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YouTube
July 16, 2024
8
min read
Noam Yadin

The power of evergreen content on YouTube

If you want to understand content on YouTube and all you have to go by is the current videos views - you are blind to a lot of important information that will allow you to make a more accurate decision regarding the potential of the content.  

When you go look at the last 10 videos on any channel, you can only see what the views are for the content today. You know what you aren’t seeing when you look at the views of a video on a specific channel? The lifetime performance of the video - how it behaved from when it was uploaded up until today. More importantly, simply looking at views doesn’t tell you anything about how the video will behave in the future.  

What is evergreen content on YouTube

Evergreen content on YouTube refers to videos that remain relevant and valuable to viewers over an extended period, often for years or even indefinitely. These types of videos are not tied to a particular event or trend and can be watched and enjoyed by viewers regardless of when they were published.

Examples of evergreen content on YouTube might include "how-to" tutorials, educational content, product reviews, or content that explores timeless topics such as health and wellness, personal finance, or relationships. These types of videos continue to provide value to viewers long after they were originally posted and can often continue to generate views and engagement over time.

Creating evergreen content can be an effective way for YouTubers to build a sustainable and growing audience, as it allows them to create a library of valuable resources that viewers can return to again and again.

Here’s some evergreen content examples:

Ali Abdaal (4.2M subscribers) is super successful when it comes to creating quality, evergreen content. His videos are not only informative and well-executed, they include content that will stay relevant and interesting for years to come. Take a look at the graph below:  

Ali Abdaal evergreen content on YouTube

Kara and Nate (3.5 subscribers) travel the world and get to experience incredible things - which makes their content evergreen. Whether its 48 hours living in Tokyo’s best capsule hotels or Walking across an entire state (putting Google Maps to the test), a lot of their content is relevant all year round and continues to consistently add value to viewers. 

Kara and Nate evergreen content on YouTube

What is an evergreen score and why is it important?

ThoughtLeaders recently introduced a new measurement tool - the evergreen score - which computes different metrics in order to truly understand the story of each video. The evergreen score will help you understand which videos are on trajectory to continue to get views over time, and which videos have lost their appeal or flatlined. With the help of the evergreen score, YouTubers, agents, marketers, and even the average joe can take a deeper look into why this specific video is acting this way, what makes content ‘evergreen’, and what makes content flatline. 

With the evergreen score, we are now able to unearth anomalies instantly - bringing to the forefront videos that are continuing to get views well after they were published. 

How we calculate the evergreen score:

The evergreen score measures the longevity of a video’s views by comparing the views the video had within the first 30 days after it was published to the views it had in the successive period. The scores range from 0 to infinity and a score of 1 or higher is considered evergreen, as that indicates that the video had more views in the period after it’s first 30 days than it did in it’s first 30 days. 

Why is the evergreen score crucial for brands?

For a brand, it's a dream deal to sponsor a video that will remain interesting for years to come. The brand buys a sponsorship in a specific video and is already done paying for the deal, but can continue getting value from the video because of its evergreen-ness. With our evergreen score, it will be easy for brands to pinpoint the channels and videos that have the greatest chance of becoming evergreen content. 

Here's an example:

An average price for sponsorship placement on a channel that gets 50,000 projected views is $2000. This means the CPV is $0.04. Part of the creator's deal requirement is to get 50,000 views on that sponsorship (depending on the vertical). YouTubers usually reach this goal 30 or 45 days after the video is published. But, nobody checks how many views these videos get a year after publishing. We see on our platform, that some videos double or even triple the number of views. The craziest part? These views are not calculated in the sponsorship price. Which means that the CPM can be low as 0.01-0.02 a year after the video is published. Now you might be asking - how is it related to evergreen content? Well, brands who sponsor evergreen content can get an even lower CPM because their sponsored videos continue to get these views years after publishing. So as a brand, you'll want to ask yourself, what kind of content would I want to sponsor? A video that will be temporarily relevant and get views for a few months or an evergreen video that will continue to get more and more views years after publishing?

Why is the evergreen score crucial for creators?

Well, who doesn’t want to create content that will continuously remain interesting, and continue to get a consistent amount of views? Evergreen content can help creators continue earning Adsense revenue long after that video is published. Ultimately, this will help creators maintain a consistent income flow - independent of how their future videos will behave. 

Let’s see the evergreen score in action:

These two videos by Jesser Reacts were published at almost the exact same time last year. 

Jesser Reacts evergreen content on YouTube

Today, both videos are at over 3.1M views, but they have completely different timelines. 

Jesser Reacts views over time on YouTube

As you can see from the views over time graph, the Recreate the Dunk, Win Rare Jersey! has been growing consistently from the time it was uploaded to today. While, the Karens Who Got Owned video has flatlined. However, if you focus on November 2022, it looked like Karens Who Got Owned was the clearcut winner in terms of its evergreen-ness - it was at 3M views then, whereas, at the same period of time, Recreate the Dunk, Win Rare Jersey! was only at 1M views.

Jesser Reacts views over time on YouTube

Our evergreen score and views over time graph make it clear that Recreate the Dunk, Win Rare Jersey! is still getting a lot of views and continues to grow to this day. On the other hand, viewers have lost interest in Karens Who Got Owned and the amount of views this video gets on a regular basis has flatlined. 

Here is our CEO, David Tintner, explaining this example in more detail:

How to make evergreen content

According to our calculations, less than 7% of videos on YouTube are evergreen, but with the help of our evergreen score - you can see exactly which videos are evergreen and break them down to understand in depth why they are evergreen content. 

For example, Trend Spot published a video on August 8, 2022 and for the first 2 months of that video’s life, it was slowly gaining views. But, suddenly, on October 6, its views started to shoot up, getting over a million and a half views in less than 10 days. 

Trend Spot views over time on YouTube

Currently, more than 6 months since going live, the video continues to get a lot of views. 

By being able to point out these anomalies on various successful videos, creators can  understand how to make their content better and brands can find channels and videos to sponsor that will ultimately offer them even more value. 

A key aspect to keep in mind while aiming to create evergreen is to focus on keywords. It’s crucial to find out what your audience wants to know and pinpoint specific keywords that viewers will search for. While reviewing evergreen content on our platform, it’s easy to highlight popular keywords. The next step is to create content focusing on these keywords. Tip: Avoid mentioning a specific time/date, such as ‘productivity hacks in 2023’, because it will likely cause viewers to disregard this content in the future as it won’t be ‘up to date’. 

Want to know more about how evergreen can apply to how you work with YouTube? Don’t hesitate to reach out.

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