He published a video in a new subject he was trying out. The next day he opened analytics and found two lines: forty new subscribers, and twelve who had unsubscribed.
He did not look at the forty. He spent an hour thinking about the twelve: who were they? what annoyed them? was the video bad? Then he decided to delete it.
He had gained twenty-eight subscribers that day.
The number that matters is the net one
Every channel in the world loses subscribers every day and gains new ones. The number that tells you something is the difference between the two, not the losses on their own.
If the net is positive, your channel is growing even though somebody left. That is not a contradiction: an audience is not one block that likes the same thing.
Three kinds of departure
| The kind | The cause | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Non-genuine accounts | The platform cleaning up its own accounts | Nothing |
| Somebody who followed for one video | They came for a passing subject and found no more of it | Nothing; this is normal |
| Somebody who really was following you | A shift in your subject, your quality or your rhythm | Read the pattern and act |
The second kind is the most common and the one needing the least worry. Anybody who followed after one video that took off had not yet chosen your channel, and their staying or leaving is news about the video rather than about you.
Finding the cause in the preceding video
Do not guess. Open your analytics, look at the video with the highest number of unsubscribes, and ask one question:
- Was it outside my subject? Then the cause is that people followed you for one thing and you gave them another. That is not a mistake if you intend to widen, but it is a declared price.
- Was it squarely inside my subject? Then the cause is execution: a video longer than it can carry, bad audio, or a title whose promise was not met.
- Was it paid or advertising? Unsubscribes after a sponsored video say the advertising was heavier than your audience accepts, or the product does not resemble your channel.
- Did it come after a long gap? The person who left did not leave your video; they had already forgotten you.
In all four cases the video that preceded the losses is the source, not the number.
When losing subscribers is healthy
In two cases it is a good sign:
- When you narrow your subject. A channel that talked about everything and decided to specialise loses the people who followed for the other thing and keeps the people your subject matters to. That is a smaller audience carrying more weight.
- When you announce your limits. Whoever leaves because you said you do not answer private messages or review work for free was taking rather than staying, and the rules for that are in Boundaries with your audience: how do you stay close without using yourself up?
A channel nobody unsubscribes from is usually a channel saying nothing clearly.
When it is a sign of a problem
- Losses repeating across three consecutive videos with the same pattern.
- A negative net for a whole month while you are publishing regularly.
- High unsubscribes alongside high views. That means people arrive and do not find what they expected, so the problem is the promise rather than the content.
In the third case especially, review your titles and thumbnails first. And a flat number that will not move has its own full reading in Your channel has stopped growing: how do you read the plateau?
What not to do
- Do not delete the video. Deleting costs you the views, brings nobody back, and costs you the lesson too.
- Do not ask your audience why people unsubscribed. Whoever left does not see your question, and whoever stayed reads a complaint.
- Do not apologise in a video. Apologising for a video you tried makes the experiment look like a mistake, and it is not one.
- Do not change your channel over one wave. A single video can gather a kind of subscriber who leaves quickly, and that is news about the video rather than about the road.
- Do not open analytics hourly. The number moves a lot in the first two days, and repeated checking makes the ordinary look like a disaster.
What to do instead
Look at arrivals rather than departures. The more useful number is who subscribed and why. The ways to give a visitor a reason to stay are in How Do You Turn a Passing Viewer Into a Lasting Subscriber?
Ask the people who stayed. One question to your present audience: what do you want to see more of? How to phrase it is in How Do You Find Out What Your Audience Wants?
Make it an item in your monthly review rather than your day. Four numbers in a monthly table are enough, as in The Monthly Channel Review.
Clarify the promise. If you are publishing something outside your usual subject, say so in the first seconds and in the title, so anybody who does not want it can skip it rather than leave.
And one last thing about you
A number saying "twelve unsubscribed" is hard to ignore because it looks like a personal verdict. It is not: most of them never watched your video, some were tidying their list, and some have different interests now.
Whoever gained twenty-eight and lost twelve lost nothing. So look at the net figure once a week, and get on with the next video.