YouTube Steps Up Analytics, Drills Into Viewer Stats

Youtube-YouTube still dominates streaming media. As such, tracking a campaign’s performance on Google’s video hub remains a critical component of any marketer’s viral video efforts.

Responding to greater demand for more in-depth reporting and analysis, YouTube has replaced its Insight tracking service with a more thorough Analytics offering.

“We want to make it even easier to learn about your audience,” Ted Hamilton, product manager at YouTube, explained in a blog post Wednesday.

Analytics attempts to take Insights to another level by giving publishers of any size more information about their content and viewers. It features a new overview section, which prioritizes a publisher’s most relevant information, as well as more detailed statistics.

The new service also hopes to help publishers discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions -- and how far viewers are watching through videos in the new audience retention report. 

Led by YouTube, Google sites still ranked as the top online video content property in October -- with 161 million unique viewers and a record 20.9 billion videos viewed, per comScore Video Metrix.

Still small by comparison, Facebook.com represents a clear threat to YouTube’s video dominance. According to comScore, the social network ranked second in terms of viewers, with 59.8 million in October.

Overall, with the average viewer now consuming a record 21.1 hours of video a month, a total of 184 million U.S. Web users -- or 86.2% of the country’s online population -- watched more than 42 billion videos in October.

Also worth noting, video ads accounted for 14.9% of all videos viewed -- and 1.4% of all minutes spent viewing video online -- in October. Across the board, video ads reached 53% of the total U.S. population an average of 47 times during the month, while Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 46.5.

Among YouTube partners, video music channels Vevo and Warner Music maintained the top two positions in October, with 54.2 million viewers and 30.4 million viewers, respectively.

Next story loading loading..