Retention Audit

• A retention graph is the story's autopsy: every drop is a moment the script broke a promise, every spike is a beat viewers rewound to see again.
• Audit by zones, not by staring at the whole line — each zone has its own failure causes and its own fix.
• Always diagnose against a baseline: the same channel's best comparable video (same length/format). Absolute numbers mislead; the gap between winner and loser is the finding.
• Built on the six levers — see storytelling-hooks. Recap: 1. Curiosity gap · 2. Emotional mirror · 3. Conflict engine · 4. Relatability · 5. Pattern + surprise · 6. Three-act.

When to Use

• A video got clicks but died (decent CTR, low average view duration).
• YouTube stopped recommending a video after its first test batch.
• Comparing a flop against the channel's winners to find what broke.
• Any niche; needs the retention graph (screenshot is fine), the script or beat outline, and ideally one winner's graph.

Intake (Before Auditing)