Skip to main content
YouTube – Troubleshooting

Common issues when connecting and downloading YouTube data

Funnel Support avatar
Written by Funnel Support
Updated over a week ago

Sections in this article

Connecting YouTube data sources

Each YouTube data source is associated with a single YouTube channel. Channels are administered by either a single personal Google Account or a Brand Account. A Brand Account can be accessed by multiple personal Google Accounts. Connecting a YouTube data source depends on what type of account is administering the channel associated with the data source.

Channels administered by a single personal Google Account

Only the credentials of the single personal Google Account that owns the YouTube channel can be used to connect it as a data source in Funnel.

Channels administered by a Brand Account

Only credentials of personal Google Accounts with the permissions role of Owner on the Brand Account administering the channel can be used to connect the channel as a data source in Funnel. Consult the Change channel owners and managers with a brand account documentation for assistance on adding users as Owners on Brand Accounts.

Credentials used to connect data sources in Funnel do not automatically update to reflect changing permission roles of their associated personal Google Accounts. New credentials must be created in Funnel using the same personal Google Account login information in order for them to acquire updated permission roles.

Data mismatches

Data delays imposed by YouTube APIs

Due to data volatility, a latency of up to 72 hours can be experienced between the attribution date of a metric value and it being retrievable from YouTube APIs. Data that has been recently attributed may not be immediately visible in Funnel.

Absent data for private videos

Applies to all report types except Channel Insights and Channel Subscribers.

The YouTube Analytics API only reports metric values for videos with Public visibility. Metrics for Private or Unlisted videos cannot be retrieved by Funnel.

Limited data from YouTube Analytics

Applies to all report types except Channel Insights and Channel Subscribers.

The YouTube Analytics UI and API limit data when video traffic or user activity metric values associated with a particular breakdown do not meet undisclosed thresholds during a given time period. This period is equal to one day in the context of YouTube data viewed in Funnel.

When metric values for a video or breakdown are limited, they are not reported on separate rows by the YouTube Analytics UI and API. However, the YouTube Analytics UI will still include limited metric values in aggregated column totals for a given time period.

Aggregated data in the Funnel Data Explorer cannot account for metric values which have been limited by the YouTube Analytics API. This means that row aggregates in Funnel will match with YouTube Analytics as long as all breakdown dimensions relevant to the data source report type are selected in Data Explorer. However, totals for a given time period (i.e. the All row in Data Explorer) are not guaranteed to match between Funnel and YouTube Analytics.

Did this answer your question?