YouTube is looking to lean further into TV screen viewing with new data in YouTube Analytics that will detail how many of your viewers are seeing your content on their larger screens.
As explained by YouTube, ‘living room impressions’ will start to appear in YouTube Analytics from this week:
“So what this means is that impressions derived from sources like TV and gaming consoles will start to appear in your Analytics count.”
Connected TV viewing is currently YouTube’s fastest rising viewer category, with the COVID lockdowns around the world pushing people to seek out new forms of home entertainment – which has also seen platforms like Disney+ and Netflix increase their market presence.
According to YouTube, over 120 million people in the US streamed YouTube on their home TV screens in December alone, underlining a significant shift in viewing behaviors. That also presents new opportunities for advertisers, essentially providing TV-like ad campaigns with advanced digital targeting, and at far lower costs.
The growth of connected TV viewing could make this kind of ad reach far more accessible, which is definitely something to watch for all brands looking to maximize their video ad reach.
The new metrics will provide more insight on this, and could point to new opportunities in the app.
In addition to this, YouTube has also now rolled out its update to new and returning viewer stats to all creators.
That will provide more insight into audience retention, which could further guide your YouTube content strategy.
YouTube has added a range of new metric updates in YouTube Studio over the past year, and these new data points provide more tracking options to help optimize and maximize your video efforts.
But the connected TV viewing data could be particularly relevant. As more people watch YouTube on their TV sets, that could change the way your approach video creation, with an expanded screen view providing additional considerations in your process.
And if you can reach your audience on the more engaging, larger screen – the central entertainment focus of the home – that could become an even more important in your brand-building process.
