How to Measure Your YouTube Success

In this digital age, marketers should be considering YouTube viewers in the same way they do TV audiences, but with the added benefits of tracking and the wider availability of audience insights. As a direct result of this, their video advertising functionality is pretty great and regular improvements from their side have made it the next port of call for advertisers looking to expand their current online activity.

Google recently revamped the AdWords for Video interface, making it a lot more user friendly and simplifying the reporting available. This means that you can look at trend lines and performance across various data segments much more easily and have a much more holistic view of your campaigns’ performance over time. Improved functionality and reporting in Google Analytics have further improved how we can measure YouTube success.

A few clients have asked me about the key metrics that they should be measuring when it comes to TrueView YouTube advertising through AdWords (AdWords for Video). As it isn’t as well-documented as the classic AdWords search performance metrics, I wanted to go through the top things to analyse when measuring the success of a YouTube advertising campaign through TrueView video ads, as well as some additional ways to look at omni-channel impact.

On a related note, Inside AdWords have recently published a blog looking at omni-measurement and omni-tracking for Ecommerce retailers so this ties in nicely with my points below. Hopefully after reading my blog, you’ll have a better idea of some of the best metrics on which to focus when gauging how successful your YouTube campaigns have been so far.

Key Metrics

Let’s keep it simple to begin with and look at the basic metrics we can use to judge campaign performance. To find the most relevant columns, you can separate out metrics by Views, Audience, Branding and Conversions in the Columns tab in the AdWords for Video interface.

- Views – The number of times your video ad was viewed.

- Viewthrough Rate – The number of views over the number of impressions.

- Clicks – The number of clicks to your site.

- Clickthrough Rate – The number of clicks over the number of impressions.

- Quartiles – This is looking at the % completion of views. It will show how many viewers watch 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your video ad. If you’re testing multiple ad variants, you can use quartile data to see how each ad is performing.

Earned Actions

As I’m sure you’re aware, whilst the kind of data discussed above is great for measuring overall traffic and top-level performance, we should also look at engagement metrics and earned actions to see how video viewers are connecting with your message in the long-term. These can be found under the Audience segment.

- Earned Views – Views of another video uploaded to your channel within 7 days, after watching your video ad.

- Earned Subscribers – A viewer of your video ad that then subscribed to your channel within 7 days.

- Earned Shares – A video ad viewer that goes on to share a video from your channel within 7 days.

- Earned Likes – When a video viewer watches a paid ad and then clicks the “Like” button on one of your videos from your channel.

As TrueView is charged on a cost-per-view (CPV) rate, any additional engagement with your ad, be it clicks to site, channel subscribers, earned views and more, are all absolutely free!

Google Analytics

Finally, don’t forget about our old friend GA and the depth of reporting this platform can offer, especially looking at the longer-term impact of your YouTube activity. As mentioned at the start, the Google Analytics video reporting capabilities have been much improved recently. There is a handy “Video Campaigns” sub-category under Acquisition > AdWords that segments your video campaigns from your other AdWords campaigns. Here you can look at engagement metrics like Bounce Rate, New Visitors and Pages per Visit. This is where you can start to see the quality of traffic your video campaigns are driving to site.

For example, if bounce rates are high, perhaps landing page testing would be a good idea, or analysing the targeting types that bring through poor quality traffic and potentially excluding these groups in the future.

Another key area to look at in Google Analytics are Multi-Channel Funnels (found under the Conversions category). This will allow you to see the different touch points a user has with your online advertising and how video fits into this overall. You can then begin to allocate budget accordingly across your different online marketing channels. As YouTube often works best for brand awareness, you will be able to see if users are initially seeing your video ad, then returning via another channel to convert.

Parting Thoughts

Before starting to create your YouTube campaigns, make sure you decide what your key performance indicators will be:

- If you want to gain a bigger YouTube following, looking at social metrics like Channel Subscribers and Earned Views would be key.

- If you are looking for actual site engagement, clicks through to site and metrics like bounce rate, time on site and pages per visit would be best to analyse.

- If you are after conversions on site (e.g. a purchase), it would be your eCommerce conversion rate and total revenue. It is definitely worth noting here that YouTube advertising (excluding remarketing), falls under the Display umbrella so it’s going to do more for brand awareness than direct response conversions.

Remarketing via AdWords for Video is another great way to keep your existing audience base engaged across multiple channels. Make sure you don’t forget to use video remarketing lists for your regular Google Display Network remarketing too! My colleague, Rich, wrote a blog post looking at this in more detail so have a read for more information.

As I mentioned earlier, I would always recommend looking at all relevant metrics for your business when optimising and analysing your video campaigns as this will give you a more holistic view of your campaign performance. This analysis, combined with the continual refinement and expansion approach that we love here at Periscopix, ensures that we focus on driving the most relevant and qualified traffic to engage with your video ad and to click through to site. Get in touch with us today to chat about your online video advertising potential!

To view the blog as written by Anna Shirley on Periscopix's website, please click here.