The YouTube section in the left menu shows how the channel linked to your customer account is doing: how many subscribers it has, how views are adding up, how much time viewers spend on the videos and how they react to individual videos. This article describes the individual pages of the section and what each number means. Linking the channel itself is a different topic, covered by the article Connecting a channel to YouTube.
Before you start
- A linked channel. Until the customer account has a channel of its own, the pages of the section show a red warning No channel instead of data, explaining that a linked channel is needed to display the content. A channel is linked in Settings → Connected services → Google accounts, in the detail of the relevant Google account on the YouTube tab.
- Anyone may view the data. All customer account roles can see the section, that is Administrator, User and Viewer. So you do not need any special permission to browse the YouTube section.
- Channel switcher. On the left in the header of every page there is a channel selector. When the customer account has several linked channels, this is where you switch between them. The choice is remembered and carries over to the other pages of the section.
- Period controls. On the right in the header there is a group of controls: chart type, axis step (Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year), period selection (from Last 7 days through Last month up to 3 years, or Custom range) and a button to reload the data.
On the YouTube pages the selected period ends three days before today, on the Subscribers and Videos pages one day before. YouTube is still calculating the most recent days and does not release them as final. You will see the exact dates of the selected period when you expand the period selection.
Overview
The Overview page is the starting point of the whole section. It consists of tiles (widgets), each showing one metric for the selected period. By default there are Video views and Subscribers as graphs and Likes, Shares and Videos as single numbers.
You can adjust the layout with the menu button in the top right:
- Click Edit layout. The tiles can then be moved and a Widget actions menu appears on each of them.
- In the tile menu choose Switch to graph or Switch to value, Change profile, Duplicate widget or Remove widget.
- You add a new tile with the Add widget option. A wizard takes you through choosing the network, the metric, the profile and the display (Graph or Value).
- You finish editing with the Finish editing button. The Reset to default layout option brings back the original look.
gas remembers the layout for your user account and separately for each customer account. So it does not change for your colleagues and you will see the same thing on another computer.
What a single metric page looks like
The pages of individual metrics (all menu items except Overview and Videos) have the same structure. At the top there are three cards:
- Total is the sum for the selected period. On Average view duration the card is called On average, because an average cannot be summed.
- Short-term trend compares the selected period with an equally long period immediately preceding it.
- Long-term trend compares the selected period with the same period a year earlier. For a period longer than a year both trend cards stay empty, because the comparison would make no sense.
Below the cards there is a graph. In the Graph view settings menu you switch value display and the comparison curve, which the graph labels as Comparison (the current period is Current). The Export button saves the graph as an image (PNG, JPG), a document (PDF, SVG) or data (CSV, XLS).
Subscribers, Subscribers gained, Subscribers lost
These three pages belong together and answer the question of how the channel is growing.
- Subscribers shows the total number of channel subscribers, that is the state, not the increase. It is useful for the question "how many people follow us today".
- Subscribers gained shows how many times people subscribed to the channel on the selected days.
- Subscribers lost shows how many times they cancelled their subscription. For this metric a lower number is better, so gas evaluates it the opposite way to the others.
The difference between gained and lost is the net growth for the period. When you track development over a longer time, work mainly with these two pages. The reason is that YouTube releases history only as daily gains and losses, whereas it gives the total number of subscribers only as a current figure for today. The Common problems part covers this in more detail.
Video views
The Video views page shows how many times viewers played your channel's videos on the selected days. It is the most watched metric of the whole section and at the same time the one YouTube treats most carefully: it verifies view counts and corrects them retroactively. What that means in practice is described in the Common problems part.
Watch time
How many views the channel has collected is only half the picture. The other half is told by two pages about time:
- Estimated minutes watched states how many minutes viewers spent watching the channel's videos. The word "estimated" is part of the name on purpose, YouTube really does estimate this value.
- Average view duration states how long an average playback was. The value is in seconds and gas does not write the unit next to it. On the video detail the same figure is shown in the more readable minutes:seconds format.
Together the two numbers show whether growing views also mean growing interest. When views are increasing but the average view duration is falling, viewers are closing the videos sooner.
Likes, Dislikes, Comments and Shares
Four pages about viewer reactions. Each shows the count for the selected period.
- Likes and Dislikes are positive and negative ratings. For dislikes a lower number is better.
- Comments counts how many times viewers commented on a video.
- Shares counts how many times someone shared a video with the share button directly on YouTube. Sharing through a link copied from the address bar is not counted here, YouTube does not know about it.
Since December 2021 YouTube has not shown dislike counts on videos to other viewers. It still provides them to the channel owner, and because gas asks with your channel's permission, you can see them in the application.
Videos
The Videos menu item opens the video table. Unlike the other pages of the section, this is not about daily development but about comparing individual videos with each other.
The table lists videos published in the selected period. The columns are:
- Name with a link to the video detail in gas and a second link straight to YouTube.
- Campaigns, that is the gas campaigns the video falls into according to its description and publication date.
- Destination, only on customer accounts with the tourism module.
- Channel. It is shown only when you have all channels selected in the switcher.
- Publication time, by which the table is sorted by default from the newest.
- Video views, Likes, Dislikes and Comments.
The numbers in the table are the video's total values over its whole lifetime, not for the selected period. The period only decides which videos appear in the table. You will find development over time in the video detail.
The columns can be filtered and sorted, the table is paginated and through the menu above it the content can be exported to CSV or Excel, or printed. On a phone the table is shown as a list of cards with the video name and the values Video views, Likes and Comments, and it can be filtered by name.
Video detail
Clicking a video name in the table opens its detail. It is the most detailed view the section offers.
- Video preview on the left is a player loaded straight from YouTube. Because it can store third-party cookies, gas shows it only after you agree with the Show preview button. It remembers your consent, so it does not ask again for other videos.
- Video information next to the preview contains Profile (the channel), Published, Data update (when gas last downloaded the numbers) and the View on social network link.
- Value cards summarise the video as a whole: Video views, Estimated minutes watched, Average view duration in minutes:seconds format, Likes − dislikes and Comments. The Likes − dislikes card has a tooltip reminding you that a negative value means dislikes prevail.
- Metric timeline is a graph with the video's daily values. By default only the Video views curve is on, the others (Estimated minutes watched, Likes, Dislikes, Comments, Shares, Average view duration) are switched on by clicking their name in the legend.
- Watch time is a separate card with the values Total watched and Average view duration.
- Likes vs. dislikes is a card with a coloured bar showing the ratio of positive and negative ratings.
- Daily metric development is a table below the graph with one row for each day gas has data for.
In the top right there is a print button, which prepares the page for printing or saving to PDF.
On a phone the graph, the watch time card, the ratings card and the daily table are not shown. The application points this out with a sentence saying that the detailed graph and table need to be opened in a desktop browser.
How fresh and how accurate the numbers are
The channel and the videos are downloaded from YouTube roughly once a day, YouTube is one of the networks with the calmest schedule in gas. Besides that, three things explain most surprises over the numbers.
Views are verified and can be corrected retroactively. YouTube itself states that its systems need a while to recognise which views, ratings and subscriptions are genuine. So the counting can temporarily slow down or stop, the numbers are adjusted along the way and playbacks evaluated as low quality are removed from the count. The number for yesterday is therefore not final and can still move in either direction.
Estimated figures settle only after several days. YouTube counts on a delay of a few days before the data for its reports is available. Metrics with the word estimated in their name are therefore really an estimate, not an exact sum. In practice this means it is too early to judge the last two or three days, whereas a week-old number is already reliable.
The history goes deep. YouTube provides daily values for any date after 1 July 2008, so with an established channel even distant years are gradually filled into gas. Individual metrics, however, each have their own date from which YouTube keeps them, and for earlier periods they return no value at all. So with old periods expect some pages of the section to stay empty even though others have data.
Common problems
The graph ends before today and has a gap at the end
YouTube returns only those days for which it has all the requested metrics complete at once. The last day in the reply is therefore the one for which even the slowest of them is finished. That is why gas moves the end of the selected period back by three days for YouTube. The missing days fill in by themselves over the next day or two, you do not have to do anything.
The numbers for the last few days keep changing
That is normal and it happens on YouTube's side, not in gas. YouTube verifies views, ratings and subscriptions and corrects them along the way, so the value for yesterday or the day before will still move. For comparisons and reports use a period that ends at least three days back.
The subscriber graph is empty for older periods even though the Total card shows a number
YouTube gives subscriber history only as daily gains and losses. It provides the total number of subscribers only as a current figure for today and does not keep a history of that number. That is why gas holds the daily total only for a short window of the last seven days and shows zero in the graph for older days. The Total card calculates the total from Subscribers gained and Subscribers lost, which is why it shows a number even where the graph stays empty. For development over a longer period use the Subscribers gained and Subscribers lost pages.
Gained minus lost does not exactly match the total number of subscribers
A small difference is common. The total is the channel's current state, whereas YouTube verifies and retroactively corrects the gains and losses just as it does views. A difference of a few units or tens is therefore not an error and there is no point tracking it down.
Watch time changed after a few days
Estimated minutes watched and Average view duration are, as the name suggests, an estimate. YouTube calculates them with a delay of several days and refines them retroactively. A value that is a week old is settled.
Average view duration is just a number with no unit
The figure is in seconds, that is how YouTube provides it, and gas does not add the unit. So a value of 95.4 means one minute and roughly 35 seconds. On the video detail the same figure is shown in minutes:seconds format, where it is easier to read.
A video I have just published is missing from the Videos table
Two possible causes. The table lists videos by publication date, so the video has to fall within the selected period, otherwise it is not shown. And because the list of videos is downloaded roughly once a day, a brand new video appears only after the next download. Widen the period and if needed wait until the next day.
The numbers in the Videos table do not match the selected period
The Video views, Likes, Dislikes and Comments columns are the video's total values over its whole lifetime. The selected period only determines which videos appear in the table, it does not reduce the numbers. To see how much a months-old video collected in the selected period, look at the Metric timeline graph in its detail.
The Watch time card on an older video shows zero
gas has been collecting watched minutes for individual videos for a shorter time than views and reactions, so on older videos the card covers only recent days, or stays at zero. You can tell the video's overall performance from the Video views card, which is complete from its publication.
The channel is greyed out in the switcher and cannot be selected
The customer account's plan determines how many profiles of one network can be tracked at the same time. Channels above that number stay unavailable in the menu. Either unlink a channel you are not tracking, or have the limit raised in Settings → Customer account → Subscription. Support can also help you choose a plan through the contact form.
The page reports No channel instead of data
The customer account has no linked YouTube channel, or you have not selected one in the switcher in the header. Check the switcher and then Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts, where you can see everything linked to the account and who linked it.
Data from a linked channel has stopped coming
The channel shows a Missing permission or Paused label in the settings. It means the connection with Google has stopped working, typically because the colleague who linked the channel no longer works for the company or their access was revoked. Do not delete the channel. The recovery procedure is described in the articles Connecting a channel to YouTube and Who linked the account.
The video preview on the detail does not show
The player loads straight from YouTube and can store third-party cookies, so gas does not run it without consent. Click the Show preview button in the place where the player should be. gas remembers your consent and will not ask again for other videos.
I cannot see the graph or the tables on my phone
On a phone the video detail does not show the graph, the watch time card, the ratings card or the daily table, and points this out with a sentence below the content. The Videos table turns into a list of cards without most of the columns on a phone. For detailed work with data use a computer or a tablet.
Something does not add up and it is not in the article
Write through the contact form and state the channel name, the page of the section and the period your question concerns. With these details a specific number can be tracked down.