One weak point with YouTube is that their viewer analytics are very poor. Especially since the videos can be embedded in any other site, having a good grasp of who views your videos will allow you to target your message directly to them. With poor analytics, it requires a lot of guessing and intuition. However, with a good analytics package, you have data that can help guide your decisions.
A good analytics package for video needs to show you:
- Where your viewers are from
- Their demographic information
- What site they were on when they watched your video
- Any interaction they had with your video
- How long they watched the video
- If they watched your video from the “Related Videos” field, you also should know what video they came from and what video they went to.
- What searches the user did to get to your video (whether that search was in YouTube or Google, etc.)
- Integrate with your other analytics packages, such as Google Analytics
YouTube Insight Screenshot
Some of this information is already in YouTube Insight, which is YouTube’s tightly held analytics system. However, some of the most valuable information (such as search results and related videos) are not in place yet.
Also, integration with Google Analytics or other analytics packages is not yet available.
Here’s the good news:
It looks like YouTube is beginning to take their analytics tool seriously and has started to improve it:
“One of the things we’re looking to do going forward is to provide people Insight information where and how they want it,” said Tracy Chan, a YouTube product manager, in an interview.
“Right now you have to log into YouTube to get the information, but we’re working on servicing that need of getting the information where and when you want it. That’s something we’ve heard loud and clear from our users,” he added.
One of the improvements that YouTube has recently made was adding the Community tab to Insight. This allows you to see, at-a-glance, the number of ratings, comments, and other interaction with your videos.
YouTube is sitting on a gold-mine of analytics data. This data will do nothing but help marketers and video publishers best position their videos, and help them deliver content specific for the people that are watching their videos.
Keep a close eye on what YouTube does with Insight. I know that I will be.
-Kris
Technorati Tags: video analytics, youtube, youtube insight
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