šŸ¤©YouTubeā€™s kicking butt, so use their angles (6 YouTube insights)

youtube insights

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Independence Day is tomorrow, but donā€™t antagonize any Brits you see around town. They know whatā€™s up. 

Anyway, Iā€™m about to take you through the best case study for user experience ever ā€” how YouTube eviscerates every other video platform, and itā€™s all about smooth UX. Still, there are other angles YouTube uses for mass appeal. Weā€™ll look at those so you can decide which angles you can use to improve / promote your products and services.

Also up today:

  • The Knowledge Base (new studies)Ā 
  • Self Help (getting Biblical)
  • Facts & Stats (updated email benchmarks)
  • Get Hacking (scrub bad reviews)

Letā€™s hop into the Feature Story.

YouTubeā€™s Kicking Butt

Somehow, Google has managed not to screw up YouTube, unlike everything the Googsters touch lately.

šŸ«YouTube has led in time watched among streaming platforms for 15 months running (CNBC).

šŸ«Over half of YouTube viewing is done on TVs (meaning, not on phone, tablet, laptop).

šŸ«2nd in total TV use (cable, streaming, etc.) behind only Disney Corpā€™s 6-headed munster (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, ABC, FX, National Geographics).

šŸ«1 billion hours watched on TVs daily.

šŸ«$31.5 billion in global ad revenue (2023) >  than Paramount Corporation’s entire revenueā€”from all sources ($29 billion)!

Despite you already knowing YouTube has monstrous mass appeal, those facts are staggering, huh? To me too, and Iā€™m usually stagger-proof. 

And get thisā€¦

Traditional TV is Now a Death Sentence

youtube insights

ā€œGetting a deal with Paramount+ [for example] would be a death sentence for most [YouTube] creators.ā€

That quote from the CNBC video says more than the billions of dollars in ads and gazillion hours watched weekly.

But how does knowing this help you with marketing or improving your goods and services? Iā€™ll hand you a list of 5 ways below, but my main thought with YouTube is always user experience. Netflixā€™s UX is pretty great but still lags behind YouTube.Ā 

Max (HBO) has the best original series but one of the worst user experiences (buffering, not easy to skip ahead or go back). Hulu has similar playback issues and their commercials are painful to watch. Same with Paramount ā€” itā€™s on the viewer to sit still and not touch the app until the show youā€™re watching ends or risk losing your place.

YouTube, fast-forwards and rewinds flawlessly. You can skip to certain chapters if the uploader added them. Your history is easy to find. Saving and creating playlists is easy as pie, and the watch-later playlist is a staple that hopefully never goes away. 

Wait thereā€™s more:

  • No paywall for the vast majority of YouTube
  • You can find whatever you want (more on this below – personalization is a buzzword but is real on YT)
  • Can watch endless content in the background (even commercials get played 18 million times like this Nissan ad)
  • Shorts are available to watch even when you only have 30 seconds to spare (on subway, waiting room, during a Netflix commercial while holding a second screen)
  • Cast to your TV from phone or computer or via TV apps or watch on phone
  • Many users mainly listen to YouTube (music, meditation stuff, talk shows, interviews, documentaries, sound weirdness like this)

The user gets the friendliest, most flexible, and easiest-to-use video service imaginable.Ā 

However, you can decide if thatā€™s as valuable as the following.

5 More YouTube Insights & Angles You Can Use

#1 Insight: If youā€™ve read over 50 marketing articles this year, then youā€™ve seen the buzzword ā€œpersonalizationā€ in 127 of them (that mathā€™s correct).

Personalization is mostly a buzzword, because personalization is hard to pull off. But YouTube truly can personalize because it has something for everyone on this planet.

Just spend an hour on YT searching for outlandish topics. Theyā€™ll lead you to even more outlandish topics you canā€™t think of on your own. Plus, youā€™ll find YouTubers you never heard of with two or three million subscribers. 

YouTube caters to everyone. And does so without lifting a finger. Next angleā€¦

#2 Insight: YouTubeā€™s the Uber of TV (except profitable) 

The company doesnā€™t own any video cameras or sign actors to ridiculous contracts but gets free andā€¦

Insane Amounts of User-Generated Content 

Despite how hard it is to make a living creating YouTube content, there will forever be an endless supply of people willing to try. The lure of fame and fortune is too great to stop the firehose of free user-generated content.

The kind of lure Hollywood used to have. Before movie stars went extinct. 

#3 YouTube Insight: Hollywood used to have substance that wouldā€™ve beaten back YouTubeā€™s takeover. 

No more. The substance faded after Netflix came for traditional studios, did well, then began producing and funding awesome original content ā€” until it got watered down.

It was too much of a good thing. 

Amazon and Hulu piled on with original content – more water, less substance. The outlier was Paramount+ hitting the jackpot with Taylor Sheridan and overcoming Kevin Costnerā€™s inability to act ā€œunwoodenā€ (Horizon is decent though).

#4 YouTube Insight: No barrier to entry for people to create content, and it costs YouTube nothing upfront. 

Get a free government-issued phone, do something stupid, cool, or informative, then hit upload. Out of billions of uploads, a few talented stars emerge and will keep emerging.

Still, the most basic thing that makes YouTube unstoppable might be the one angle you can mimic in some way if you slap your thinking cap on.

#5 Insight: YouTubeā€™s service fits into users’ routines. 

  • YouTube app comes native on nearly every phone
  • Preinstalled on most smart TVs (perhaps all)
  • TV is the biggest disruptor in human history

Bowling Alone is a great book about humans becoming more isolated well before the web and social media. Lots of factors, but the author basically concludes that TV is the biggest reason humans began socializing less and less.

YouTube, while a genius product/service, is simply a different (& better) form of TV. 

Humans like being at rest when they can. TV gives us joy while at rest. YouTube fits into that routine with an improved way to watch TV.

Now, for the decline of celeb promos and other Knowledge links.


The Knowledge Base 

šŸŒŸThese stats prove influencers > celebs at moving products

Location targeting hamstrung on Meta Ads

šŸ·ļøNative ad costs by industry (chart)

Side-hustle advice that isnā€™t sucker bait

šŸŽ‡Stuck for July email campaign ideas? (15 sparks)

Run a fitness biz? Blue hairs getting swole

šŸ›ļøSocial media, the new mall (fresh study)

Got a home services biz? Endless contentā†’highlight scams like this 

šŸ˜¼Meta leads way copycats TikTok with new creator avatars

Speed sells (paid tool improves Shopify store load time)

šŸ–ŠļøPen & paper save sales when cyber attacks happen


Email open rates sagging? 

Clicks and conversions getting few and far between? Worried about Spam Traps?

End those problems. See which of your subscribers are most active in their inbox (with all their emails) so you can email that hot segment. This increases open rates, click volume, and conversions. Youā€™ll also spot potential Spam Traps a mile away by avoiding inactive email addresses.

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Self Help

Pride comes before the fall.

Truer words never spoken.

Without some pride, though, how does a person rise at all? 


Facts and Stats

  • Consumers wanting bundled media packages say #1 piece is Netflix {Disney+ last place} (Media Post)
  • Latest MailChimp data shows 2.62% average click rate & 35.63% open rate
  • 92% of customers want ads to feel more like a story (Go-Globe)

Bonus: Which blockbuster film holds the record for biggest opening day on Independence Day? Answer is 2007ā€™s Transformers ($29.1M July 4 opening)


Get Hacking

No doubt, there are processes for getting bad reviews scrubbed from Google, Yelp, G2, etc.

Iā€™m gonna cover tactics like that in a future edition of Inbox Hacking. But you can also ask a reviewer to reconsider. If theyā€™re not a bot or heathen, theyā€™ll at least hear you out, and likely upgrade the review. 

Or, if you have lots of bad reviews, lean into that like this restaurant owner did back in the day (only works if reviews are unfair and the product/service is actually good).


If you know another Megatron-level marketer, share Inbox Hacking with them. Thanks for spreading the word – my K9s appreciate it – more subscribers mean brand name Scooby snacks.

Shane McLendon, Copy Kingpin – Inbox Hacking 

P.S. Wanna test how much someone truly cares about climate stuff? Stick ā€™em in an eco-friendly room with no AC.