Lesson 21 of 22
Views scored blind to who saw them
One account was 77% Algeria. We'd been comparing its numbers to everyone else's.
We judged content by views for a long time before checking who those views were. When we finally looked at audience composition per account, the numbers were not comparable at all.
- One account: 77% of its audience in Algeria.
- Another: 14% US.
- Another: 62% of viewers aged 35+.
All of them sitting at roughly 98% For You traffic — so by the usual health metrics they looked fine. A thousand views from a mismatched audience and a thousand views from your actual buyers are the same number and completely different outcomes.
Why this compounds
This is the same confound as the deck-versus-video error, one level down. If accounts differ this much in WHO sees them, then any comparison across accounts is measuring audience composition as much as content. We'd made a lot of those comparisons.
The practical version: before you conclude a piece of content underperformed, check whether it was shown to anyone who could plausibly want it. Frequently the content was fine and the audience was wrong — and that is a distribution problem, not a creative one.
Takeaway
A view is not a view. Check audience composition before concluding anything about content.
Course outline
Progress
0 of 22 lessons completed
Chapter 1
Start here
Chapter 2
The script
Chapter 3
The frame
Chapter 4
The clip
Chapter 5
The edit
Chapter 6
Judging it honestly