. So this would be an important metric to track the nature of videos being uploaded which will be important to protect our brand identity.
5. Prioritizing Metrics
As mentioned earlier, our north star metric remains the top priority. But, along with that, tracking metrics would be another key set of metrics that I would want to keep as my priority. Counter metrics and other general metrics would be things that, even though important, would take a back seat.
Overall, the key thing to remember is, after all, Youtube is a social platform in today’s day and age. The more people interact and engage with it, the better it is for the platform’s recommendation engine to give out good results and help reduce that churn rate.
