Prerequisites

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: Content Manager access
2. For non-Brand accounts: Owner access
   

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 + New Data Source.
4. Select Google 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.
   
   

Power My Analytics cannot make any changes to your YouTube account. This is a Google requirement for data sharing.

Creating a Looker Studio Report

1. After adding YouTube Analytics as a data source, go to Reports > Looker Studio in your PMA hub
2. Select YouTube Analytics under Create Looker Studio Report (this will open the official Looker Studio application in a new window)
3. Google Looker 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
   

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

Limitations and Important Considerations

1. Backfilling: YouTube's terms of service require that we store data for only 30 days.
2. Data delay: There is a 48-hour data delay imposed by Google's YouTube Analytics API to ensure quality data.
3. Impressions: Ad Impressions and Card Impressions are available, but other impression metrics are unavailable.
4. 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