ViewStats

1ViewStats in Johnny Harris's packaging research

• Johnny Harris checks past videos on ViewStats before fixing a video's click promise. He decides why someone would click before he writes. He drafts seven or more titles, usually starting with how or why, and compares them with similar videos on ViewStats or 1 of 10.

  The team uses ViewStats alongside 1 of 10 to see how past videos on a topic were packaged. That informs the titles and thumbnails they A/B test, usually two or three packagings. The package fixes only the promise to answer, not the story itself. For the Saudi Arabia city video he set the headline 'why is Saudi Arabia building a futuristic city in the desert' before filming. As he put it: "the marketing which is what this is this is why should you click is defined early on".

  How I Write▶ 10:15