How to Check Analytics on YouTube for Competitor Channels

One of the best ways of growing a YouTube channel is by studying your competitors' analytics. You can see what they are doing right by checking their metrics and using that information to grow your channel. Unfortunately, YouTube will only show your channel's analytics, not your competitor's. In this article, we will guide you on how to check analytics on competitor channels and provide the best tools to help you do that.

What Analytics on a YouTube Channel Is?

“YouTube analytics” refers to tracking data that helps you understand the performance of your channel and individual videos. By understanding these figures, you can know what is working and what isn't. This will enable you to create a strategy to grow your channel fast.

It also includes audience demographics on your YouTube audience. It will enable you to understand your subscribers and create content that meets their needs. The tool will also analyze your audience as per the demographics. With this information, you can now create a viral YouTube marketing strategy.

Ways to Check Your Analytics on YouTube

Here are the ways to follow to check your analytics on YouTube:

1. Log into your account on YouTube.
2. Go to the profile section, then tap on the right side, and choose the option for YouTube Studio.
3. Choose analytics on the dashboard for YouTube studio.
4. There, you will discover an analysis of your YouTube channel, including the reach, engagement rate, and audience response. To see more information, click on each tab.

Importance of Checking Analytics on YouTube for Competitor Channels

The process of checking other channel analytics is part of analyzing your competitors' YouTube channels. You may check out different metrics, such as the video types, posting frequency, and other parameters. So, why do you need to analyze your YouTube competitors? Here are a few reasons:

Stay ahead of the competition

One of the reasons is that it gives you important insights on what you should do to grow your channel. In a competitive YouTube environment where every channel tries to outdo the other, you need to stay ahead of the competition.

Have a benchmark for your channel

You need a benchmark to bring quantifiable changes to your channel. Looking at other channels, YouTube analytics enable you to compare the popularity of your channel with others. Then, you can get YouTube insights into what you must do to establish yourself as a trusted brand. 

Understand the right content to create

By analyzing top brands, you can see the type of content to focus on and the posting schedule. As you analyze what makes your rival's content tick, you can look into including such elements in your channel.

Understand popular trends

Checking other channels' analytics will also show popular trends your brand can join. You can choose trends that align with your brand image, enabling you to interact with your customers in a fun way. You can also check how they are using YouTube shorts to market products.

You should, therefore, understand the basics of YouTube channels to grow your channel.

Best Tools to Enable You to Discover Analytics on YouTube for Competitor Channels

As noted earlier, YouTube Analytics will show you the other channel’s metrics. Fortunately, there are third-party tools that will provide you with this data. Some of the best such tools are:

BuzzSumo

This top keyword research tool will show you what is trending and your competitors' content strategies. The data from the tool is based on the last five years. It will show your best-performing competitors from the previous year. 

This tool lets you quickly know the content your audience will like and share. Buzzsumo is used by creators and agencies and has a free/paid plan. Basically, this is what the tool offers:

• 10 free searches for the first 30 days.
• A package of $99 per month aimed at small startups and budget entrepreneurs.
• $179 per month for medium enterprises and small agencies.
• $299 per month for large agencies.

ViralStats

This plan is good for tracking, analyzing, and comparing the statistics of competitor analytics for YouTube and videos. With it, you can identify the highest ranking trends on social media and also create content ideas to jump quickly into viral trends. The tool will show you what your viewers watch on the social media space and the engagement rate with your content.

Unbox Social

This is another suitable tool with comprehensive tracking of your competition. The audience analysis tool enables you to interact with your audience. It will show you important details, such as the most critical times to create your posts for maximum engagement with your audience. While the tool has a trial that is free, you should open an account and make a payment based on your needs.

Tubular Intelligence

This is a tool that has become very popular in the recent past, mainly because it offers insights into other YouTube channels with just a few clicks. The tool will show you the most famous content and the most viewed videos. Besides, the tool can also categorize videos and content that your viewers are currently watching. The comprehensive video intelligence tools have a free and paid plan.

SocialBlade

This is another powerful tool for social media analytics that will help you analyze YouTube competitors. The tool will show you highly customized performance metrics for each channel. To analyze the analytics for competitor channels, you only need to enter the channel's name to get detailed insights into its performance.

The  tool will provide different metrics such as:

• Number of uploads
• Video views
• Subscriber counts
• Country of each channel

When you review a channel on SocialBlade, the tool will give it a rating depending on its overall performance. This can provide insights into where your competitors stand. It will show the channel's comments, ratings, subscribers, and estimated earnings. Therefore, you can look at their best-performing content to see what works and what doesn't.

YouTube Fake Subscriber Checker

This tool is powered by Hyper Auditor and provides a rating based on different factors such as creator, auditor, engagement, and credibility. While the tool leans more toward influencer audit, it can also help you discover analytics on YouTube for competitor channels. Some metrics you will see on the channel are the total number of subscribers and video views.

You will be taken to the Hyper Auditor page by clicking on the full report, which will show comprehensive reports on a channel. You will see details such as the subscriber growth rate in the last 30 days and other details such as the audience countries, gender, age, and languages. Hyper Auditor will also provide details such as reaction rate, comment rate, and like-to-comment ratio.

How to Manually Check Analytics on YouTube for Competitor Channels

Here is a plan you can use to analyze your competitor's performance manually:

Determine your main competitor

Start by identifying who your competitors are. These should be channels in the same niche as yours. Take a closer look at familiar direct and indirect competitors, especially the ones with the biggest market share. However, avoid working with a vast number as this may confuse you. Instead, pick a maximum of five channels.

Analyze the channels and their videos

After determining your key competitors, the next step is to dig deeper into their analytics. You need to look at videos and channels closely. While you cannot access their analytics page, you can look at the individual pages to better understand their branding and feelings. Some of the details to check are:

• What is the personal branding of their channels?
• What keywords are they using in the videos and descriptions?
• What approach are they using? How do the competitors promote their products? Do they use a specific pattern, such as animations, music, and CTAs?

Check the video comments

Another great place to get important information on competitor channels is through the comment section. You can understand how the audience receives the content by reading the comments. How do they respond to the content? Are there any significant gaps in their content?

Check the competitor analytics

You need to collect as much data as possible to compare your competition with your channel. Here are some of the critical data to compare:

Analytics on YouTube channel

There are lots of channel analytics you need to track. These are:

• Channel views. Shows the views a channel has amassed over a particular period.
• Subscribers. This is the total number of subscribers for your channel.
• Subscriber growth. This refers to the number of subscribers you have gained versus what you have lost.
• Real-time. This metric shows your channel's real-time performance over the last 48 or 60 hours. It is a good indication of the performance of your new videos immediately after they are uploaded. This metric will also show you when there is a spike in the number of views, providing insights on the best time for posting.
• Top posts. Shows your best-performing posts in terms of views over a certain period.
• Impressions. Number of times viewers see the video thumbnails. It excludes external impressions such as social shares and embedded videos.

YouTube video analytics

Some of the video analytics you can check for your videos, as well as those of your competitors, are:

• Channel views. This refers to the number of views your channel has amassed over time.
• Chanel watchtime. Refers to the number of hours people spend watching your videos.
• Subscribers. Refers to the number of people subscribing to your channel after watching a particular video.
• Average view duration. The estimated time in minutes watched for each of your selected videos.
• New viewers. Refers to videos with the highest number of views compared to returning viewers, helping to grow your brand.
• Key audience retention moments. This metric shows the central moments that caught your audience's attention or those that lost them.

Analyze your competitors

Create a spreadsheet with all the information you need to access the competition. Learn from what they do and check if there is a particular mistake they may be making. Doing this lets you understand your competitive advantage and makes your content different.

How to Use YouTube Competitor Analytics Tools

Viewing analytics tools on YouTube depends on the tools you will be using. However, the process may include:

• Adding competitors to your YouTube analytics tools. Begin by creating an account and adding the accounts of all your competitors. The keyword research tools will start tracking your competitor's keywords. 
• The tool will generate insight into other channel analytics we discussed earlier.

FAQs On How to Check Analytics on YouTube

Here are some faqs showing you how to check analytics on YouTube for competitor channels.

How can I check a channel's YouTube earnings?

It's not possible to see another channel's earnings. However, you can use a YouTube calculator to make an estimate of their income.

Is YouTube Analytics a free or paid tool?

YouTube analytics is a free tool that lets YouTube view your channel's numbers. It can also help you create a content plan to grow your channel.

Will other YouTube channels be notified if I check their analytics using YouTube analytics tools?

No. Viewers will not be notified if you use the tools mentioned earlier or any other observer tool when you view their channels.

How to view the exact number of subscribers for a competitor channel?

If you want to see how many subscribers a channel has, you should go through this process:

• Make a query for the name of the YouTube channel
• Check the subscribers’ numbers on the homepage that is next to the YouTube handle.

You can see the type of videos the channels are making and use that information to increase your Youtube subscribers.

Final Thoughts

Digging deeper into analytics on a YouTube channel can be a great way of knowing what your target audience wants. It gives you immense ideas about areas where you are lacking and how to outpace your competitors by producing better content.

This can, in turn, help grow your channel. With the information shared in this blog, you can understand the right tools you need to check other channel's analytics. We also recommend you read our article on why YouTube has introduced a pause comment feature.