YouTube Analytics: How To Find & Analyze Data

YouTube provides a built-in analytics platform to help you understand your channel’s performance.

If you are familiar with Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics is much easier to use and understand.

But it can be difficult to discern the reasons behind performance on YouTube.

In this article, I’ll start with the basics of YouTube Analytics: how to find your data. As I proceed, I will bring to your attention a few details that will help you analyze your video and channel performance.

How do I view YouTube Analytics?

Accessing your analytics is easy. Just follow this process:

• sign in.
• In the upper right, click on the circular icon containing your profile picture.
• From the dropdown menu, select “YouTube Studio”.

You will land on your channel dashboard, pictured below.

The dashboard shows you a quick overview, including performance details about your most recent video or live broadcast, and top-level channel information.

You can get a high-level idea of ​​the views, watch hours, and earnings across the entire channel over the past month. You’ll also see recent comments, subscribers, and recommended reads.

It’s a good overview, but you’ll need to dig deeper to get really useful data.

What information can YouTube Analytics provide?

On the surface, YouTube Analytics may seem basic if you’re familiar with other Google tools. It’s tough under the hood, but designed to be beginner-friendly on the surface.

If you’re already familiar with the basics and are looking for more customization options, head over Advanced mode.

Channel analytics

You can interact with the items on the control panel to take you directly to where you need to go or use the right-hand menu to navigate.

Let’s start with the list.

Click Analytics.

The first tab in Analytics It gives you details and graphs that show the calculated metrics for your entire channel.

So, it pulls data from all of your individual videos to display here.

In the graph, you can click on each metric at the top to see its corresponding graph. You’ll also see a real-time view of the activity on your channel, and a quick list of top-performing content.

At the top, you can click on each tab to see related graphs and data.

For example, under contentIn it, you will see views, impressions, click-through rates, and average view duration. Average View Duration is the average time a viewer spends watching a video.

In the content tab, you’ll also see data about the source of your impressions and views, whether it’s YouTube search, YouTube features, external, etc.

On the public On the tab, you will see data about returning, unique, and subscribed viewers and basic demographic information about your viewers. The tab also gives you insight into other channels and videos that viewers like to watch.

the research The tab contains a very basic keyword research tool. You can see the search terms related to the term you enter. It will generally tell you the volume – “high”, “low”, etc. is all you get.

It will also define search terms where it thinks there is a ‘content gap’ – and you can see the searches made by viewers.

Let’s go back to the main screen.

You see in the top right corner, it says aevolving situation? Under each graph, you may also have noticed a see more button. All these links lead to the advanced interface.

If you’re frustrated with how important the data looks, this is where you can customize the metrics on your charts. Go ahead and go to file Advanced mode If that is what you need.

Video analytics

Back in the main menu on the left side, tap content To start watching your individual videos.

This tab lists all your uploaded videos and live streams. You will see information such as views, comments and likes.

From here, you can click on any individual video to view and edit its details.

This is where you can adjust all video details and metadata, including;

• Title.
• a description.
• tags.
• my nail.
• category.
• Audience and age restriction.
• Language and comments.
• Date and place.
• Comment policy.
• add subtitles, end screensAnd cards.

You also have a new menu on the left; YouTube has a basic video editor that you can use.

But let’s focus on Analytics Unpaid invoice. Click that.

the first Analytics Screen similar to your channel analytics overview. You can see views, watch time, new subscribers attributed to that video, and video revenue if you’re a partner.

Below the main graph, you’ll see details about engagement and retention. It will look slightly different depending on the type of content.

• For live broadcasts, you will see details about comments and engagement during the broadcast.
• For videos, you’ll see Key Audience Moments, which includes watch duration, the average percentage of videos watched by users, and a very useful audience retention chart.

I mean, the audience retention scheme is probably the single most important scheme you can access for an individual video.

Why?

If you’re an SEO pro, it’s time you learn to think upside down, because YouTube’s algorithms prioritize user engagement signals much higher than metadata when evaluating videos.

Viewer satisfaction is the most important ranking factor on YouTube, which is measured using a few different metrics.

This graph provides exceptional insights into how viewers interact with your video. The tool tip, shown above, is a great guide for discovering ideas for your video.

• If you notice a sharp drop in the beginning of the video, the intro is probably betteror you didn’t immediately show viewers how your video meets their needs.
• The pins in the chart tell you that those moments are particularly good or shareable. The timestamp shows the points at which people rewatched or shared your video.
• Dips in the graph are exit or skip points for viewers. It’s very useful for finding places where you need to improve or cut your content.

This chart will always move down and to the right. But, in general, the less sharp it is, the more attractive your video will be.

Other tabs at the top show you more data about the video.

• It arrives Shows impressions, CTR, views, and traffic sources.
• Engagement It shows total watch time, average watch duration, likes and dislikes, and CTR for the end screen.
• public It displays information about your viewers, such as basic demographics, whether they are subscribers, returning or new viewers, etc.

And, as with channel analytics data, each graph contains a file see more button, which we’re finally ready to take a look at!

Advanced mode

Advanced mode Where the magic happens. You can access it by clicking semail over on any scheme, or Advanced mode in the upper-right corner of your analytics dashboard.

the see more The function is pretty cool, because it automatically shows you a more advanced version of the chart you’re currently looking at.

Just look at all those metrics!

You can compare any two metrics, customize the date range and time frame of the chart, apply filters, directly compare videos to each other, and the list goes on. This is the “Get what you give” part of YouTube Analytics.

The more time you spend getting to know the system and how your content performs, the more insights you can get.

In the top-right corner, there is a Compare to menu that gives you several powerful comparison tools.

You can export any view in advanced mode directly to Google Sheets or a .csv file.

paying off Google’s guide Advanced mode.

How do I see YouTube Analytics for other channels?

Competitive research is a little trickier.

YouTube Analytics only provides data for your channel and the ones you’ve been invited to. To get competitive analytics on other channels and videos, you need to install third party tools.

TubeBuddy And VidIQ They are two of the most popular third-party YouTube tools. Both offer free extensions that can give you information about videos and channels that you don’t own.

They can also serve as keyword research aids and provide additional data, as well as quality of life features in your channel dashboard.

Remember, there is only so much a search of competitor data on YouTube can do for you. You should first of all analyze the content of their videos.

Conclusion

YouTube Analytics is simple enough for beginners to navigate easily, there’s a lot of power if you know where to look.

To draw effective conclusions from your analytics, it’s helpful to remember that YouTube’s algorithms work differently than Google’s search algorithms.

While Google says that user engagement metrics are not ranking factors in Google search, user engagement metrics are some of the most important ranking factors on YouTube.

YouTube search and YouTube recommendations also work on different algorithms.

Analytics can help you understand video performance based on various YouTube features.

If you prefer to work with the data yourself, you can always upload Advanced modechoose your chart features and comparisons, then export it.

More resources:

• Content marketing metrics and analytics: 5 types of data insights
• YouTube adds metrics to the main app, + a new way to manage your live stream
• Social Media Marketing: A Complete Strategy Guide

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