Chapter 13
YouTube Analytics
Measuring the Performance of Your YouTube Campaign: Google Analytics and Adwords
If you already have business videos or the capability to create video content, YouTube can bring you a lot of traffic for very little money. But keep in mind this audience will be different than those coming from other marketing channels and you may discover short attention spans with the content you publish. So how do you know if your YouTube campaigns bring a positive ROI?
The goals of your campaign will determine which metrics to monitor in YouTube, AdWords, or Analytics and suggested metrics for each goal type are provided below
The goals of your campaign will determine which metrics to monitor in YouTube, AdWords, or Analytics and suggested metrics for each goal type are provided below.
Google AdWords Video Metrics
View performance
In your Google AdWords account, you will see raw numbers of views in addition to the view rate which advertisers are already familiar with. View rate is similar to the CTR for clicks and impressions on your other ad types. This will also show the average amount you pay when viewers watch your videos or engage with your ad. You can see the maximum costs for views, similar to the maximums you see for clicks with your search ads. These metrics indicate how many people are becoming aware of your brand.
Once viewers are aware of you, you want them to take the next step beyond viewing by clicking on your ad. Engagement includes clicking on cards on your video or your call-toaction overlay. Earned views also measure YouTube engagement because it indicates people watched other videos on your channel after seeing this initial video ad. Even better, some may choose to subscribe so you know they want to hear and see more from you. And of course likes are nice, but shares are even better.
Reach
Reach is how many people viewed your ad and how often your ad was shown to each person (as determined by cookies). You can also see how many times it was viewed for each viewer.
Video playtime (Watch Rate)
This measures how much of your video was viewed in quartiles: 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. If viewers rarely make it past that first quartile, it does not mean completing scrapping the video. You may be able to edit what you have into a shorter run time.
Segments – Network
On which network are your videos being displayed? Video Discovery ads (formerly known
Segments – Mobile users
What about device type? Is there a difference in cost and views depending on whether the video was viewed on a computer, mobile device or a tablet? If most users view your video ads on a mobile device, you want sharp images that will stand out on a smaller screen
Review the Video Targeting tab
If you are new to YouTube advertising or perhaps a little uncertain about your exact audience, you will want to target a broader group initially. As you gather campaign performance data, you may want to add or exclude demographics. Similarly, you may discover interest, placements, or affinity groups to add or exclude. These metrics are all available in the Video targeting tab of your AdWords campaign.
That’s a lot of data available to you as an advertiser. We have data in YouTube. We have data in AdWords. Do we also need yet another place for data in Google Analytics? Yes. Because nothing we do in marketing happens in a vacuum. We use multiple channels and strategies to reach our prospects and we want to understand how our marketing channels may work in conjunction with each other
Google Analytics Video Metrics
YouTube Visitors
This is a simple metric in Google Analytics and a good starting place available under Acquisition. Who learned of your web site from YouTube (New visitors) compared to your other channels? You can drill into Video Campaigns specifically or compare it in the context of all your existing AdWords Campaigns.
YouTube Referrals
Remember that YouTube is a social channel. So while you will want to review this in the context of your AdWords campaign in Google Analytics, also compare it to the other social channels you use to drive traffic – paid and unpaid – as well as other referral sources. From here, you can view basic engagement metrics as well as also conversions. For example, do your YouTube visitors complete the goal of signing up for your email newsletter?
Multi-Channel Funnels
You may not see direct conversions with your YouTube visitors, such as immediate email newsletter sign-ups. Visitors may come to your site but not complete a desired action during the first visit. With Multi-Channel Funnels, you can see the visitor’s journey through your website and the influence of video. By understanding the impact of each marketing channel compared to the others, you can make better decisions about how to budget moving forward.
Conclusion
Determining the purpose of your paid YouTube campaign will guide your decisions about what to measure. And these metrics are available in multiple places: YouTube Analytics, AdWords, and Google Analytics. Start with YouTube Analytics to see how your videos perform on their own, not compared against your other channels. Next spend some time in AdWords to view how paid campaigns are contributing to your goals and bringing a positive ROI.
Finally, explore YouTube performance in Google Analytics to determine how your marketing channels work together, keeping in mind that a YouTube campaign will likely bring different results than your other marketing channels and explore that data with the goal of brand awareness. Of course, brand awareness does not immediately translate into revenue, but website visitors do need to first hear about you before doing business with you so brand awareness is a worthy pursuit
Chapter 14
How to make YouTube a part of Successful
With both its long-tail discoverability and potential to educate clients about in-depth features, the YouTube platform offers some incredible benefits for B2B companies. And yet, surprisingly, YouTube is one of the most frequently overlooked social media platforms when it comes to building a successful B2B marketing funnel
To be sure, YouTube is no longer the only social media platform for posting native video – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter now all have their video offerings. On these platforms, though, organic views are all about “the feed,” meaning that for a short period of time after you post the video, it will be shown in the feed of some percentage of your followers, depending on factors such as the Facebook algorithm or whether a user accessed their account during the window of time a video might have appeared. Of course, a feed-based distribution strategy can be successful for gaining significant “Day One” views, the non-paid viewership that occurs when you first upload the video. And, certainly, well-targeted paid campaigns can also be quite effective in the feeds.
But social video is not all about the feed, and for B2B, this distinction is key. B2B companies generally have higher-ticket items and longer sales cycles than B2C. During this extended period, clients will research their future partners as much as they can in multiple ways. Naturally, they will go to Google and YouTube to do their research, and can end up watching multiple videos about the products. And while on Facebook almost all views from a given week will be of your latest video, on YouTube, almost all of your views from a given week will be of your “greatest hits,” the old videos
YouTube Long-tail Marketing: The Four S’s
1. Sharing: They were directed off-platform via a direct link or from the company, the media, a salesperson directly, or a friend or influencer. 2. Suggesting: They saw the video in the “suggested videos” column on the right-hand side of the page another YouTube video was on. 3. Searching: They find them by searching on YouTube or Google. 4. Subscribing: They subscribe to channels based on their interests and/or personalities, and those channels talked about the products
#1 Encourage Video Sharing: YouTube & Beyond
Certainly if you can get B2B blogs and influencers to post a link to your YouTube videos, you should do so. Outside parties particularly like to post announcement videos and short interviews (under four minutes) that feature industry superstars. A video is a great complement to any press release, and when reaching out to technical bloggers, the short, how-to video can get you some embeds and link-love
But to take advantage of the YouTube long-tail, what about embedding the videos on your company’s own website and blog? This is one of the best ways of driving relevant traffic, and it affirms the YouTube video’s relevance by embedding it within a page chock full of SEO-empowered text. And don’t forget to link to the video from your email newsletter (just do a link, please – embedding video in email is a no-no)
#2 Boost Suggested CTR with a Great Thumbnail
It seems counterintuitive, but after direct links and embeds, most YouTube views come as a
Your thumbnails can also benefit from a “branding stripe” running the full height of the left-hand side of the image. This is key because it makes them stick out in the suggested videos column. Remember, most people see these images very small (at just 120×68 pixels, to be exact), so the image has to pop
Additionally, playlists are essential to driving suggested videos, because YouTube looks to playlists to understand which videos are related. There’s practically no limit to how many
playlists you can create, and a single video can be in many playlists. Playlists take almost no time to create, and of course drive continuous views as well, so a good playlist strategy is essential in any YouTube long-tail marketing campaign
#3 Understand YouTube and Google Search Factors
YouTube Search: YouTube is the second largest search engine after its parent Google. And while you’ll often get a YouTube video result embedded into your Google search results, videos will actually get more traffic directly from searching on YouTube.com.
Contrary to popular belief, videos are not ranked in YouTube search by how many views they get. Rather, the algorithm looks for how long the videos encourage people to stay on the YouTube.com platform. So to succeed, B2B marketers must pay close attention to key metrics, such as how long people are watching individual videos and which videos are referring additional views back to the same channel.
If you’re still shooting and editing your videos using the same methods perfected for
Google Search: Often a YouTube video will come up in your Google search results. But how does Google archive the info from its friend YouTube? Well, title, tags, and description all help. After all, Google can only index video by text and code, so for SEO purposes, the metadata around the video is actually more important than what is shown within the video. Additionally, doing an optional closed-caption transcript will help Google better identify the content, because while YouTube’s automated transcription technology is getting better, it’s still comically inaccurate at times. These transcripts help both the Google and YouTube search engines determine the content
#4 YouTube Long-tail Success: Subscriber Growth
Generally, subscribers – which are the “likes” and “follows” of YouTube – are very valuable to gaining targeted views. From my own research, an organic video can expect, on averages
about 15% views per subscriber (without other influences). So a channel with 1,000
subscribers can generally expect about 150 views per video. about 15% views per subscriber (without other influences). So a channel with 1,000
Thus it’s important to encourage your potential client base to subscribe to your YouTube channel in every way you encourage them to follow you on other social media platforms – via your website, email, etc. And, importantly, get them to subscribe via clickable links in your videos and descriptions. Then, each time they find themselves on YouTube.com, they will be more likely to have your videos automatically promoted to them. They may also receive email updates from YouTube as well.
One caveat: YouTube subscribers tend to skew younger, which could leave out some of the older decision makers of your B2B clients. Even today, some tech-savvy people who watch YouTube videos still don’t even realize that you can subscribe to YouTube channels, or what a “YouTube channel” actually is. But don’t let this discourage you – each subscriber you get will give you an advantage over your competitors
Bonus Tip: Re-optimize Your Video Content Every Month
YouTube is a hybrid platform. With its high sharability, it’s more like Facebook or Twitter. But with its long-term discoverability, its behavior for driving B2B leads can be more like a content-marketing blog. This is because once a video finds a place in a search engine, it will stay there, and the video can be a primary traffic driver to other content pieces or as a top lead conversion source.
But results can always be tweaked and improved, sometimes dramatically. We’re seeing
These blog optimization specialists take content that they’ve already invested a lot of money in, and go back and squeeze more juice out of them, sometimes doubling the lead generation rate they were getting previously. The same should be done with YouTube on a monthly basis: Taking assets you’ve already invested a lot of money in creating and reoptimizing them using a data-driven approach, taking into account the key analytics, trends and best practices. The result can be a significant increase of your ROI.
Each of your top videos should be audited and optimized (if data warrants it) once per quarter. If you’re a channel with a back catalog of hundreds of videos, for instance, and you want to focus on the top 200 videos, we recommend reviewing one-third of the greatest hits each month, then track how YouTube and Google re-index them over a several week period, then repeat the process each month
So B2B companies – it’s time to take another look at your YouTube strategy. You may be