YouTube Analytics - Lightdash

The YouTube Analytics live data source reads one YouTube channel. Each query is one report request, and Lightdash shows the results as they come back from YouTube. It’s a level 3 integration: its API returns reports.

Before you start

Live data sources enabled for your organization. See Live data sources.
Admin role in the Lightdash project.
A Google account that can read the channel’s analytics.

Connect YouTube Analytics

On the nav bar, click Browse → Semantic Layer.
In the sidebar, select Live data sources, then click Add.
Select YouTube Analytics.
Enter a Name, such as YouTube Analytics.
Click Continue to Google.
Sign in with your Google account and allow read-only access to YouTube.
Back in Lightdash, pick the channel the source reads.

Lightdash adds a Channel activity table to Explore. Queries run with the Google account that signed in. To change it, choose Sign in again from the source’s menu.

Dimensions

Dimension	Notes
Date	Per day
Date month	First day of the month
Video ID	Video titles aren’t available
Country	Two-letter code, such as `US`. `ZZ` means unidentified
Device type	Such as `DESKTOP`, `MOBILE` or `TV`
Traffic source type	Such as `YT_SEARCH`, `RELATED_VIDEO` or `SUBSCRIBER`
Content type	`LIVE_STREAM`, `SHORTS`, `STORY`, `VIDEO_ON_DEMAND` or `UNSPECIFIED`

Revenue, demographics, playlists and audience retention aren’t available.

Metrics

Metric	Notes
Views, Engaged views	YouTube counts a view differently per report
Estimated minutes watched
Average view duration	In seconds, per playback. Don’t add rows together
Average view percentage	From 0 to 100, per playback. Don’t add rows together
Likes, Dislikes, Comments, Shares
Subscribers gained, Subscribers lost

Combination rules

YouTube answers a fixed set of reports. A query can break down by one of these:

Date or Date month
Country
Video ID
Device type, optionally with Date
Traffic source type, optionally with Date

You can add Content type to any of them, but it can’t be used alone. A query with no dimensions returns channel totals. Some reports have further rules:

Device type and Traffic source type only work with Views, Engaged views and Estimated minutes watched.
Video ID returns at most 200 videos, ranked from highest to lowest. Sort by one of Views, Estimated minutes watched, Subscribers gained or Subscribers lost.
Date month only reads whole months. Filter Date to start on the first of a month and end on the last of a month or today.

Lightdash checks these rules before calling YouTube and tells you what to change.

Supported features

Feature	Available
Filters on Video ID, up to 500 values	Yes, exact match
Filters on Country, one value	Yes, exact match
Filters on other dimensions	No
Filters on metrics	No
OR filters and nested filter groups	No
Table calculations, custom metrics and custom dimensions	No
Period-over-period comparisons, pivots and date zoom	No

A query can’t filter by a dimension and break down by it at the same time.

Limits

Limit	Value
Default date range	Last 28 days, when the query has no filter on Date. Last 12 full months for Date month
Most rows per query	9,999. 200 for Video ID
Timeout	30 seconds
Queries at once	5 per source
Calls per minute	60 per source
Calls per hour	1,000 per source

YouTube leaves out the most recent days until all their metrics are ready, so the latest dates can be missing. YouTube also applies its own quotas.

Example questions

“Views and watch time by day over the last 28 days.”
“Top 20 videos by estimated minutes watched this month.”
“Views by traffic source type last week.”

Troubleshooting

The latest days are missing. YouTube publishes a day’s data once all its metrics are ready. Check again later, or end the date range earlier. YouTube has no report for your combination. See Combination rules and remove a dimension.

​Before you start

​Connect YouTube Analytics

​Dimensions

​Metrics

​Combination rules

​Supported features

​Limits

​Example questions

​Troubleshooting