Keeping up with the right YouTube statistics helps you win on the social video platform. Instead of working based on assumptions, use the data to create and optimize your YouTube content strategy and marketing.
So here are some of the most important YouTube stats you should be aware of. We’ve also highlighted how they’ll help your marketing plan. In total here’s what we’ll cover today:
Skip to a section
- Our Top 5 Takeaways
- YouTube Demographic Stats
- YouTube Usage Statistics
- YouTube Mobile Stats
- YouTube for Business Statistics
- YouTube Ad Statistics
Let’s dive in.
[#TOC1]But first, here are our top 5 key takeaways:[#TOC1]
- Folks spend more time streaming content on YouTube than on Netflix — easily spending upwards of 25 minutes per visit.
- YouTube, the second most visited site in the world, has an impressive user base. You can use it to reach a US-based audience as well as people in different countries in their local languages.
- People in the US spend more time consuming content on YouTube than on TikTok. YouTube also happens to be the most used social media network in the country.
- Mobile devices bring in 840 million visits to YouTube.com. Mobile users also spend approximately 23 minutes on the site — only 9 minutes less than desktop users. Paying attention to mobile optimization is the key to retaining and engaging these users.
- More and more marketers are using YouTube — not only to engage their target audience but also for influencer marketing. They’re using a variety of strategies and tools to effectively manage their YouTube channels. Top sources of traffic to their channels include platforms like Google, Meta, and Reddit.
19 YouTube statistics marketers can’t afford to not know
[#TOC2]YouTube Demographic Stats[#TOC2]
1. YouTube is the second most used website in the world
The platform got 14.34 billion visits in 2021. And it ranks second only to its parent company, Google.
If you’ve been questioning whether your audience is on YouTube, remember that the platform is second only to Google in terms of the most used site. So it’s (nearly) impossible for your target audience to not be there.
2. YouTube has a user base of 2 million users
The best part? This number is expected to grow to 2,854 million users by 2025 — a good reminder that you can easily market to your target community in such a wide user pool.
3. YouTube is available in 100+ countries and in 80 languages
This speaks volumes about the video platform’s global reach and engagement. It’s also fair to say that YouTube is hands down one of the best marketing channels for brands targeting a global audience.
In fact, an effective tactic to try today is localizing your content. Get a translator to transcribe your content in various languages so you can publish videos that better engage your global audience.
4. About 54% of YouTube users are male and 46% are female
To break down YouTube demographics further, the video platform has almost 12% male users and 9% female users in the 25-34 years age bracket. Moreover, 9% of the male users and 7.5% of female users fall in the 35-44 age range.
Where the difference isn’t very huge, YouTube is a great platform to market to a male-dominated audience — say for a male health supplement brand.
Marketers would also be wise to keep this information front and center when creating content, so it better resonates with their viewers.
As you publish YouTube content though, be sure to study your analytics for an accurate breakdown of your viewers’ gender and age. Use the information to optimize your YouTube content production.
5. India, the US, and Indonesia are countries with the top YouTube users globally
Of these, India has 467 million active YouTube users. The United States comes in second with about 247 million folks engaging with the video search engine. Indonesia stands third with 139 million YouTube viewers.
Three other countries featuring over a million active YouTube users are Brazil, Russia, and Japan (in that order).
For marketers targeting an audience in any of these countries, YouTube would make an excellent addition to your marketing channels.
[#TOC3]YouTube Usage Statistics[#TOC3]
6. Folks consume over a billion hours of YouTube video daily
This is 694k hours streamed per minute — way more than the hours people spend streaming on Netflix (452k hours streamed per minute).
This makes it clear: not only is your ideal audience present on YouTube, but it’s also spending lots of time on the app. Your job? To create content that hooks them in.
Identify topics they’re searching for on the platform (psst! YouTube keyword research helps with this) and create value-packed content that takes an engaging storytelling angle.
Be sure to brand your videos with your logo and other visual elements too. This way, viewers can slowly but surely become familiar with your business. Don’t forget to add captions to your videos to improve their accessibility.
7. 62% of the YouTube users in the US access it daily
In fact, YouTube is the most used social media network in the US with 81% of the people using it. Meta (previously Facebook) comes in second with 69% users and Instagram follows in third place with 40% US users.
The same survey also reveals 18% of people in the US use TikTok — a clear indication that if you’re confused between leveraging YouTube or TikTok for marketing to a US-based audience, the former can prove to be a better option.
P.S. While it’s helpful to use data to make your marketing decisions, we also recommend surveying and interviewing your target audience to learn which channels they’d like to see your brand on.
8. Users spent an average of 29 minutes and 37 seconds per visit on YouTube
While engagement levels decreased slightly between July and September 2020, the overall average time spent per visit on the site has remained stable from January 2020 to March 2021.
To make sure you get your target viewers to consume some of your content in these 30-minute-long sessions, take a value-first approach.
Ask yourself: what video content can we create to attract and retain our target audience? Should we take an educational approach, an entertaining one, or a mix of both?
At VEED Studio, our YouTube channel, for example, we take an educational approach. Our videos focus on teaching viewers how can create and edit top-quality videos for different social channels. We also educate our community on using our video editing tool — these posts go under our VEED University playlist, which is dedicated to product tutorials.
Talking to your ideal viewers will help you understand what videos they want to see. Book 30-minute chats with people who fall within your target buyer persona. Bonus points for talking to folks who are either loyal customers or brand advocates.
It’s also a good idea to review the content your competitors are publishing on their YouTube channels. Study areas where they’re winning and areas where there are opportunities to improve. Then come up with an audience-engaging video marketing strategy for your channel.
9. Mobile device visitors spend about 23 minutes on the YouTube website
YouTube desktop users, on the other hand, spent a total of 31 minutes and 46 seconds between January 2020 and March 2021.
What’s noteworthy here is that there’s only 9 minutes of difference in the time desktop and mobile users spend on YouTube.com.
This data bit proves that lots of YouTube viewers come from mobile devices. And to make sure you’re retaining these viewers, prioritize optimizing content for mobile screens. One way to do so: zoom out of your YouTube thumbnails and review its design for legibility on mobile screens.
[#TOC4]YouTube Mobile Stats[#TOC4]
10. The YouTube mobile app has 361.23 million daily active users and 866 million monthly active users on iOS devices
In contrast, the YouTube Android mobile app has roughly 23.76 million monthly active global users in the last quarter of 2021.
As for daily users, the YouTube Android app has about 7 million daily active users worldwide in the third quarter of 2021.
11. YouTube.com gets 840 million visits from mobile devices
Although the majority of visits to the YouTube site come from desktop at a total of 3 billion visits in March 2021, monthly mobile traffic is not something you can ignore.
In fact, mobile monthly visits to YouTube have remained almost stable from January 2020 to March 2021.
Put another way, desktop users contribute 79% of total YouTube website visits with mobile devices adding 21.2% visits — a sizeable number.
This is another reason why marketers should consider optimizing videos for mobile users.
12. People spend approximately 23.7 hours per month on the YouTube mobile app
The app is most widely used in South Korea where users spend an average of 40 hours per month. Users in India follow next. They spend about 29.6 hours monthly on the app.
[#TOC5]YouTube for Business Statistics[#TOC5]
13. 52% of the top 100 searches on YouTube are branded searches
These users are searching for creators or music artists to find specific channel’s content. This proves that growing a YouTube channel catered to a niche audience is a more profitable idea than a channel that targets everyone.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, survey them to understand what topics would be useful for them. At the same time, write down a list of topics relevant to your business. Then finalize 2-3 content buckets you’d create content on.
14. YouTube Shorts get 30 billion views daily
Launched only in 2020, the platform’s version of bite-sized, 60-second-long videos have grown by four times since Q1 of 2021. So it’s best to create not only long videos but also YouTube Shorts to satisfy your viewers’ video consumption patterns on the platform.
15. 50% of marketers used YouTube as part of their marketing strategy in 2021
This makes it the most used channel for video marketing according to Social Media Examiner. In fact, 67% of marketers plan to increase using YouTube videos according to the same source.
Findings from another industry report also echo the same: 88% of video marketers plan to invest in YouTube video marketing in 2022.
No wonder, growing a presence on YouTube will help marketers get a competitive edge.
16. YouTube is the second most popular social channel for influencer marketing
Instagram tops this list with 89% of marketers using it for influencer marketing. In contrast, 70% of marketers use YouTube as part of their influencer marketing strategy.
If you’re planning to collaborate with YouTube influencers to promote your content or product, make sure you first find niche influencers with an engaged audience.
Three ways to do so:
- Google “your niche + YouTuber” for a list of popular YouTube channels in your industry
- Search for industry-relevant hashtags on YouTube or type in “sponsored + your niche”
- Use influencer marketplaces such as HypeAuditor and Heepsy
17. There are over 51 million YouTube channels as of 2022
In fact, the number of YouTube channels is growing rapidly — having grown by 36% since last year.
The question now is: how big are these channels? As of January 2022:
- Around 29,000 YouTube channels have more than 1 million subscribers
- Roughly 306,000 YouTube channels have over 100k subscribers
- 25 million YouTube channels have between 10 to 1,100 subscribers
- 17 million YouTube channels have between 100 to 1,000 subscribers
- 51 million YouTube channels have a little more than 10 subscribers
What’s noteworthy here is that the channels having between 100 to 1,000 subscribers grew the most in 2020.
Ready to grow your channel subscribers? Create a target audience-focused YouTube growth strategy.
The ingredients to creating such a growth strategy? These three:
- Identify who your target viewers are
- Regularly talk to and source feedback from them
- Identify (and refine by testing) video content angles that resonate with and engage your audience
18. YouTube gets the most traffic from Google. Facebook sends the most traffic among social media platforms
Google accounts for an average of 707 million monthly visits to YouTube. DuckDuckGo and Microsoft Bing send some 23 million and 7 million monthly visitors, respectively.
As for social media traffic referrers, Facebook’s link shim l.facebook.com tops the list — sending approximately 40 million monthly visits.
YouTube's own URL link shortener comes in second, contributing more than 33 million monthly visits. Reddit.com ranks third, amounting to 26.6 million visits per month to YouTube.
The takeaway? Create a cross-platform video platform distribution plan. Instead of plainly sharing links to your YouTube videos though, tug at your followers’ curiosity.
Share behind-the-scenes (BTS) content on how you create a video and post bite-size clips from your videos on social media to drive traffic to your YouTube channel.
By optimizing your videos for search, you can also drive traffic from Google.
Plus, if you’re a Reddit power user, share your YouTube video only after you’ve shared a text-based, valuable answer first. This way, your copy will serve as a hook that encourages Reditters to watch the video to learn more on the topic at hand.
[#TOC6]YouTube Ad Statistics[#TOC6]
19. YouTube generated about US $28.84 billion in global advertising revenue in 2021
This figure has increased by almost 46% from $19.7 billion in advertising revenue generated in 2020. In fact, YouTube’s annual revenue from advertising has grown consistently year-over-year.
This data paired with YouTube statistics on its wide user base and the time folks spend on the platform confirm that running YouTube ads is an ROI-driving investment.
From brand awareness to growing sales, YouTube advertising is a cost-effective option.
To drive the most revenue from your video ads though, create an interesting hook to grab viewers’ attention. Grammarly’s YouTube ads are a great example of running engaging ads on the platform.
Level up your YouTube marketing today
Convinced you need to invest in YouTube? Remember, you can always start small.
Talk to your target audience and understand what content topics they’d like to see on your YouTube channel. From there, take an iterative approach. Create videos, study their performance, and repeat — all so that you can figure out what resonates with your audience.
We’ll leave you with 105 YouTube video ideas to get your creative gears shifting.
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