10 Ways To Track Your YouTube Video Performance

10 Ways To Track Your YouTube Video Performance

We all love watching videos. But did you know that videos are one of the most crucial weapons in your ecommerce marketing arsenal? In a previous post, we provided you with 5 reasons why ecommerce product videos will increase sales.

After Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. In fact, YouTube sees four billion video views globally every day. Ignoring such a large reservoir of potential customers to promote your products to is perilous.

To master product video marketing, you must first understand the role of YouTube analytics.

Once you have learnt how to analyse your videos, you can implement strategies to widen your video's reach, thus increasing sales. We've compiled ten of the best techniques to analyse and track you YouTube video performance.

1. Monitor Your Views Over Time

The amount of views that your video is getting is obviously the most important metric to consider when trying to determine the success of your content.

Your views are displayed on the bottom right on your video. You can also find them via your YouTube Analytics panel, under the 'Views Reports' section.

When using the YouTube Analytics panel, you will be presented with a graph illustrating your views since your video's publication date. You also have the option to compare views between multiple videos within your channel.

By analysing this metric, and comparing your product videos, you can begin to assess which type of  video attract the most views. You may then use this information to shape the contents of your future videos, to maximise your total views.

2. Discover The Source Of Your Traffic

When analysing your product video's reach, it's vital that you figure out just where your viewers are coming from.

On your YouTube Analytics panel, under the 'Traffic Sources' page, you are presented with another graph, displaying your various sources of traffic, along with the total amount per source. This gives you an ample insight into how your viewers are finding your product video.

Additionally, using this section, you can distinguish between viewers from YouTube, viewers outside YouTube, mobile devices and direct traffic. A handy metric for when you're trying to figure out how to widen your reach.

Understanding each traffic source allows you to determine which source of traffic is most beneficial to you. For example, if your video is attracting more views via Google search than it is by YouTube search, you can begin to implement ways of capitalising on your success with Google, and improving your YouTube search engine optimization.

These distinct metrics will help you determine which traffic source is more important to your video promotion strategy, and which source needs to be worked on.

3. Determine The Demographics Of Your Audience

To get an even better understanding of your audience, venture into the 'Demographics' page of your YouTube analytics. Getting a deeper appreciation of your audience demographics will help you create future content which is relevant to the age & gender of your current audience.

The interactive pie-chart and graph allow you to visualise exactly who your product videos are already targeting.

Product videos will almost certainly reach a portion of customers whom were unreachable to you via conventional search engine marketing alone. Thus, reviewing the age & gender of your video audience may furnish you with new information to build your future product videos upon.

If you already have a set target market on which to market your products to, reviewing the Demographics page will help you to achieve the audience you desire, and will alert you when you begin targeting the wrong demographics for your industry.
 
4. Find Out About Your Geographical Impact

Without having to leave the 'Demographics' page, you can also discover where in the world your viewers are.

Many industries are not particularly bothered by the geographical variations in their video audience. A viewer is a viewer. However, as an ecommerce business, the location of your potential customers should be of great interest to you.

The Demographics page allows you access to your viewers based on their country. The top ten locations are displayed, along with the age groups and genders.

To delve further into the geographic statistics, you can select each individual country, displaying a brand new age and gender graph for that particular country. Using this information, you can create geographically specific product videos in the future.

5. Pay Attention To Playback Locations

Determining where your videos are being viewed can help you understand how your audience is discovering your content. Are they searching and finding it through YouTube itself, or via external websites?

The 'Playback Locations' page displays a segmented presentation of your total views, based on the playback location. Your views will be divided between, YouTube Channel page, YouTube Watch Page, Embedded Video and Mobile Devices.

Evaluating the location of your viewers when they view your content can help you analyse other metrics when you cross-reference them. For example, playback locations would be closely linked with traffic sources, and may help with analysing your audience retention, which we will discuss later.

By reviewing which location is serving you best, you can determine both your video's popularity on and off YouTube. This will give you an indication as to weather you need to spend more time on YouTube optimization, or to encourage sharing and embedding on external websites.

6. Analyse Your Audience Retention

Monitoring your views over time is important, but evaluating the quality of your views is paramount. Say hello to 'Audience Retention'.

By opening up your Audience Retention page, you'll be presented with yet another handy graph, which clearly displays the exact times of your video when people stopped watching. Using this information, you can discover the weaknesses in your video content, thus preventing the same mistakes in the future.

For example, you may pin-point one particular time in your video where you suddenly lose a large percentage of your viewership. You can then determine what your video is conveying at that particular time, to trigger such a negative response.

The audience retention page only allows you to see the analytics for one video at a time, not for your channel as a whole. It would be a good idea to assess a number of your videos to discover any common issues that can be worked upon.

7. Keep Track Of Your Subscription Rate

It is also essential that you monitor the fluctuations of your subscriber base. This will allow you to understand the overall reach of your YouTube content as a whole, as opposed to a single video.

Subscribers represent customers, or potential customers, who retain an interest in your products. Under the 'Engagement Reports' tab, you can select 'Subcribers' to view your report, which displays the amount of subscribers you lost or gained on a video-by-video basis.

The more subscribers you have, the more people who have the potential to see your channel’s video content on their subscriptions stream on the YouTube homepage. Thus, the more exposure your products and brand will get.

Utilizing calls to action in the form of video annotations can go a long way towards gaining subscribers. Use this report to test your use of annotations to see if your channel’s subscriber rate rose or fell as a result.

Take into account other factors which may also impact your subscriber rate, such as your relevance to your demographic.

8. Study Your Social Shares

Social media can play a big role in promoting your product video. In fact, 100 million people take a social action on YouTube every week. So it would be wise of you to always be aware of who is sharing your content, and how.

When you click on the 'Sharing' page on YouTube Analytics, you can view the amount of shares you have received over time. You have the option to view the shares made on each video by both date and geographical position.

Additionally, you can see how many times each social media service was used to share your content. Understanding your brand's social status on each major social networking website will allow you to take relevant action to expand your position within each one.

Take steps to incorporate your video content along with your social media accounts to capitalise on any attention you may already be getting.

9. Review & Respond To Your Comments

Commenting is a crucial component of audience engagement. Keeping tabs on who is commenting and what they are commenting about can help you convert viewers into customers.

By clicking on the 'Comments' page of the YouTube Analytics section, you'll be presented with a graph section illustrating the frequency and dates of your comments, as well as a section dedicated to displaying your total amount of comments on each video.

By cross referencing your statistics, you may find common trends between your videos concerning commenting. Perhaps there is a certain day or season within which comments are more frequent. This may or may not be due to your industry. You can then use this information to your advantage in your future product videos.

It is important that you portray your brand as an approachable and engaging one. Respond to each comment on your video in a helpful fashion. This will also help increase your total comments, a good indicator to viewers that your brand is respected.

Furthermore, viewers who also comment are easier to market to. Once you receive a comment, you can view that person's profile, giving you access to more personal means of communication and marketing.

10. Check Your Likes, Dislikes & Favourites

Your video ratings, such as likes, dislikes & favourites, are yet more important metrics that exemplifies viewer feedback. Together with the total number of views and favourites of your video, you can begin to determine what video content your target audience likes and what content they don’t like.

By clicking on the 'Likes & Dislikes' page, you can analyse your likes and dislikes over time. It is important to pay attention to your dislikes, as you obviously want to minimise them. Cross reference the timing of the dislikes with other metrics, to see if you can find a correlation.

If you click on the 'Favourites' page, you'll see a similar set up of your rate of favourites over time. Cross-referencing this metric with your other statistics could help you paint a picture of how to maximise favourites.

YouTube takes likes & dislikes into account when deciding where to rank your videos in it's search engine results. To find out more about how to optimise your videos, check out Daily SEO Tip guide.

By KAYA