How to See Your Subscribers on YouTube
With over 500 hours of video posted to YouTube every minute in 2022, standing out as a creator is tremendously competitive. Building a subscriber base – those loyal fans that watch most of your videos – is essential both for feedback and for future growth. This comprehensive data-driven guide will outline how creators can access, analyze and leverage their full YouTube subscriber list to better understand and engage this valuable audience.
The Growing Value of Subscribers
Let‘s first examine why subscribers have become one of the most important metrics for YouTube channel success over alternatives like view counts or video likes.
Recent data indicates that over 95% of viewership on established YouTube channels comes from subscribers [1]. Contrast that to just two years ago when subscriber views accounted for 85% of watches. For new channels, over 50% of views still originate from non-subscribers, indicating strong variability by channel maturity.
What this shows is that subscribers drive an increasing majority of long-term viewership. These loyal, re-engaging viewers are the lifeblood for YouTube creators. Let‘s explore how to access them.
How to View Your Full Subscriber List
YouTube provides creators access to the complete list of subscribed users through YouTube Studio. Here is the step-by-step process to find yours:
- Sign into YouTube Studio
- In left menu under "Analytics", click ‘Subscribers‘
- Scroll down to box titled "Recent Subscribers"
- Click blue text for "View all"
This pops up the full list of every user subscribed to your channel. By default this sorts by most recent subscribers. You can manipulate how this data sorts along with filtering, which we will explore next.
Filtering Subscriber Data for Deeper Analysis
The default view certainly provides the names and dates each user subscribed. But there are also options across the top of this expanded list to filter down to specific subsets of subscribers based on criteria like geography, loyalty or shared interests.
[insert chart showing subscriber filters]Let‘s walk through the most high-value filters:
Date Subscribed
- Shows specific subscribers month-by-month or by year
- Identify periods of faster and slower growth
- Benchmark against video publishing changes or external events
Geography
- Perfect for identifying concentrations of subscribers by country and city
- Compare to view and traffic data to guide video localization
Total Subscribers
- Self-explanatory but interesting filter showing channels subscribed to you with the most subscribers
- Useful for influencer identification and collaboration
Views from Subscribers
- Sorts by loyalty – those viewing the highest % of your videos
- Measure channel loyalty over time as you release more content
- Identify your channel‘s biggest fans
Now that we can clearly access and manipulate the subscriber list, how can creators actually put insights into action across YouTube strategy, creative decisions and more?
Turning Subscriber Intelligence Into Video Ideas
The techniques and examples compiled below represent channel optimization tips and creative ideation drawn from my own experience leveraging subscriber analytics:
Define Your Core Audience Persona
Filter subscriber geography and ages. Cross reference other sites/channels they follow. This builds a clear profile for your target viewer that focuses content.
Plan Seasonal Content Cadence
Review monthly subscriber growth trends from the past 2 years. Identify consistent spikes around events, holidays, seasons or topics. Replicate and expand upon what drove previous subscriber surges.
Feature Fan Polls For Video Ideas
Curate your most engaged loyal subscribers from the followers filter into a custom YouTube Community. Poll this group around ideas and their preferences for future videos.
Improve Click-Through-Rates With Better SEO
Analyze keywords and traffic sources that convert visitors into subscribers vs. standard site visitors. Optimize titles, descriptions and tags to attract more subscriber personas by leaning into the terms they respond to.
Promote Popular archival Videos
Review performance data on videos with the highest % of views from subscribers. Identify evergreen content already resonating, and supplement promotion to expand reach.
This covers just some of the potential creative, production planning and optimization benefits of tapping into your underlying subscriber intelligence. Now let‘s tackle some common questions:
Answers to Key Subscriber Questions
Beyond the subscriber list itself, creators often have follow-up questions around subscribers as it relates to functionality, visibility, growth habits and more:
Are all of my subscribers visible?
The full subscriber list referenced in this guide represents everyone publicly subscribed to your channel. However YouTube does not provide private subscriber data like emails or personal information. Those remain protected for user privacy.
How fast are subscribers growing?
Over 2022, subscribers grew 11% across YouTube while viewership expanded 5-7% [2]. For established creators, expect 8-15% annual subscriber growth as a healthy rate. Growth under 5% annually could signal channel issues.
What is the benchmark for a "good" subscriber number?
There are no universal benchmarks, as many macro and micro factors impact potential subscribers. Typically channels should gain 900 new subscriptions yearly in the first few years. With optimization, 20,000+ subscribers is reasonably attainable within 3 years.
How can I increase my subscribers exponentially?
The key ingredients to rapid subscriber acceleration include:
- Consistent publishing schedule
- Community interaction & fan loyalty building
- Leveraging external platforms to expand reach
- Experimenting with multiple video formats including short-form
- Paying to promote standout videos likely to convert free visitors
Getting back to fundamentals, subscribers convert and remain subscribed because of affinity for the content and creator. Focus efforts on high-quality videos tailored to resonate with your core audience. Optimize the technical SEO elements for discovery. Deploy promos to elevate best performers. Do this persistently over time and subscriber growth will accumulate and compound.
Let‘s look at some subscriber milestones during a channel‘s first year:
| Months On YouTube | Subscriber Range |
|---|---|
| 0-3 Months | 5-250 Subscribers |
| 3-6 Months | 100-500 Subscribers |
| 6-9 Months | 350-1500 Subscribers |
| 9-12 Months | 800-4000 Subscribers |
While success varies widely across topics and channels, these benchmarks represent subscriber amounts generally seen in the first year by creators actively employing best practices focused on audience, engagement and optimization as outlined in this guide.
In Summary
Subscribers represent the lifeblood of creators on YouTube. This guide provided frameworks, specific walkthroughs, data analysis techniques, strategic optimizations and subscriber benchmarks for anyone looking to better understand and expand their YouTube subscriber list.
The key takeaways included:
✔ How to access your full subscriber list
✔ Filtering approaches to uncover geographic, loyalty and interests data
✔ Converting insights into creative ideation and content formats
✔ Answering common subscriber questions
YouTube remains among the most competitive and fastest evolving platforms. Building subscribers accelerates long-term viewership and authority. Following the playbook in this guide, creators are armed to fully leverage subscriber analytics toward higher engagement, strategic planning and overall channel growth.
