How to Measure YouTube Performance? [2024]

In August 2024, Cristiano Ronaldo broke another astonishing record in his career. But this time, it wasn’t about scoring the most goals in a single season or winning another trophy at the age of 39. The legendary athlete broke the world record for the fastest YouTube channel to hit one million subscribers. He did it in just 90 minutes! Knowing Cristiano’s work ethic & popularity, I am sure he’ll break more YouTube performance records!

YouTube performance refers to a YouTube channel’s overall impact and effectiveness in reaching and engaging its target audience. In addition to key metrics like views, watch time, and engagement, it covers broader factors like brand awareness, recognizability, and influence within a specific niche. 

Let’s make it clear – there’s only one Cristiano Ronaldo, and (forgive my honesty) it’s unlikely you’ll see your YouTube channel rise to such a meteoric height.

However, you don’t need to hit a million subscribers in 90 minutes to make your channel succeed and be happy with your YouTube performance.

So, how to measure your YouTube performance and ensure you’re on the right track?

Let’s dive in!

What is YouTube performance?

As stated in the green frame above, YouTube performance is a broader concept than YouTube metrics. It’s time to underline the difference.

YouTube metrics are the specific data points used to measure the performance of an individual video or an entire channel. These metrics include watch time, views, and audience retention.

In other words, YouTube metrics help you track how well your content is doing in terms of audience interaction and reach within the platform.

Now, while metrics provide raw numbers, YouTube performance goes beyond. It reflects your channel’s ability to make a lasting impact, build a community, and drive sustainable growth.

Measuring your YouTube performance is necessary to:

• Know the overall influence of your YouTube efforts;
• Discovering how your channels strengthen your brand awareness;
• Understand your target audience and its loyalty;
• Create a recognizable presence within your industry.

Simply put, metrics tell you what’s happening, but performance tells you why it matters.

So, while tracking metrics is important, true YouTube success comes from understanding the bigger picture.

All right, but how to do it in practice? Let’s skip to the second part.

How to measure YouTube performance?

01 Master YouTube metrics

Imagine your overall YouTube performance as a path to mastery in martial arts.

Such a path requires patience, consistency, and a focus on learning different hits and kicks step by step. Only this way you’ll finally get a black belt.

Just like in karate or kung-fu, mastering YouTube performance requires dedication and focus on key elements.

First, you must know the basics. Your primary “hits and kicks” are YouTube metrics like watch time, engagement, sentiment analysis, or audience retention.

Learn them well before moving to more advanced techniques (which, in your case, are YouTube performance strategies).

Read our article about YouTube metrics first to get a solid understanding of the basics.

02 Know your social media and non-social reach

Okay, let’s suppose you already mastered YouTube analytics and are ready to earn your black belt.

So, if I were you, I would start by analyzing your social media and non-social sources reach.

Social media reach tells you how many users across social platforms have seen content mentioning your YouTube channel.

Analogically, non-social reach refers to the number of users who might have encountered your YouTube channel name in online sources like news sites, blogs, podcasts, forums, etc.

Why is it important for your YouTube performance?

Because your presence outside of YouTube plays a crucial role in your channel’s growth.

Expanding your reach beyond YouTube helps build brand awareness and attract new viewers who may have yet to discover you.

The more people bump into your content on different platforms, the more likely they will visit your channel and engage with your videos.

Besides, YouTube’s algorithm favors videos that receive high engagement shortly after publishing them.

Therefore, cross-platform sharing leads to increased online visibility on YouTube, raising the likelihood that your videos will be recommended to new viewers.

Thanks to measuring social media and non-social reach, you will find out:

• How effective your cross-promotion strategies are across different platforms.
• Which online sources bring your content the most reach, helping you understand your key external influence boosters.
• Which social platforms are driving more interest and traffic to your YouTube videos, giving you insights into which of them should you focus on further.

And how to measure your social & non-social reach in practice?

The best way is to use a tool designed for media monitoring. Period.

Why am I so confident?

Because media monitoring tools allow you to track brand mentions, keywords, and conversations about your YouTube activity across social and non-social channels from one single dashboard.

A great example of such a tool is Brand24. Its primary strength is that Brand24 monitors literally all the most important social and non-social sources:

• Social platforms – YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, Telegram, and Twitch;
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, video sites, podcasts, review platforms, newsletters & other websites.

As a picture is worth a thousand words, let me show you an example.

Below, you can see the chart presenting the volume and reach of mentions for the channel “The Slow Mo Guys”.

Frankly, the channel doesn’t attract many mentions. What’s significant is that those few mentions have a really significant reach!

I checked them carefully, and it turned out that the channel’s content is shared by influential profiles. For example, Rainmaker1973 has over 2 million followers.

In such a case, “The Slow Mo Guys” channel benefits significantly from being shared by influential profiles.

This highlights an important lesson: in the case of YouTube performance, the quality of mentions often matters more than quantity.

03 Utilize User-Generated Content

Another great way to enhance your YouTube performance is through User-Generated Content (UGC). What’s that?

In short, UGC refers to any content created by your viewers or fans about your brand or YouTube channel.

These could be videos and YouTube shorts that are directly about you or just occasional mentions about your brand.

Why is UGC important for your YouTube performance?

First of all, it builds authentic engagement.

When viewers create content inspired by your channel or brand, it proves an active interest and dedication, encouraging others to interact with your videos.

This organic buzz is often more impactful than any type of self-promotion because it reflects authentic viewer enthusiasm.

Secondly, User-Generated Content creates a community-driven environment where your audience feels like they are part of something bigger.

When your viewers actively create content mentioning your brand, they become actively interested in your success. Overall, it guarantees a long-term engagement.

How to encourage others to create User-Generated Content?

• Engage with your audience. Respond to comments, run challenges, and praise viewers who create content around your videos.
• Create shareable moments. Include interactive elements in your videos, like call-to-actions asking for viewer opinions or reactions.
• Leverage social media. Encourage your followers on other platforms to create content related to your YouTube channel and feature the best submissions.

Fine, but is there any way to follow all the UGCs that mention your brand?

Fortunately – yes!

The abovementioned Brand24 allows you to track and analyze all types of public brand (channel) mentions, including User-Generated Content.

Again, let me show you it in practice. Our case study would be the official LEGO channel.

When you’re on the Brand24’s Mentions tab, you can apply relevant filters to see only the UGC mentions:

• Choose the desired platform by setting the domain filter (i.e., youtube.com);
• Exclude your own content in the author filter (“{not}LEGO”);
• Apply the “Popular first” filter to see the most influential User-Generated Content.

Following these steps, you’ll discover the top UGC boosting your brand visibility.

04 Understand your audience

If I had to choose one factor that makes or breaks YouTube performance, it would be your ability to build relationships with real people.

After all, creating content that resonates with your viewers is key to maintaining engagement, building loyalty, and driving long-term growth.

Understanding your audience is essential to:

• Create content (and, more broadly, your overall brand strategy) that answers their needs, preferences, and interests;
• Adjust your messaging, such as the sense of humor, wording, examples you use, and even the language.

When it comes to YouTube, you can easily check your audience insights in a YouTube Studio dashboard.

You will find data about your viewers’ geographical distribution, age, gender, and other detailed information there.

05 Regularly check your Presence Score

Last but not least, it’s always good to keep your finger on the pulse and check if your YouTube efforts really support your online presence.

There are many complicated ways to do it. Honestly, I’m all for simplifying difficult things. We have enough on our plates, don’t you think?

So, the easiest way to understand the effectiveness of your YouTube efforts in terms of your overall presence is to check the Presence Score. If you find an easier one – please, text me on LinkedIn!

Back to Presence Score, it’s an internal Brand24 metric that combines two essential elements: your brand (or channel) mentions volume and reach.

Essentially, it gives you a snapshot of how visible your YouTube channel is across the web, both in terms of how frequently it’s mentioned and how far those mentions are spreading.

Thanks to measuring Presence Score, you will find out:

• What’s the effectiveness of your cross-platform marketing and promotional efforts;
• Benchmark your YouTube performance against niche competitors.

Below, you can see the Presence Score for LEGO. Obviously, the famous Danish toy manufacturer is doing a great job!

Not surprising at all. Like many adults, I miss the times when I built LEGO Star Wars sets.

Conclusion

Trying to grow a channel and brand without measuring YouTube performance is like navigating without a map – you may make progress, but it will be slower and less effective.

Remember, though, that the whole process goes beyond just counting views and likes. 

Because YouTube performance is about creating lasting impact, building a loyal audience, and understanding the value of every mention your channel gets. 

By mastering YouTube metrics, expanding your reach, understanding your audience, encouraging user-generated content, and knowing the real impact of your efforts on your online presence, you set yourself up for long-term success. 

Final thoughts:

• Focus on quality engagement over quantity of mentions.
• Tools like Brand24 can help you stay on top of your performance across platforms.
• Stay consistent, but don’t be afraid to adapt to changes in your audience’s behavior.
• Always adjust your strategy based on real data, not assumptions.

Think strategically about your YouTube performance. Start Brand24’s free trial now!