Are you here to learn about different Youtube traffic sources? If you are, I've got something for you! This post will cover several traffic sources of Youtube. So, let's get started.
YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world. Besides this, it is a popular source of traffic on the internet. According to Backlinko, Youtube has over 2 million active users and it has more than 2 billion views per day.
Well, there are many different strategies that you can use to acquire more views on your videos, which will result in more potential customers. You can use Youtube traffic for different purposes like conversions, educating your audience, and much more.
In this blog post, we will discuss where youtube traffic comes from, external youtube traffic sources, and its types.
Where does YouTube Traffic come from?
Are you wondering about how and where viewers are getting your videos? Traffic to your YouTube videos may come from within YouTube or from some external sources. You may see both on your Traffic source types card and Traffic from within YouTube.
Some specific YouTube traffic sources may include browsing features, playlists, suggested videos, subscriptions, traffic from home, trending or exploring, watching later, and many others.
Search is also one of the most important and common traffic sources on YouTube. When somebody types a term in the YouTube search box, your video will probably be on top or at least on the first page. Like good ranking in Google search can make or break your entire business, ranking well in YouTube search has exciting advantages.
What do all these traffic sources do?
All of these traffic sources are powered to varying degrees via the YouTube algorithm. These views may represent the viewers who are already on your YouTube channel when they find your videos. However, the external sources may represent the people who find your videos via social media, a search engine, or other websites.
Note that traffic sources may help you in spotting different potential collaboration chances in a few ways. Firstly, you have to check the suggested videos to see which other channels drive your traffic.
After that, utilize the more dropdown menu in the Advanced mode to check the Playback locations. It will give you the sites which are driving embedded views.
Various YouTube Traffic Sources
Here we discuss some of the most common YouTube traffic sources that are popular among bloggers.
- Channel Pages: Traffic that is generated from your own YouTube channel or other YouTube channels.
- Browse Features: Traffic you may get from the home screen, watch later, subscription feed, and other browsing features.
- End Screens: Traffic from the generator end screens.
- Campaign Cards: Traffic from the content owner campaign cards.
- Notifications: traffic you gain from notifications and emails that are sent to your subscribers.
- Shorts: Traffic coming from the shorts vertical viewing experience.
- Playlists: the one that is from any playlist that may include one of your videos. It may be your playlist or some other user’s playlist.
- YouTube Search: Traffic from YouTube search results. You may see the particular search items on the Traffic Source “YouTube Search” card of the Reach tab.
- Some other YouTube features Traffic from within YouTube that may not fall in some other category. Like views from the dashboard or Partner promotions.
- Video Cards: traffic that may come from a card in another video.
- Suggested Videos: Traffic coming from suggestions may appear next to or after other videos or from the links in video descriptions. You may see particular videos on the traffic source of the “Suggested videos” card.
- Direct or Unknown Sources: Traffic from direct URL entry, logged out, bookmarks, and unidentified apps.
- External Sources: The traffic you may get from the websites and apps that have your YouTube video embedded or linked to. You may see some particular sites and sources on the Traffic source: External” card of the Reach tab.
- YouTube Advertising: In case your video is used as an advertisement on YouTube, you may see the “YouTube advertising” as a traffic source on your channel.
Note
But remember that the views coming from skippable ads longer than 10 seconds are counted only if they are watched for at least 30 sec or unless they are finished. Non-skippable advertisements do not qualify as views in YouTube Analytics.
What is an External Traffic Source on YouTube?
It is a source on YouTube that has a link to a YouTube video, the video that may not come from within YouTube itself. For instance, let's say you upload a video and you want to promote it. Just copy the Youtube video link and post it to your social media.
When someone clicks on that posted link, YouTube registers that as a view from some external source. Because no one searched for it on YouTube as well, as it did not appear on the home feed of someone's YouTube or from your channel's page, it came from an external (outside) source.
Also read>> Best Free and paid Traffic sources for affiliate marketing.
What do you consider as an external traffic source on YouTube?
It is a very small list, actually:
- It is the traffic you may gain from either websites or the apps where YouTube videos are embedded.
- When someone clicks directly to the URL (link) of the video without clicking on anything else.
- They do so by copy and paste the link into their browser.
- Maybe it was bookmarked.
- They are not already logged into YouTube.
- Or they are using any unidentified app.
Learn about How To Do Youtube Affiliate Marketing Done Right if you want to increase your affiliate link clicks.
How can you view your traffic sources on YouTube Analytics?
Here are some of the steps about how you can see your traffic sources on YouTube Analytics.
- Log in to your Youtube account; tap your profile icon in the top right corner of your screen, and go to Creator Studio.
- While in the left sidebar, click on the Analytics menu.
- Now click the traffic sources and utilize the different sorting choices to break everything down. But I recommend to watch each video at a time before sorting your content in different ways.
Types of YouTube Traffic Sources
There are many types available nowadays, but here we are going to break 3 of them.
1- The traffic you may influence
It is the type of traffic that you can't control directly as you may only influence it. Google rankings are a good example of influenced ranking because you don't control Google's algorithm.
However, if you follow the best practices, you will certainly have a very good opportunity to rank on the very first page. (as most of the bloggers can do).
Meanwhile, social media is another powerful form of influenced traffic. But at the same time, you may not directly control whether the audience will like you on Facebook, follow you on Instagram, and then visit your channel and become your regular viewer.
But in case you are doing an excellent job with social media sites, you may build your influence and transform some of your influence into your subscribers and viewers. As you can't control it completely, we may recommend you to start with influenced traffic, and the reason is it's typically low-cost or even free.
Want to make money on Youtube? Read How To Make Money On Youtube Successfully Now In 2021.
2- The traffic you may Rent
The next type of traffic source is rented traffic. And by this, we usually mean advertising. You may know that there are many places where you can easily advertise your channel. It includes Facebook or any other online advertising platform.
You may also use print radio, TV, direct mail, print, and other media to get the traffic on your channel. One of the most interesting facts about this type is that advertising is fully under your control. Besides, you can decide on your own where you have to place an ad.
As long as you are following best practices of advertising, then your ads will deliver very qualified traffic to your page. You can also run your advertisements on your platform, and that is YouTube.
3- The traffic you may Own
The third type of traffic source is the traffic you may own. And the most common example of it is an email newsletter. In this, you have complete control over the timing of the messages you may send to your subscribers.
In case your subscriber list is big enough and very responsive at the same time, you do not have any need to advertise at all. As you would already have all the traffic, you may require to comfort your channel.
Meanwhile, we recommend you to invest in all 3 given categories of traffic. But out of all these 3 types, the last one is the most valuable. The connection and relationship you make with your prospects and subscribers over the long term are what will give you mostly long-term security.
4- Check the value of your paid views
When you are buying views for your channel, traffic sources play a very effective role. Different vendors in the market offer and promise high-quality targeted views that are more valuable than others. You have to ensure that they are honest by double-checking the results. To check this, go to the traffic sources and narrow down to the video you may boost and the campaign's timeframe.
It is very important to double-check the retention rate of paid views as it denotes the average watching time of your video. Along with it, it also reveals if your video is fascinating or not. Higher retention means that viewers watch most or maybe all of your videos. At the same time, lower retention indicated that people mostly got bored and stopped watching the videos.
By double-checking and analyzing the retention, you will be sure whether what you are paying for is what you are getting because it will be worse to pay 70% retention and get only 30%.
Building a Video Strategy with YouTube Traffic Sources
The easiest approach to build a successful video campaign is to figure out what has worked and what hasn't for your channel. Knowing where your audience is coming from now will be an important consideration in planning your next campaign. Fortunately, YouTube Analytics gives extremely detailed insights into the traffic sources for each of your videos.
1- Organic Views
Search and recommendations based on a video's discovery algorithm account for more than half of YouTube viewership. By taking advantage of the user's viewing history and behavior, YouTube can suggest material that might interest them next across several site areas, based on their current preferences.
The traffic sources that drive your videos are displayed in YouTube Analytics under three categories: Search, YouTube Suggestions, and Browse Features.
2- Fans and Syndication
The most telling data regarding a video's popularity is traffic generated by third parties, especially fans, other channels, and syndication partners. Viral videos become viral for a reason. Because fans and websites genuinely like the material and share it across their social networks. Look in your analytics dashboard for External and Embedded Player traffic to learn more about where these shares originate.
3- Channel Driven Views
A video's performance is also heavily influenced by its placement on your channel, including the number of subscribers you have and how long ago it was uploaded.
The metrics that matter most to professional YouTubers are Viewership Duration and Viewer Retention Rate (the average time viewers watch before clicking away). It also includes Average Viewership per Video (the average number of viewers across all videos) and TrueView (viewers that watched at least 30 seconds).
Conclusion
Youtube traffic sources play an important role in boosting views on your videos. Different video vendors offer high-quality views that are more effective than others. You should double-check the results of their campaigns by analyzing retention rate to ensure what you're paying for is actually what you get, as well as if they watched until the very end or not.
I advise you to go for the organic views, take your time to record videos, upload them to your channel, and then wait for the traffic sources that will bring you more views. Just be patient and keep grinding. Good Luck!
Moreover, if you are going to use Youtube for promoting Affiliate products, read 7 types of Affiliate marketing that make the most profit.
