YouTube Analytics Guide: How to Use Data to Grow Your Business

YouTube has become a preferred search engine for millions of people. YouTube has 2.7 billion users, and hence it has become one of the most advantageous platforms for all the marketers out there. However, YouTube doesn’t end at video marketing. You get access to YouTube Analytics to help you improve your campaigns and track essential metrics. 

This guide will help you understand everything about YouTube Analytics. Once you understand how to use the YouTube Analytics’ features, you can access valuable insights that will help you create video marketing campaigns that convert. 

Accessing YouTube Analytics

Before you understand how to use YouTube Analytics, you must know how to access it. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

• Log in to your YouTube account.
• Click the profile option on the top right corner of the screen.
• Click on the option 'YouTube Studio'. 
• Click on the Analytics button in the left-hand menu..

A window on your screen displays your latest video performance and several other channel statistics. You can also access YouTube Analytics on your phone by downloading the YouTube Studio app on your device.

If you are new to YouTube and trying to explore the channel, you can create a YouTube account for your company or brand. You can then add the people managing the account along with you. Experienced team members can guide you through the platform and help you manage your YouTube channel.. 

Channel Analytics

Different YouTube metrics will give you an overview of how your videos help you reach your marketing goals.  You can use a YouTube intro maker to create a perfect video that gets a lot of engagement.

The channel analytics tab contains four critical sections. These sections are overview, reach, engagement and audience. Let's look at what these sections tell about the video performance. 

Overview

The overview is the first section that is a part of the channel analytics. 

The overview displays several vital metrics, including: 

• The number of views
• The video's watch time in hours
• Your top performing videos 
• And more 

These metrics are pivotal in formulating a video strategy for your brand. 

YouTube Analytics gives you real-time data on a few aspects of the video. These include:

• Views: This metric gives you the number of times people have come to your channel and watched it in a selected period. The minimum time of the video depends on the length of the video. Generally, 30 seconds is considered the standard minimum view.
• Watch time: The watch time gives an aggregate figure that shows the total number of hours for which viewers have watched your channel.
• Subscribers: The subscribers metric is calculated by subtracting the number of subscribers lost from the number of subscribers gained.
• Real-time views: This metric shows the number of people who have watched your video in the last 48 hours. This data keeps updating in real-time.
• Top videos: The overview tab also shows your best performing videos so far.

Reach

The reach tab shows the span that your video was able to cover. Several important metrics are displayed under the reach section that can help you understand the performance of your video. Some of these metrics include:

• Impressions: The number of impressions shows the number of times the viewers have seen the thumbnail of your video while scrolling through YouTube or other social media channels.
• Impressions click-through rate: This number shows how many times people have clicked your video afterthey saw your thumbnail while scrolling through their YouTube feed.
• Views: As the same suggests, the views option shows the number of times your video has been watched in a selected duration. Generally, if a viewer spends more than 30 seconds on your video, it is counted as a view.
• Unique viewers: This metric counts only unique views, excluding views generated by the same user on different devices.

The reach tab shows even more valuable insights to analysts, such as:

• The sources that have brought traffic to your video.
• The percentage of impressions that turned into views.
• The number of impressions that your video got via YouTube recommendations. 
• Search queries that have led people to your channel.

With this information you can create an excellent keyword strategy for your videos.

Engagement 

People might view your videos, but it is of no use if they don't engage with them. The engagement metrics show how the viewer reacts to your video. Likes, comments, and shares are considered. The section also shows the average watch time and the average view duration. 

• Watch time: The watch time shows the total number of hours the viewers have watched your channel. 
• Average view duration: It shows the average duration per view for all the videos.

Other metrics under this tab are top videos, top playlists, top cards, end screen elements, and top videos by the end screen. These metrics help you understand the performance of your channel and your videos in general. 

Audience

The audience is another crucial section under the Channel Analytics section. You can use all the audience metrics to understand your viewers and create a video strategy around them. Some of the critical metrics that are displayed under the audience section are:

• New and returning viewers: The metric shows the number of people who have already watched your channel once and have returned to watch some content. At the same time, the new viewers show the new visitors who have landed on your channel. These metrics also tend to include people who browse videos in private or incognito mode.
• Unique viewers: This includes the number of viewers who have at least watched your video once. Suppose a viewer has watched your video 5 times. The YouTube analytics will count it as one unique view.
• When your viewers use YouTube: This metric gives you a picture of when your audienceis active on YouTube. This will help you in deciding the time at which you can post your new YouTube videos to get more engagement. 
• Demography: YouTube Analytics also shows the viewers' age, gender, and location in clusters to improve your videos' targeting. 
• Other channels: YouTube Analytics ensures you know your audience in and out. The tool shows you channels your viewers have watched in the last month. This will help you understand the interests of your audience, so you can create an interest-based targeting strategy.
• Other videos: YouTube Analytics also shows the videos your subscribers and viewers have watched in the last seven days. These videos will help you understand what kind of videos your viewers are watching. You can experiment with these video types to create exciting content for your viewers.
• Details on subtitles: This metric shows if your viewers have used subtitles while watching the video. If yes, the language of the subtitles is used.

Revenue

Every marketer wants to make the most out of the content they put on different social media channels. YouTube can help you understand if the video can bring any profit. The tab will also help you understand which one of your videos has given you the maximum revenue and which has not. Some other metrics that are a part of the revenue tab are:

• Revenue per thousand impressions or RPM: The metric shows the amount that you have earned on every 1000 views of your video.
• Ad type: This metric showcases any ad revenue you might have earned from running video ads on YouTube.
• Revenue sources: Here, you can see how much income comes from each source to understand the source that generates the maximum revenue.
• Top-earning videos: A list of your high-revenue earning videos will be displayed under this section. You can analyze the most profitable videos to apply the same practices to your new content..
• Transaction revenue: This metric shows the total revenue that you have earned through your YouTube channel. This may include the channel merchandise fees, revenue made from the sale of merchandise, etc.

Using the Advanced Mode Feature

All the sections discussed above will give you a fair understanding of how your channel and the videos perform. You can observe the metrics and then incorporate changes in the video marketing strategy. However, if you want to get a detailed report on your channel and videos, you can select the 'Advanced Mode' option on the screen's top right end. 

You can use all data points provided in YouTube Analytics Advanced Mode to analyze, reflect, and then incorporate them into your YouTube strategy. YouTube also allows you to export all of this data to an excel file to understand the data without any hassle. 

Learn how to use YouTube Analytics Advanced Mode in our extensive guide.

Learn more

Using Data to Improve Video Marketing 

Now that you have all the data points with you, your job doesn't end. You must analyze all of these data points and then create a strategy for YouTube marketing. 

Create engaging videos 

With YouTube analytics, you know the kind of content your viewers are watching. You can draw inspiration from these videos and then create something that will keep your viewers hooked. You can analyze the retention metrics of your audience and understand what makes them stay. You can then incorporate these insights into your video. 

Additionally, editing your videos play a significant role. Therefore, you should use a trusted tool like InVideo to edit your videos so that your videos turn out to be engaging enough to keep your audience hooked to your content.

Get meaningful insights out of raw data

YouTube analytics gives you a lot of data. It is your job to segregate them and find some meaning out of it. You can use the data to understand where your traffic is coming from and invest more in that particular source. 

However, navigating across a huge amount of dull numbers is often challenging. To get a clear picture of your YouTube marketing efforts you need to compare it with other campaigns, dig into historical data, and create versatile dasbhboards to assess the effectiveness of your marketing budgets.

Marketing data pltaforms can accelerate your analytics processes and provide you with a 360-degree view of your video marketing efforts. Platforms such as Improvado can automatically extract data from YouTube Analytics and 300+ other marketing sources to aggregate all data in one place.

With its help, marketers get automated reports on organic video performance, paid video ads, audiences, and more. The platform extracts over 170 metrics from YouTube Analytics allowing you to combine them on a single dashboard and track your video perfromance in real time. 

You can go even further, and combine these insights with Instagram performance metrics to understand how your Instagram followers engage with YouTube videos, how many of them travel to your YouTube channel, and more. With all data in one place, you can optimize your campaigns and make smarter decisions on marketing budgets.

Targeting

YouTube analytics gives a lot of information on your audience. They give out the viewers' age, gender, and geographical location. Hence, you can target your ads better based on the demographic information. 

Make the most out of YouTube Analytics

YouTube Analytics is a powerful tool that comes in handy while analyzing the success of your YouTube channel. You must know the kind of information YouTube provides to best use it.

YouTube analytics is growing, giving a plethora of information to marketers at almost no cost. Therefore, it is time for you to leverage it and make the most of YouTube analytics.