YouTube Analytics Data Connector User Guide

YouTube Analytics Data Connector User Guide

YouTube Analytics provides valuable insights into your channel's performance, audience engagement, and content effectiveness. This guide will walk you through the process of connecting YouTube Analytics to Power My Analytics, creating reports, and understanding key metrics. By integrating YouTube Analytics with Power My Analytics, you'll be able to automate data collection, centralize your metrics, and create customized reports to track your YouTube channel's success.


Prerequisites

Before connecting YouTube Analytics to Power My Analytics, ensure you have:
  1. A Google account with access to the YouTube channel you want to report
  2. Granted all YouTube-related Google account permissions to Power My Analytics
  3. Appropriate access to the YouTube channel:
    1. For Brand accounts: Manager or Owner access
    2. For non-Brand accounts (personal Google accounts): Owner access
  4. If you manage multiple YouTube channels through a Content Management System (CMS), have your YouTube Content Owner ID ready

Understanding YouTube Account Types

YouTube has several types of account structures. Understanding these will help you connect your account correctly:

Account Type Description Required Access
Personal Google Account A normal Google login (Gmail or Google Workspace). A YouTube channel can be owned directly by this account, or this account can be added to manage a channel. Owner access
Brand Account The channel is linked to a Google Brand Account, so multiple Google accounts can be granted roles and permissions to manage the same channel. Manager or Owner access
Content Owner Account (CMS) A partner-level setup used to manage multiple channels and rights/assets. This is common for Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs) and publishers. Requires a Content Owner ID during connection. Content Owner ID required

Note: "Manager" access for Brand Accounts is different from "Content Manager" or "Content Owner" access. Content Owner accounts are a separate partner-level CMS setup used by MCNs and publishers to manage multiple channels.

Finding Your YouTube Content Owner ID

If you manage content on behalf of multiple YouTube channels through a Content Management System (CMS), you will need your Content Owner ID during setup. To find your Content Owner ID:
  1. Go to YouTube Studio at https://studio.youtube.com
  2. Look at the URL in your browser's address bar
  3. If your URL looks like: https://studio.youtube.com/owner/AbCDE_8FghIjK?o=AbCDE_8FghIjK
  4. Then your Content Owner ID is: AbCDE_8FghIjK

    Adding YouTube Analytics as a Data Source

    1. Log in to your Power My Analytics hub.
    2. Navigate to the Sources section in the menu.
    3. Click on + Add New Source.
    4. Select YouTube Analytics from the gallery of options.
    5. Sign in to the Gmail or Google account associated with your YouTube channel.
    6. Grant Power My Analytics all YouTube-related permissions. These include:
      1. View monetary and non-monetary YouTube Analytics reports for your YouTube content
      2. View and manage your assets and associated content on YouTube
      3. Manage your YouTube account

    7. After granting permissions, a dialog will appear asking: "Do you have a YouTube Content Owner ID?"

      1. A Content Owner ID is required if you manage content on behalf of multiple YouTube channels through a Content Management System (CMS).
      2. If you do not have a Content Owner ID: Click "No, I don't have one" to continue with the standard connection.
      3. If you have a Content Owner ID: Click "Yes, I have one" to proceed to the next step.
    8. If you selected "Yes, I have one," enter your YouTube Content Owner ID in the text field provided and click Continue.

    Power My Analytics cannot make any changes to your YouTube account. This is a Google requirement for data sharing.
    InfoNote: If you are connecting a Content Owner (CMS) account, your source may initially show only one channel. All channels managed under your Content Owner ID will be collected automatically within approximately 24 hours. For more details on Content Owner accounts, see YouTube Content Manager (CMS) Guide.

    Missing Accounts or Channels in YouTube Data Source

    If an account or channel is missing from your available accounts in your connected YouTube Analytics data source, you can resolve the issue by adding a new Google account with the necessary permissions:
    1. Create a new Google Account.
    2. Log in to YouTube Creator Studio with your original Google Account.
    3. Go to Settings, then Permissions in the left menu. Click Invite in the upper-right.
    4. Add the new Google Account as a new user. Create the new user as a Manager (Owner can also be selected for brand channels). Then click Invite.
    5. Open the invite email while logged in as the new user, then accept the invitation by clicking Visit the sign-up page.
    6. Choose Use existing Google Account.
    7. Go back to your PMA hub and click on Sources, then click + Add New Source and add a new YouTube Analytics data source using the new Google account.
    This workaround creates a dedicated connection through a new Google account with Manager or Owner permissions, which can help resolve visibility issues for channels and videos that weren't appearing in your original connection.
    Note: If you are a Content Owner (CMS/MCN partner) and your channels are not appearing, ensure you have entered your Content Owner ID during the connection process. If you did not enter your Content Owner ID initially, you will need to remove the YouTube Analytics source and reconnect it, entering your Content Owner ID when prompted.

    Creating a Data Studio Report

    Follow these steps to create a Data Studio report using your YouTube Analytics data:
    1. After adding YouTube Analytics as a data source, go to Reports > Data Studio in your PMA hub
    2. Select YouTube Analytics under Create Data Studio Report (this will open the official Data Studio application in a new window)
    3. Google Data Studio Configuration:
      1. Step 1:
        1. Name your data source (e.g., "YouTube Analytics - Your Organization Name")
        2. Choose your Power My Analytics hub from the dropdown menu
        3. Optional: Leave "Use report template for new reports" checked to use the PMA demo template
        4. Click Next
      2. Step 2:
        1. User Account: Select your YouTube Analytics account (for real data) or "Sample Account" (for sample data)
        2. Click Next
      3. Step 3:
        1. Choose "Channel" for your reports
        2. Optional: Allow "Channel" modification in reports
        3. Click Connect in the top right to complete the data source configuration
      4. Step 4:
        1. Click Create Report in the top right corner
    For a quick start, use our pre-built YouTube Analytics demo template.

    Understanding How YouTube Channels Are Billed

    All channels managed by the connected Gmail/Google account will appear on the connector configuration screen:


    1. You will only be billed for channels for which a report is created.
    2. Each channel for which a report has been created will be billed as an account.

    Key Reports and Fields

    YouTube Analytics data in Power My Analytics offers a wide range of metrics and dimensions. Some popular metrics include:
    • Key Performance Metrics: Current Subscribers, Views (last 28 days), Watch time (hours) (last 28 days), Views, Comments, Likes, Dislikes
    • Channel Overview Metrics: Views, Watch Time, Subscribers Gained, Average View Duration
    • Content Metrics: Views, Watch Time, Average View Duration
    • Traffic Source Metrics: Views, Watch Time
    • Geography Metrics: Views, Watch Time, Average View Duration
    • Viewer Age Metrics: Viewer Percentage by Age Group, Views % by Viewer Age
    • Viewer Gender Metrics: Viewer Percentage by Gender
    • Date Metrics: Views, Watch Time, Average View Duration
    • Subscription Status Metrics: Views, Watch Time, Average View Duration
    • Playback Location Metrics: Views, Watch Time
    • Device Type Metrics: Views, Watch Time
    • Operating System Metrics: Views, Watch Time
    • Sharing Service Metrics: Shares
    • Videos by Privacy Status: Public, Unlisted, and Private Videos
    • Breakdowns by Creator Content Type: Views, Watch Time, and Average View Duration by Creator Content Type
    For a complete list of available YouTube Analytics fields in Power My Analytics, refer to the Schema Explorer.

    Limitations and Important Considerations

    1. Cached Data Requests with Unique Metrics and Date Dimension: When a unique metric is paired with the date dimension, this will result in a request for cached data instead of a request for live data. For more information, please see Understanding Cached and Live Data Requests.
    2. Backfilling: YouTube's terms of service require that we store data for only 30 days.
    3. Data delay: There is a 48-hour data delay imposed by Google's YouTube Analytics API to ensure quality data.
    4. Impressions: Ad Impressions and Card Impressions are available, but other impression metrics are unavailable.
    5. Time-based reports: These cannot be broken down by another dimension. As a workaround, create separate reports for time dimensions and other dimensions.

    Subscriber Reporting

    Due to YouTube’s terms of service, only the last 30 days of subscriber data can be reported in PMA. This is a limitation of YouTube’s API.
    • Reporting of subscriber data only begins from the day that you connect your YouTube account to PMA as a data source, and subscriber data from before you connected your account is not available.
    • For example, on the third day after you connect your account, 3 days of subscriber data will be available in PMA reports. After a week, 7 days of data will be available.
    • Once you have stored 30 days of subscriber data in PMA's data warehouse from your connected YouTube account, on the 31st day, the oldest day of data will no longer be warehoused by PMA in order to comply with YouTube’s terms of service. This will continue daily, with a sliding window limited to 30 days.
    Although PMA is unable to warehouse your YouTube subscriber data for longer than 30 days, PMA users have the option to store unlimited YouTube data in their own data export destinations. To store your subscriber data for longer than 30 days, use PMA’s Data Exports Addon to save your data in BigQuery or other destinations.

    Unavailable Data

    1. Realtime data
    2. Custom fields

    Show Thumbnails as Images

    To show thumbnail images in your Data Studio report:
    1. Click on the small URL icon next to the Thumbnail field.
    2. Under Type, select URL, then Image.

      The menu option in Data Studio to select images to display as thumbnails.

      YouTube Analytics Data Deletion Requests

      Delete all YouTube Analytics data from Power My Analytics

      If you would like to delete all of your YouTube Analytics data that is stored in our data warehouse, please submit a ticket to PMA customer support. Our support team will respond promptly to fulfill your request.

      Revoke PMA's access to your YouTube account

      If you would like to revoke all authorized access to your YouTube account by Power My Analytics, please follow these steps:
      1. Visit https://security.google.com/settings/.
      2. Go to "Your connections to third-party apps & services" and click "See all connections".
      3. Find "Power My Analytics" and click on it.
      4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select "Delete all connections you have with Power My Analytics", then click "Confirm".

      Troubleshooting

      See our article Troubleshooting YouTube Analytics for information on issues that may affect the YouTube Analytics connector.

      Related: Why Per-Video and Per-Post Metrics Can't Be Reported by Day (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) — why per-video metrics are lifetime totals and how to build a daily view.