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As the world’s largest video-sharing social platform with over 2 billion active monthly users, YouTube is the place to be if you’re looking to grow your company’s video presence and introduce your products to new audiences.
However, the competition on YouTube is fiercer than it’s ever been.
To make your brand stand out, outperform your competitors, and learn how to optimize your videos based on audience preferences, you need data… and you need lots of it.
Fortunately, we have the statistics that will keep you on the right track.
After talking to X companies about the way they leverage their YouTube channels, we compiled all of the most relevant insights into one comprehensive report.
Using these insights, you can further optimize your current strategies, develop new ones, and get a sense of how others are performing and whether you’re lagging behind in any areas.
Let’s dive in.
Educational and explainer videos are great for providing valuable industry information, solving a problem, or answering a question for the viewer.
Sharing knowledge is generally a great way to build trust and credibility on YouTube, especially if you’re a business with a very niche audience.
And according to our survey, respondents most frequently post educational and explainer videos on YouTube.
Expert recommendation: If you’re frequently posting educational content, make sure to test different video lengths. Test 20-minute videos, 5-minute videos, and even 30-second shorts. It’s possible that some of your ideal prospects won’t have time to watch longer videos, but will be attracted to your brand with the shorts format. And vice versa.
Thumbnail, title, meta description, posting schedule… all of these factors play a role when it comes to your video engagement.
However according to our respondents, video quality is what has the biggest impact on engagement.
Video quality includes resolution, production value, and aesthetics, among other things. High-quality visuals and audio make the experience more enjoyable and can help retain viewers.
However, it’s important to note that video quality alone won’t guarantee engagement if your content itself isn’t something they can resonate with.
Another huge metric that video quality has the biggest impact on is the lead conversion rate.
Expert recommendation: Want to assess the engagement of your videos properly, but you always end up spending hours in YouTube’s Manager interface? There’s an easier way to do it – just download our free YouTube Watch Time Dashboard Template. Here, you can pull up your most relevant YT engagement metrics and track them in one place, in real-time as changes occur.
YouTube thumbnails serve as the first visual representation of your video to potential viewers, which makes them critical.
They’re the first thing people notice when browsing YouTube and you need to make sure they do a good job of standing out and selling the click.
Unsurprisingly, our respondents say that the thumbnail has the biggest impact on video play rate.
Expert recommendation: Once you find a winning thumbnail design, template it and stick with it for a while. If your viewers enjoyed your previous videos and they recognize your thumbnail design in the future, they will be far more likely to click. Plus, it adds messaging and brand consistency, which will help you stand out in the sea of content.
Short-form videos have been dominating social networks in 2023, with an increasing number of users spending more time on them each month.
And when it comes to short formats, the best working short video app is TikTok. Instagram Reels received the second-highest number of votes at 27.12%, and YouTube Shorts came in third at 15.25%.
It’s not much of a surprise that TikTok still stands as the king of short format. However, it lacks YouTube’s versatility.
With both long-form and short-form video content, YouTube is a one-stop platform for a wide range of content creators, influencers, and business channels.
Expert recommendation: If short video content is one of your marketing strategies, give all platforms a go. You can repurpose the content for TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. This way, you’ll cast a wider net and get more organic views than by only focusing on a single network. Plus, you’ll see which platform is rewarding you with the most organic views so you can adjust your strategies accordingly.
While viral content doesn’t always equal “content that sells”, it does help you tremendously with raising brand awareness and potentially getting new leads into your awareness funnel.
But what type of videos should you create if your goal is to go viral?
Well, according to the respondents we talked to, funny videos have the best chance of going viral. This is followed by challenge videos and prank videos.
Expert recommendation: One of the best tactics to leverage to make your videos go viral is to marry controversy and trending topics. And this doesn’t mean being controversial just for the sake of it. You want to explain your perspective in detail and hook the audience with a good thumb-stopper. To further boost your odds of going viral, make controversial content about something that’s currently trending in your industry.
Creating a viral YouTube video is challenging. It involves a combination of factors and there’s no guaranteed formula for success.
The difficulty level can vary widely depending on your niche, content, target audience, and current platform trends.
When it comes to the respondents we talked to, about 42% of them shared they have 1 to 5 videos that have gone viral. Nearly 37% stated that they don’t have any videos gone viral.
Expert recommendation: How often do you look for video inspiration outside your niche? Oftentimes, you can get fresh ideas and model channels that aren’t necessarily in your niche to create content that’s likely to go viral. For example, you can break down the strategy of popular YouTubers like Mr. Beast and see what elements you can apply to your own videos to give them an engagement injection.
The responsibility for creating and managing YouTube content can vary widely based on a company’s size, resources, audience, type of content, and overall marketing strategy.
Many bigger companies have in-house content creation teams responsible for managing their channel. These teams include content creators, video editors, graphic designers, and marketing specialists who work together to produce and promote content.
Others may choose to outsource their YouTube channel management to external agencies or freelancers. The biggest benefit of this is that it’s more cost-effective, especially for companies that lack the resources to handle video production in-house.
But which model is more popular?
According to our survey, companies manage their YouTube content mostly by themselves – from video ideas to production and advertising.
Expert recommendation: Instead of the standard “meet the team” type of content, you should test educational videos that showcase your staff’s expertise. With this type of content, the audience is actually learning something and they’re starting to develop a sense of trust with your brand after seeing some of the faces working in the organization and their expertise on a specific subject.
Over the past few months, Google has increased its video recommendations to users if the algorithm finds that it matches their search intent.
But say that both Google and YouTube rank a specific video on the first page… which platform will generate more views?
A bit over half of our respondents think that Google beats YouTube when it comes to video views in this type of scenario.
Expert recommendation: When it comes to SEO, it’s critical that you have all of your most important metrics organized for better monitoring and analysis. But if you’re doing things manually, this is easier said than done. Download our free Semrush Keyword & Organic Traffic Dashboard template and build a place where you can track all of your most relevant SEO insights together.
P.S. We have 100+ integrations, the dashboard isn’t limited to Semrush.
The frequency at which a business should post new videos on YouTube can vary depending on several factors – your target audience, content type, available resources, and more. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.
But it is key to establish a posting schedule and stick to it, whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Your audience should know when to expect new content.
When asked about consistency, most of our respondents stated that they post new videos to their business YouTube channels on a weekly basis.
Expert recommendation: Running out of new content ideas? See if there are any questions your customers are having that slipped by unanswered. Research what other businesses cover in their FAQ sections, analyze different keywords, conduct surveys, and talk to them… you should be able to find at least several fresh topics that they’ll be interested in hearing about from your perspective.
According to our survey, the biggest challenge for 50% of our respondents is consistently producing high-quality content. Another major issue is attracting new subscribers to the channel.
This doesn’t come as a huge surprise – after all, producing quality content that does a good job engaging an audience is complex regardless of your budget and resources.
Expert recommendation: If you’re having a rough time attracting new traffic to your You Tube channel, maybe it could be a good idea to tap into someone else’s through partnerships. Reach out to other YouTube channels in your industry that are in the same (or complementary) niche and see if you could make a guest appearance on their channel (and offer one back). This way, both of you are introduced to a new audience that has already shown interest in similar products and services that you offer.
To find out what types of video content perform best with your audience, you may track video engagement metrics such as watch time, number of views, likes and dislikes of each video individually using a variety of tools, including YouTube itself.
Now you can quickly monitor your video content performance in a single dashboard that monitors fundamental metrics, such as:
Now you can benefit from the experience of our video marketing experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template showing the most important metrics for measuring your YouTube channel performance. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your YouTube account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
Running and managing a company YouTube channel is far from easy and there are lots of different mistakes you’ll inevitably make along the way.
For our respondents, the biggest mistake a company’s YouTube channel can make is inconsistency in its content and voice.
Consistency helps set expectations for your audience. When viewers know what to expect from your channel, they are more likely to subscribe and return for future content.
Plus, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm tends to favor channels that release content on a regular schedule.
Expert recommendation: To avoid any inconsistencies with your content and messaging, it’s crucial that you have a proper content strategy and plan in place. If you’re just “winging it” and creating videos week after week with no clear goal, plan, or operating procedure, inconsistencies are bound to happen at one point.
For any type of business that wants to do video marketing, YouTube is a natural solution if you plan on publishing medium to longer videos.
Unlike with the reels format, YouTube videos aren’t forgotten after a single swipe down – with proper SEO, you can generate views on the same content for years to come.
The majority of the respondents we surveyed stated that YouTube is either a crucial or very important marketing channel for their business.
Expert recommendation: One low-hanging fruit opportunity for getting more traffic to your YT channel is to find more places where you can embed your videos. Whether it’s your own website or in the form of a guest post on someone else’s, more embedding can get you a lot more eyeballs and it’s good for SEO.
Just like with any type of content, the way you hook your audience at the beginning will dictate whether or not they continue going through your content.
You need a strong opening in your videos – without one, even if the rest of your video is top-notch, the audience won’t be persuaded to continue watching it.
According to our surveyed companies, making an eye-catching intro is the best way to improve YouTube’s average view duration.
Expert recommendation: Another great way to make sure viewers stick around is to promise some kind of special insight or information that will come near the end of the video. Something along the lines of “I’m going to first walk you through X, and if you stick around, you’ll see why Y is something you should pay attention to in the following months”. This way, you build intrigue and get more people to stay until the end.
Tags help your videos appear in search results and recommendations on YouTube.
When viewers search for content related to the YouTube tags you’ve used, your video has a better chance of showing up, which can increase the visibility of your content.
Tags also help YouTube categorize and understand the content of your video, making it easier for the platform to suggest your video to users interested in similar content.
Almost 3/4 of surveyed companies use up to 10 tags per video.
Expert recommendation: Using multiple tags is great – but make sure you don’t overdo it and just stuff keywords there for the sake of it. This is a bad SEO practice and it can end up having a counter-effect with YouTube not recommending your videos to prospects even if the content itself is what they’re looking for.
From sharing case studies and success stories to educating their audience with informative webinars, there are a lot of different ways B2Bs leverage their YouTube channels, depending on their goals.
Some might use it to establish themselves as authorities in a niche, while others rely on it as a primary lead-generation channel.
When asked about their YT business channel’s primary goal, just over 40% have the primary goal of establishing thought leadership, while 39% mainly want to showcase their products and services.
And how can you reach those goals? Using How-to videos.
How-to videos were the top pick for channel owners with either goal. Half of the participants who wanted to establish thought leadership got the most success out of how-to videos.
Meanwhile, 38% of channel owners who wanted to showcase their products and services got results from how-to videos.
What’s more, most of our respondents stated that product tutorials or demonstrations attract the most subscribers to their channels.
Expert recommendation: Pump up your social repurposing if you want to accelerate the growth of your B2B YouTube channel. If you’re sharing an hour-long informative webinar, you can create up to a few dozen shorts that you can repost on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or even YT Shorts. This way, you’re getting more coverage, but also raising awareness about your channel which can lead to more subscribers.
Marketers who participated in our survey ranked “title optimization” as the second most important thing that can increase your YouTube’s CTR (next to “thumbnail optimization”).
Title and thumbnail play a crucial role in attracting viewers.
A well-crafted title and an eye-catching thumbnail can grab their attention and pique their interest, increasing the likelihood of them clicking on your video.
Just make sure that they accurately represent your content.
When viewers click on your video, they should find what they expected based on the title and thumbnail. Misleading or clickbait titles can lead to viewer dissatisfaction and decreased engagement.
Expert recommendation: When it comes to tracking your channel’s performance, there are a lot more things you need to pay attention to aside from your CTR. Average view duration, impressions, comments… but unfortunately, this isn’t the most intuitive process on YouTube. That’s why this free YouTube Channel Performance Dashboard template can help. Instead of relying on a user-unfriendly interface, why not compile all of your key performance metrics in one place and track them there in real time? You can set it up in as little as 10 minutes.
There are dozens of different metrics you can track on YouTube when assessing the performance of your channel… but with so many options, how can you know which ones to focus on?
We asked our respondents to weigh in.
When we asked them to rank YouTube KPIs from most to least important, the responses skewed definitively toward engagement-type metrics.
This is only natural seeing that they directly reflect how well your content is resonating with your audience and how effective your channel is at building a loyal and active viewership.
Expert recommendation: When picking the YouTube metrics you’ll track, keep it around 5-8. More than that and you risk overcomplicating your analysis. The only issue is that the several metrics you focus on tracking are usually scattered across different reports. And to properly analyze them, you need to spend hours compiling them, uploading them to a spreadsheet, cleaning them… Well, with our free Social Media Overview Dashboard, that’s not the case anymore. Drag and drop your most important YouTube metrics into a single dashboard and cut your analysis and reporting process down to just a few minutes.
You need to pay attention to YouTube SEO if you want to improve the visibility and ranking of your videos, attract more viewers, increase engagement, and ultimately grow your channel’s audience.
And according to our research, keyword usage is the most important aspect of YouTube SEO.
Video keyword research helps you understand what your target audience is searching for on YouTube.
By targeting the right keywords, you increase the chances of your videos showing up in relevant search results and make it easier for potential viewers to discover your content.
Expert recommendation: Just like with regular content, you need to find that length sweet spot on your YouTube videos to improve SEO. Is it a “5 Quick Tips” video? You can probably go with a short to medium-length video. If it’s an ultimate guide on a topic you have experience in, you can maybe even go to an hour of content. It’s important to also see how long the best-ranking videos on that same topic are since they already prove that YouTube’s algorithm appreciates that length.
It looks like B2C YouTube channels still outperform B2B ones when it comes to engagement-type metrics.
To be specific, we found that B2C leads in watch time, views, and average view duration.
Considering that B2C products typically have a much larger consumer base than B2B offerings, this isn’t a big surprise. B2C channels have access to a larger potential audience, which often results in more views, likes, and comments.
Expert recommendation: No matter what type of metric you’re tracking, it won’t be that helpful until you have real-world data on how your competitors are performing as well. And now, getting that data is easier than ever. If you’re a B2B business, you can join our free YouTube Benchmarks for B2B Businesses and benchmark your data instantly. We also have a free YouTube Benchmarks for B2C Businesses group for B2C companies that serves the same purpose. Or, if you want to mix in with both crowds, you can opt for our YouTube Benchmarks for All Companies free group.
If you’re looking to introduce video marketing as one of your advertising strategies, YouTube should be at the top of your list.
As the biggest long-form video content and the third most popular reels platform, it’s an ideal place to post both your hour-long webinar and short-form product demos.
But to effectively grow your YouTube channel, you need to understand your performance data.
That’s where Databox steps in.
For starters, you’ll want to focus on just a few metrics that are most relevant to your goals. Five to eight metrics is the sweet spot, with anything over ten being way too confusing for proper tracking.
Unfortunately, even when tracking just a few metrics, YouTube doesn’t make things easy on the users.
Looking for them in different reports, connecting them to a separate spreadsheet, manually creating visuals… all of this can take hours of your time.
Or, you can streamline this process and finish it in just a few minutes with Databox Dashboards.
All you have to do is connect your data source, add your key metrics to the dashboard, and then spend a few minutes visualizing them and making them more understandable for you and your team.
Then, once you have the data ready for analysis, you’ll want to get real-time insights into your competitor’s performance as well.
Which is where Benchmark Groups joins the party.
Benchmark Groups allows you to instantly see how you stack up against competition in different areas, depending on the cohort you choose.
Need to know whether your strategies are on point? Or see where there’s room for improvement?
You get answers to all of this via Benchmark Groups. Completely free.
Sign up for a free trial and see just how easy staying on top of your YouTube performance can be with Databox.
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