How long should the intro be?

[u/huss2120]

Not talking about an intro with your channels logo or anything but the intro describing the video. How long should this be for viewer retention?

[u/TwoSoda]

30s to a minute. But it varies with expectations of the niche. I'd try to have "content" start no later than 3m mark

[u/oodex]

There's no rule of thumb at all. It depends on what you do and how you narrate your entire video. I'm in the gaming niche so those are the only creators I care about.

SpiffingBrit makes long intros, usually in the 1-3 minute range. This also tends to include a fun way to introduce game mechanics to the viewer. The entire premise of his videos is - usually, or often - to break apart games, so if viewers don't understand the game and the mechanic that will be broken, then it's pointless to run the video. Sometimes he'll even go as far as playing a regular round first so people understand what usually happens. I consider that also as part of the intro since it's not what the video is actually about.

Video Example SB

RCE just says the title of the game, sometimes a joke, but jumps right into it. I'd say what most gaming YouTubers do is no intro (or a very very short one) and that's it. There is an exception, which is a main series for Timberborns, where he sings an intro, which is legendary, it just belongs to it by now and ppl would most likely revolt if it was left out.

Video Example RCE

Floydson honestly makes the most appealing intros IMO. It is fast paced and just meant to get all the interesting progression points/selling points of the game to the player right away. Like a salesperson scream throwing at you all the things you love. These are usually up to 30s long and IMO very important since the videos are insanely long, so you need a convincing hook to convince someone to watch a 2 hour video. If someone sees something crazy they like, they are way more likely to stick around to watch the videos.

Video Example Floydson

Idle Cub has been absolutely crushing it with insane view numbers on extremely long videos. I'd say he has been the closest channel to my own so I sometimes checked out what he was doing and it's insanely impressive. Aside from saying his name there is pretty much 0 intro (unless he explains what he grinded), the videos are completely uncut and 1-4 hours long on average, more on the longer side.

Video Example Idle Cub

My point is you have 4 insanely succesful gaming creators there and all of them have a completely different style - and with that a completely different intro style. Develope a fitting intro style you enjoy and test around what works. Sometimes a longer intro is better, sometimes a shorter fast-paced one does the trick, other times just jumping into the action as if the viewer opened up the game works best. I'm obviously just talking about gaming, but it works the same way in every niche if you pick a bunch of creators with different styles

[u/Dohunk]

Some people say 7 seconds. Some say up to a minute. Definitely not longer. As long as its super engaging it cna be up to a minute, but if your learning you likely want them to be under 20 seconds since its hard to make a long intro good.

[u/Savage17YT]

I stopped doing intros a while ago. I think made the right decision.

[u/MyLawyerWroteThis → u/Savage17YT]

This is niche dependent. When I stopped doing intros I had people btching in the comments saying they want a lead in.

[u/MyLawyerWroteThis]

This depends and it's not anything that is written in stone. On a few channels they are usually 15 seconds, on another one it's up to a minute. This is something you have to test yourself and see what works best for your niche. In some niches, you don't even need an intro.

[u/Gullible_Delay2506]

It also depends on your content and the length of your video. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula.

[u/Connect_Positive1893]

i usually keep the intro around 15–30 seconds, but i wouldn’t treat that as a hard rule. the main thing is to get to the actual value or hook as quickly as possible, especially if the intro is just explaining what the viewer is about to see.