Intro retention

Audience retention graphs start at 100 per cent, and intro retention is the very first stretch of that curve, usually read across the opening 30 seconds. It answers a single question: how many of the people who clicked were still there once the video properly started. Everything downstream is capped by that figure, since average view duration and total watch time can only be built from whoever stayed. Compare it against your own back catalogue rather than a published benchmark. The shape of the curve moves with format, topic and traffic source, so a number that looks poor next to somebody else's tutorial can be normal for a documentary.