As the popularity of video content rises, it is crucial for digital marketers and content creators to monitor the success of their YouTube videos. Google Analytics offers a robust platform for collecting valuable data about your videos. In this blog post, we will provide a step-by-step guide on how to track YouTube videos using Google Analytics.
Steps to Track YouTube Videos in Google Analytics
Step 1: Set up Google Tag Manager
Firstly, you need to set up Google Tag Manager (GTM) if you haven’t already. The GTM allows you to manage and deploy marketing tags (snippets of code or tracking pixels) on your website (or mobile app) without having to modify the code. Here’s the basic setup:
Sign up for a GTM account -> Create a new container for your website -> Install the GTM code on every page of your site.
Step 2: Enable Built-In Video Variables in GTM
Google Tag Manager provides built-in video variables for YouTube video tracking. You need to enable them as follows:
GTM Dashboard -> Variables -> Configure -> Check all video related variables
Step 3: Create a Trigger in GTM
Next, create a new Trigger for YouTube Video in GTM. The steps are as follows:
Triggers -> New -> Trigger Configuration -> Choose ‘YouTube Video’ -> Select the required options -> Save
Step 4: Create a Tag in GTM
Now, create a new Tag for Google Analytics as follows:
Tags -> New -> Tag Configuration -> Choose ‘Google Analytics – Universal Analytics’ -> Track Type: Event -> Fill in Category, Action, Label -> Select the trigger created in previous step -> Save
Step 5: Test and Publish in GTM
Before going live, test the setup using GTM’s preview mode. If everything is working fine, publish the changes.
Step 6: Check in Google Analytics
Finally, check in Google Analytics under Real-Time -> Events to see if the video events are being tracked.
Following the above steps will allow you to effectively track YouTube video views, how much of your videos users are watching, and where they are dropping off. This data can be extremely vital to optimizing your video content strategy.
