Top 5 YouTube Metrics To Track When Starting Out

Phillip Hughes
6 min readFeb 8, 2023

YouTube is the second-largest search engine on the planet.

That’s not a surprise as it’s owned by Google.

Statistics show that there are 2.56 billion monthly active YouTube users worldwide. And that 62% of users in the U.S. access the platform daily. Those numbers make my head hurt.

This makes YouTube such an amazing platform to share videos and “shorts”.

You can create educational content, and entertaining videos, you’re only limited by your imagination.

Because the barrier of entry to use the platform is so low, the competition is fierce. It can be tough to build up an audience on YouTube, putting your heart and soul into a video. Only to watch it crash and burn and get zero views is gut-wrenching.

YouTube Analytics — Reaching Your Audience

You have launched your YouTube channel. Planned out, created and published some amazing videos.

Making sense of the analytics section of your YouTube channel may not be as rewarding.

YouTube’s analytics dashboard isn’t the worse one by far. But it isn’t easy to get to and like other dashboards, it throws a lot of data at you. It can be difficult to figure out what to start looking at.

Once you have started building up a following on YouTube. And are publishing videos on a consistent basis. You need to keep the momentum going. You can’t afford to spend too much time looking into how people have interacted with each video.

This is where Elementary Analytics comes in.

You need to keep an eye on Instagram insights. Helping you see how your posts and campaigns are increasing your followers. In turn, driving traffic to your website.

Top 5 YouTube Channel Analytics To Track

You’ve planned out the videos you’re going to create over the next few months.

“How do I know if my marketing plan is working?”

I was involved in an app-based start-up a good few years ago. YouTube was one of the platforms that started working really well for us. We were posting regular content to engage people and see what sorts of videos and content worked best for us.

Here are the 5 metrics I looked at when reviewing YouTube Channel Analytics. As long as the numbers were going in an upwards direction. For the first few months at least, I was happy.

Views

The Views metric is a measure of the number of times a user has viewed videos on a YouTube channel.

This helps you to understand the popularity and reach of your channel. As well as its ability to engage and keep viewers.

For example, if a channel has received 10,000 views over the past month. That would mean that the videos on that channel have been viewed 10,000 times over the course of a month.

This can help you understand the reach and popularity of your content. Providing valuable insights into what types of videos are resonating with your audience.

Views help you to understand the reach and popularity of a channel and its content.

Likes

The Likes metric refers to the number of times viewers have liked a video on a YouTube channel.

A “like” is a way for viewers to show that they enjoyed the content and would like to see more like it.

For example, if a video on a channel has received 100 likes. It means that 100 viewers liked the video and want to see more content like it from that channel. This helps you to understand what type of content is resonating with your audience and to create more of it.

In simple terms. The Likes metric is a measure of the number of times viewers have indicated they liked a particular video on your YouTube channel.

It provides valuable insight into the popularity and engagement of a channel’s content.

Subscribers Gained

The Subscribers Gained metric refers to the number of new subscribers a YouTube channel has acquired over a certain period of time.

Subscribers are people who have chosen to follow a particular channel. And will receive notifications when new videos are published by that channel.

For example, if a channel has gained 100 subscribers in the last month. 100 new people have chosen to follow that channel and receive notifications when new videos are published.

This means more subscribers means more potential views for each video. And a more engaged audience.

Comments

This metric refers to the number of comments left by viewers on a particular video on a YouTube channel.

Comments allow viewers to engage with the content and provide feedback.

For example, if a video on a channel has received 50 comments. It means that 50 viewers took the time to leave a comment and engage with the content.

This helps you as it provides insight into the level of engagement and interest that your content is generating.

Shares

The Shares metric refers to the number of times a video on a YouTube channel has been shared by viewers.

Sharing allows viewers to share a video on other social media platforms. Which can help to increase the reach and visibility of the video and channel.

For example, if a video on a channel has been shared 10 times. It means that 10 viewers found the content so valuable, entertaining, or interesting that they chose to share it with others.

This provides you insights into the level of engagement and interest that the content is generating. And can help to increase the reach and visibility of the channel.

Viewing Your Top 5 YouTube Channel Metrics

It can be a pain viewing these YouTube metrics using their analytics dashboard.

Even more so, if, like me, you have a couple of channels that you want to keep an eye on. To see what the traffic is like in the early stages of promotion.

This was one of the reasons I started building Elementary Analytics. I wanted a cut-down and very specific view of my YouTube channel stats.

“Elementary” Or Simplified View Of Your YouTube Channel Metrics

With our dashboard, you can view your top 5 YouTube channel metrics on a single widget. Creating as many widgets as you need for the channels where you would like to view information.

Below is a screenshot of the last 30 days’ stats for elementaryanalytics.com.

The widget gives a total of 4 YouTube channel metrics over the past thirty days. These metrics are page views, likes, subscribers gained, and comments.

There is also an indicator highlighting if a specific metric has increased or decreased compared to the previous thirty days.

A graph breaks down the 6 key YouTube channel metrics by day. As you can see, we had a few good days in terms of views and likes. There is also a slightly more detailed view if you click the ‘View detailed breakdown’ link within the widget.

Conclusion

In conclusion, tracking the right YouTube channel metrics can have a major impact on the success of any digital marketing efforts.

By understanding the five main YouTube channel metrics discussed in this post, you can make sure that your digital marketing campaigns are well-informed and targeted towards the right people.

This, in turn, will help you make the most of your digital marketing efforts and reach your desired goals.

Elementary Analytics is the perfect tool to make sense of your data and gain deeper insights.

Our 14-day free trial makes it easy to get started.

Simply sign up today and start to take advantage of the powerful features Elementary Analytics offers. With our easy-to-use dashboard, you don’t have to waste time trying to navigate YouTube’s analytics dashboard. Elementary Analytics provides better reporting options, more accurate data, and automation to make your life easier.

Try out our 14-day trial today and see for yourself why Elementary Analytics is the best choice for data analysis and data-driven decision-making.

We guarantee you won’t regret it.

So you can easily see how your traffic is growing on your channel.

Originally published at https://elementaryanalytics.com on February 8, 2023.

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Phillip Hughes

Tech entrepreneur and side hustler. Founder of elementaryanalytics.com and baitcamp.net. Loves fishing. Plays guitar. Enjoys exercise.