YouTube Insight Offers Analytical Tools

By: Jennifer Hong
Published: Jul 19, 2008
Updated: Mar 18, 2010

The YouTube analytical tools offers to help video creators analyze and chart the popularity of uploaded video-sharing clips.

YouTube's analytics service is free and lets video creators view a glimpse of important chronological and demographic audience trends after they upload their videos to the site.

"Whether a YouTube video has 10 views or 10 million, people always want to know the same thing: Who's watching this? Where do viewers come from? How did they find my video?," according to the YouTube blog, a unit of Google Inc.

In addition, the new set of tools will allow video authors to measure and calculate how much money they could earn by running ads featured alongside their videos.

In February, YouTube had an incredible 269 million monthly unique visitors, up 84 percent from the same month a year ago, according to Web traffic measurement firm comScore Inc.

The analytics service provides aggregate data on viewer behavior for anyone who uploads their own videos to YouTube, as well as advertisers looking to place advertising on the site.

Previously, YouTube offered video creators basic tools for tracking how many comments viewers make on their videos, average viewer ratings and the ultimate ranking of a clip relative to all other YouTube videos. Insight provides context on where viewers come from and when viewers watched a relevant video posting.

Advertisers can also use the tools to receive some basic measures of certain videos they might run ads against, prospects for new marketing opportunities, and determine what return on their investments they receive.