Is there a way to track visitors that watched my video on YouTube and became a direct visitor to my website after the fact?

[JoeyPasq]

I am trying to understand the impact my commercials are having on website beyond just the clicks I get from YouTube as a referring site. Google is telling me there is not a way to track users that have viewed a video. I am trying to think outside of the box to figure out a way to use the remarketing cookie to my advantage. Google says there is not a way to track a user that watched a video and then eventually came to my site. But at the same time the "Earned Views" metric is similar to what I am trying to accomplish. As per Google, "An earned view occurs when someone who views your video ad and then watches another video or videos in a linked YouTube channel within 7 days of the ad view." So I want to be able to apply this same method to people that view my video ad and then surface on my website eventually. Please let me know your thoughts on this and if there is a way to accomplish this goal. Thank you

[Everett]

Hello Joey,

While I appreciate your quest for data, I'm not sure you can use the same technique described above unless you can convince Google/Youtube to set a cookie for you.

You'd think you could just look for YouTube's cookie whenever someone visits your site, but that isn't possible:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30637365/how-are-youtube-and-google-accessing-each-others-cookies

[troy.evans]

I haven't tried this yet but I found an article that seems promising and claims to connect your YouTube channel to Google Analytics, http://www.klipfolio.com/blog/connect-youtube-channel-google-analytics

[Everett]

Thanks Troy!

Let us know how it goes. That does sound very promising.

Don't forget to create a new profile view so you don't sku the data in your default view.