suggested videos

I’m a tremendous fan of YouTube. There are many reasons why, and I’m thrilled to explore them as part of a two-post series. Perhaps the most striking reason is the screenshot below from one of my personal YouTube accounts (not my PPC Ian one, but another account). This report (from YouTube’s amazing video analytics) demonstrates the ways in which viewers arrived at my YouTube videos. Before looking at my YouTube analytics, I naturally assumed those watching my videos would find them:

Embedded on my website (the particular channel in question is related to a high-volume website, and most videos are embedded)
Searching on YouTube
Searching on Google (since YouTube videos are embedded in the organic search results)

While all three of these are driving video views, the number one way in which people are finding my videos is a surprising one: YouTube suggested videos. Out of my 5,888 video views in the last 30 days, 4,090 are from suggested videos (that’s 69.5%)!

What are suggested videos? At the end of a YouTube video, you will oftentimes see a matrix of suggested videos, those of similar topical matter (or closely-related topical manner). Those watching YouTube videos typically watch a series of videos and they find the next one of interest by following YouTube’s suggestions.

It’s almost like watching TV. You’ll be sitting there watching a channel. All of the sudden, you get bored and start changing the channel. You don’t just watch one show, you watch multiple. Since YouTube videos are short, one can expect the average viewer to watch many clips in a row. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, but I would have never guessed this going in!

So, we’ve established that I get a lot of video views from suggested videos, but why does this matter? Why does it make me a tremendous fan of YouTube? It’s easy: This is a brand new customer acquisition media channel.

I’m always looking for new channels, new ways of reaching users/potential customers. I’ve got organic search and paid search covered. If most of my YouTube traffic was coming from Google organic results, for example, I don’t see that as truly incremental. However, I view these suggested videos as incremental. It’s a media channel I’m really not getting at any other way. For this reason, I’m even more of a fan of YouTube than I was before. Stay tuned, in part 2 of this post, I’ll share more interesting nuances and thoughts around why YouTube is so important for your marketing program.