Adding Google Analytics to your YouTube account can provide a lot of valuable information about where your YouTube visitors are coming from and what actions they are performing on your YouTube channel. This can be particularly helpful for businesses that have video marketing campaigns, or use videos as an integral part of service delivery or information delivery to their clients.
Note that YouTube has it’s own in-program analytics feature, however you may want access this information through Google Analytics in order to tie your YouTube reports with your website reports, or access different types of information that is organized differently than it is on YouTube. It’s never a bad idea to have your Analytics information in more than one place, and you can often use the data to compliment itself across platforms.
How to Install Google Analytics on a YouTube Channel
Installing Google Analytics on your YouTube channel is very simple. Just follow the steps below:
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Sign into Google Analytics -
Create a new Google Analytics account
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Copy your Google Analytics account ID (UA-XXXXXXXX-1) and paste into a blank Notepad (or write it down)
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Add your YouTube channel URL in the Website URL field, and name the account so that is differentiated from your website account. (See the example below)
Sign into 
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Sign into your YouTube account
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Go to your YouTube Channel Advanced Settings (it can be rather difficult to find, it is much simpler to click the link, or just type youtube.com/advanced_settings into your browser)
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Paste your Google Analytics account ID (from the Notepad) into the last field on the page and click save
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Wait a day or two and your Google Analytics account will start populating with YouTube metrics
Now let’s take a look at some of the useful information that is generated by utilizing this method.
Audience > Behavior > New vs Returning – can give you a quick summary of what percentage of your channel and video views are from fans, and which are from viewers who are unfamiliar with your brand, or have never visited your YouTube channel before.
Audience > Behavior > Engagement – This report can give you a very clear idea of how long the majority of your audience is spending on your YouTube channel. If the most concentration in in the 0-10 second range, this can provide an opportunity for you to update your YouTube channel page to improve engagement, perhaps with featured videos or compelling Calls to Action.
Acquisition > All Traffic and Acquisition > All Referrals – can provide some great information about how viewers are finding your channel, either through organic search, from referral links from your website, or referral links from other websites that are linking to your channel. This can provide some great opportunities to reach out to those sites that are already linking to your YouTube channel and establish relationships for future information sharing opportunities.
Acquisition > Keywords > Paid / Organic – Although this metric is often sparse, and getting thinner by the year, it can offer some clues as to what viewers are searching for that lead them to your channel.
Of course, there are hundreds of other relevant reports that can be run using Google Analytics, these are just a few that you can begin to look at.
What is the most relevant report that you have run for your YouTube channel set up with Google Analytics?
