Do you want to understand how people interact with your YouTube channel? Do you want to know which YouTube video links produce the most website traffic?
This post will teach you how to use Google Analytics to examine and evaluate the effectiveness of your YouTube marketing.
Why Track YouTube Channel and Link Traffic With Google Analytics?
Google Analytics has two methods for tracking your YouTube traffic. People who visit your YouTube channel and those who visit your website through YouTube may be tracked.
Tracking YouTube channel traffic lets you know who is visiting, where they are coming from, and what elements of the channel they utilize (such as the playlists they play or how they order videos). Despite its limitations, this view is excellent if you have many subscribers and run your company via your channel. Setting up channel tracking will be useful as you expand your channel if you have few subscribers.
Tracking traffic from YouTube to your website is beneficial regardless of how many followers your channel has. In this scenario, Google Analytics analyzes people who visit your website after clicking a link on YouTube. The link might appear in a YouTube video’s description or card. After you’ve set up this monitoring, you’ll be able to see how your YouTube marketing is assisting you in meeting your overall marketing objectives.
#1: Learn How Users Find Your YouTube Channel
You must isolate the traffic you analyze in Google Analytics to track YouTube subscribers visiting your channel. To do this, create a view with a filter that displays just YouTube traffic or create a property that records people based on a unique tracking ID. You may then see how viewers discover and engage with your channel.
Configure Google Analytics to Track YouTube Channels
To create a view with a filter, click Admin (the gear symbol) in Google Analytics’ lower-left corner. Then, on the top right, click Create View. Give your view a name, choose a time zone, and click the Create View button in the open window.
Create a filter that only allows YouTube traffic to pass through. Make sure your view is chosen in the view column on the Admin panel, then click Filters. After clicking the Add Filter option, give your filter a name and choose Custom. When the custom settings window appears, choose Include, then Hostname from the Filter Field drop-down menu and “youtube” in the Filter Pattern box. Then click the Save button.
Adding a property to get a tracking ID is simpler than configuring a view and filter. After creating a property using the Google Analytics Admin page, under the Property column, click Tracking Info and then Tracking Code. Then, on the Tracking Code screen, copy the unique ID.
You must then add that ID to your YouTube channel. Open your YouTube channel settings and choose the View Additional Features tab. When Creator Studio starts, choose Channel and Advanced on the left sidebar. Copy the ID and paste it into the Google Analytics Property Tracking ID area at the bottom of the Advanced screen. When you’ve finished, click Save.
Analyze YouTube Channel Traffic With Google Analytics
When your YouTube channel has many subscribers, Google Analytics statistics may show how people locate and utilize your channel. To see this information, first, ensure your filtered view (if you made one) is chosen.
Click the Behavior option in the Google Analytics left-hand sidebar to view the pages that these reports monitor. Select Site Content and then All Pages from the Behavior report choices. It’s worth noting that the All Pages report only displays channel URLs. Although the following sample doesn’t have many channel users, you can see that just channel pages are recorded, and the playlist and views users pick.
Click Acquisition on the left-hand column to discover how people find your YouTube channel. Open the Source/Medium report after selecting All Traffic. If you have many YouTube viewers, the Source/Medium column offers multiple traffic sources, such as direct traffic or Google organic search results. This information might help you choose various strategies to advertise your channel.
#2: Track the Number of Clicks on YouTube Links That Go to Your Website
Google Analytics may now monitor people who follow links to your website on YouTube. It would help if you first created a UTM tracking tag for each link you post to a YouTube video for Google Analytics to identify particular traffic sources. I also recommend that you shorten any URLs you post to YouTube. You may evaluate your traffic in the Source/Medium report with the proper connection configuration.
Make Your Short URL Links for YouTube Videos
I recommend reducing the URLs you upload to YouTube since links with UTM tags are lengthy and daunting. Short links are simple to read and understand.
A variety of link shorteners are available to fit your workflow and demands. WordPress users may be interested in the Pretty Links plugin, which costs $59 annually. This plugin allows you to customize the appearance of your links and where they redirect.
Avoid generic link shorteners such as Bitly among the many available.
Analyze YouTube Traffic to Your Website Using Google Analytics
You may limit the Source/Medium report to display YouTube traffic in Google Analytics. Select Acquisition from the left-hand sidebar to get started. Select All Traffic, then Source/Medium. In the Source/Medium report that displays, put “youtube” into the search box to restrict the Source/Medium column to clicks from YouTube; therefore, you’ll see just YouTube traffic.
Although Google Analytics cannot show you the individual video someone saw, you may use the UTM tag to get information about the specific video or anything you want to know.
Set the Keyword as your secondary dimension to display UTM tags in the Source/Medium report. Click the Secondary Dimension button, search for the phrase “keyword,” and choose the Keyword option from the list that displays. In the following example, the “ww” in my UTM tag indicates that a viewer saw a video from my Workshop Wednesday series.
To view the landing page the user visited, set the Secondary Dimension option in the Source/Medium report to the Landing Page.
Put up objectives in Google Analytics, such as adding an item to the basket or completing a purchase. You can see how effectively your YouTube marketing supports those goals. Choose the objective you want to investigate from the Conversions drop-down list in the Source/Medium report.
Conclusion
You can learn more about how viewers discover your channel and how well different kinds of videos help you reach your marketing objectives by using Google Analytics to measure YouTube traffic on your channel and to your website.
The technique for seeing relevant data in Google Analytics is quite easy. Set up a filtered view or a property to observe how people discover your channel. Set up UTM tags and short links to track visitors from your channel to your website. Change the view of the Source/Medium report to analyze and improve your YouTube marketing.
