A YouTube Analytics Guide for Law Firm Marketers

Are you wondering who’s watching your law firm’s YouTube videos? What about which videos are performing the best? YouTube analytics can show you all that and more!

In this guide, law firm marketers will learn which YouTube metrics are important and what they mean, as well as how to use this knowledge to create better videos that get more views.

What is YouTube Analytics? 

Described by the platform’s creators as “your channel’s pulse”, YouTube analytics is a tool that enables legal marketers to gain data and insights into things like who is watching their videos, what kind of content their target audience likes, how audiences engage with videos, and which videos can translate to the most profit for the firm. 

Data found in YouTube analytics can inform your future strategy, and includes: 

• Watch Time – See the length of time people spend watching your videos, how they find them, and what they are watching on (desktop or mobile). 
  • Audience Retention – This rating compares your average view duration to your video’s length. Further divided into Absolute Audience Retention (This metric tells you what does and doesn’t engage your audience, and you can use this information to shape your future videos.) and Relative Audience Retention (This metric compares your audience retention rate to that of all other YouTube videos in the same length range as yours.)
  • Demographics – Use the YouTube analytics demographics tool to find out the age, gender and location of the people watching your videos. This is helpful for understanding trends around what’s happening with your audience and how to reach them. 
  • Playback Locations – This data shows where on the internet your viewer’s found your content. These statistics will show clicks on embedded videos, shares on other social networks and more, helpful for understanding how much of your viewership comes from outside of YouTube.
  • Traffic Sources – Just like with website traffic, it’s helpful to learn about where people discover your videos, whether that be through your website, advertising, social media, etc. 
  • Devices – Viewership broken down by desktop, mobile, tablet, gaming console, etc. 
  • Live Streaming – If you livestream video for your YouTube account, you can get both real-time metrics and, later, post-live analytics. 
  • Translations – Use this to see how many of your viewers translated your videos’ descriptions, subtitles or audio into other languages.
• Interaction Reports – Here is where you can learn more about your audience. Discover who’s watching, how many likes or dislikes are coming from your actual audience, and the engagement (likes and shares) happening with your videos. 
  • Subscribers – Including subscribers lost and gained, this data provides a clear view into your overall audience. You can also generate graphs of this data to see trends over time. 
  • Likes and dislikes – Monitoring these statistics will show you how well you’re meeting your audience’s needs over time. 
  • Videos in playlists – This interaction metric details how often your videos have been added to or removed from YouTube user playlists, including the basic “Watch later” and “Favorites” playlists.
  • Comments – This doesn’t show the actual comments, but gives you an idea of how many have been left. Responding to comments is a great way to interact with your audience so it’s good to keep track of them. 
  • Sharing – Your ultimate goal on YouTube is high share rates. The more people share your content, the larger an audience you’ll reach. You can find this number here, but remember the sharing tool only tracks shares from YouTube’s own “share” button.
  • Cards – YouTube’s latest functionality, users can use cards to add calls to action, text and images to your videos.
  • End Screens – This is the final thing viewers see when they watch your video. Unless your viewer has enabled autoplay, they’ll see an end screen of 12 videos they might want to watch next. In many cases, the videos displayed are your own, so you may want to know how often your viewers are clicking them. 
• Revenue – Not necessarily applicable for law firms but still good to know, some video producers monetize videos. For channels that choose to do so, they can see how much money they’ve earned here. 
  • Estimated Revenue – Using this tool, you can approximate how much money your company makes from all its Google-sold ads. 
  • Estimated Ad Revenue – This tool provides data pertaining solely to Google AdSense and DoubleClick ads.

How to access YouTube Analytics

Ready to dig into the data? Here’s how to access YouTube analytics. Follow these steps, and always feel free to reach out to us if you need any assistance working on any part of your firm’s video strategy. 

1. Log into your YouTube account (make sure you use your firm account rather than a personal one). 
2. Go to the YouTube homepage and click your account picture in the top right corner. In the dropdown menu, choose “YouTube Studio”. 
3. A new dashboard will appear. On the left-hand side, choose “Analytics”. 
4. In this view, you’ll find a summary of your videos’ recent views, subscribers, and watch times. Here you can adjust the period of time you want to view under “Advanced Mode” and you can also toggle between overview, reach, engagement, and audience analytics under the “Channel Analytics” header. 

Related: YouTube for Law Firms: How to Boost Video Visibility

Takeaway

Understanding your YouTube videos’ performance levels is vital to understanding how effective your efforts have been. To understand what’s working and what’s not, take time to regularly monitor the analytics available and then adjust your strategy and create more of the content your viewers love. We know there are a lot of moving pieces involved in creating compelling videos and getting them noticed, so let us know if you need any help planning, producing, or promoting your video.