YouTube had analytics that musicians were using long before Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists, Amazon Music for Artists and the rest.
Along with SoundCloud, it was an early tool for artists to see (for example) where their fan hotspots were around the world, and plan tours accordingly. YouTube’s analytics weren’t specifically for musicians though: they were a generalist data tool for all YouTubers and channel owners.
Now YouTube is doubling down on its analytics for musicians with what it’s calling ‘New YouTube Analytics for Artists’, promising that it’ll provide them with “the most comprehensive and complete view of their audience, global reach and performance across YouTube”.
It’s part of the YouTube Studio toolset, but only musicians with their own ‘Official Artist Channel’ will be able to use it.
Among the new features: the ability to see an artist’s ‘Total Reach’, breaking down how their music is being consumed on YouTube from their own videos, but also videos uploaded by fans and YouTubers.
There’s also a new ‘Song Detail’ feature, which will enable artists to see all the videos that have “been created for a specific song within their catalog and contain most of their song recording”.
There’s some nudging being done here: specifically YouTube nudging artists to appreciate the value of user-generated videos featuring their music. The company’s blog post this afternoon makes that clear.
“This content created by users benefits artists of all sizes and is largely incremental to views of their official content on YouTube,” it claims. “On average, the top 1,000 artists on YouTube get over 20% of their chart eligible views from videos created by users.”
This and other data (“impressions, clicks, demographics, retention and engagement data”) will be updated in real-time, and available through YouTube’s desktop back-end, and the YouTube Studio Mobile app.
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