This glossary serves as a reference for marketers to better understand and analyze YouTube advertising performance metrics. Core performance metrics help evaluate user engagement and ad effectiveness, while channel and video-specific metrics break down creator data, and VuePlanner collection metrics inform content strategies. Understanding these categories enables advertisers to optimize their campaigns for maximum impact.
Core Performance Metrics
These metrics help advertisers analyze performance on their advertising campaigns.
Impressions: The number of times an ad is displayed.
TrueView Views: The total number of times a video or ad has been viewed to the :30 mark (:10 for Shorts) or complete, whichever comes first based on the length of the video.
Completed Views: The total number of times a video or ad has been viewed in its entirety
Clicks: The total number of clicks an ad has received.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)*: The percentage of users who click on an ad after being served an impression.
View-Through Rate (VTR)*: The percentage of users who watch an ad (at least partially) after being served an impression.
Video Completion Rate (VCR)*: The percentage of users who watch an ad in its entirety.
* Calculated Metric
Channel & Video-Specific Metrics & Metadata
These metrics help analyze both organic channel growth and the impact of video content within advertising campaigns. Some focus on engagement trends over time, while others provide insights into content length and publishing frequency.
Average Video Length*: The mean duration of all videos within a dataset.
Channel Thumbnail : The image used to represent a YouTube channel.
Channel (Lifetime) Views : The total number of views accumulated by a YouTube channel.
Publish Date (YouTube Published At) : The date and time a video was published on YouTube.
Subscribers : The number of users subscribed to a channel.
Total Number of (Channel) Videos : The total count of videos available on a YouTube channel.
(Video) Thumbnail URL : The direct URL of a video’s thumbnail image.
Video Comment Count : The total number of comments left on a video.
Video Like Count : The total number of likes a video has received.
Video Description : The text description provided by the creator for a video.
Video ID (YouTube Public ID) : The unique identifier assigned to a video by YouTube.
Videos 1:00 or Longer*:The count of videos in a dataset that have a duration of at least one minute.
Videos 10:00 or Longer*: The count of videos in a dataset that have a duration of at least ten minutes.
Videos per Week*: The average number of videos published on a channel per week.
YouTube Category ID : The numeric category classification assigned to a video by YouTube.
YouTube Category Title : The name of the category assigned to a video by YouTube, that corresponds to the YouTube Category ID.
YouTube Channel Title : The official name of a YouTube channel.
YouTube Video Duration : The length of a video in seconds.
* Calculated Metric
VuePlanner Collection Metrics & Metadata
These metrics help advertisers organize and forecast scale on the contextual advertising components of their campaigns.
Collection Name: The name assigned to a group of videos or channels for organization and contextual targeting.
Forecasted Views*: An estimate of the total number of views a video or campaign is expected to achieve based on historical data and trends.
VueScore*: A proprietary VuePlanner metric assessing the overall effectiveness and engagement potential of a video ad, based on various performance indicators.
* Calculated Metric
Categories marked by the VuePlanner checkmark are based on proprietary brand suitability definitions created by VuePlanner. These classifications are built by VuePlanner using contextual signals from the YouTube Data API, and are not reviewed by Google.
