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Ever wonder who is looking at your YouTube videos? Now you can. Well, not exactly who is looking at them, but an idea of where your videos are most popular.
Google’s video-sharing site yesterday launched YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables users, partners and advertisers that have a YouTube account to peep statistics about the videos they upload.
Those who upload videos — we’ll call them uploaders — can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market. Insights also lets uploaders divine how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.
YouTube said in a blog post it will be making new features, such as a specific breakdown of how viewers found a video, available fairly soon. Here is a sample Insight:
Such a tool might not mean much to the typical college dorm room video vamp, but Insights can be incredibly helpful in helping an advertiser use viewing trends to better target ads they pair with videos.
“Partners can evaluate metrics to better serve and understand their audiences, as well as increase ad revenue,” wrote YouTube Product Manager Tracy Chan in a blog post. “And advertisers can study their metrics and successes to tailor their marketing — both on and off the site — and reach the right viewers.”
What may be helpful now will eventually become necessary and vital as the market for online video ads takes off, particularly on social networks, where selling ads remains a challenge.
Digital video ads, along with socially-targeted mobile ads, are expected to reap great rewards for advertisers in the near future, particularly as traditional paid links activity starts to taper off from the desktop.
Besides, Google already offers Google Analytics for its paid link advertisers and would be doing a disservice to advertisers who want to leverage the incredibly viral venue of YouTube to make money.
For now, uploaders can find current metrics by clicking under the “About this Video” button under My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos.