Whether it’s the audience you have or the audience you want, understanding your audience is key to growing on YouTube.

Growing a YouTube channel just means making content that people like and making sure those people see it. An oversimplification, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less true. 

That’s why we’re excited about our new YouTube Audience Understanding Tools and after you have a chance to play around with them, we think you will be too. 

If you’re a TubeBuddy user, you know about all of the classic insights TubeBuddy surfaces for creators. You know about our A/B testing tools, SEO Studio, and Advanced YouTube Keyword Explorer. Our goal is to help creators achieve more success on YouTube. And it works. 

Audience Understanding was built with creators in mind, and with feedback from you, the TubeBuddy community. So thanks!

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What is Audience Understanding

Our newest suite of tools live under the category we call Audience Understanding.

Audience Understanding is designed to surface insights and identify trends not just for your channel but all across your niche. It helps to reveal the story behind the stats, helps you connect with your audience on a deeper level, gain insights from fellow creators and their channels, and create content that will stand out in your niche.

These tools are designed to surface the insights that will help you make smarter content and community management decisions. 

If you’ve ever seen a fellow creator’s  video go viral within your niche and wondered what secret formula led to the success, Audience Understanding can help. It also ensures that the next time a video in your niche shows signs of going viral, you will be among the first to know.

Whether you’re looking to uncover breakout videos, learn from fellow creators, or pinpoint exactly what your audience loves and what they don’t, the newest addition to the TubeBuddy suite of tools will help you research your niche and refine your approach. 

In this post, we’ll talk through seven ways you can use our Audience Understanding tool to achieve greater success on YouTube.

If you’re not a TubeBuddy subscriber, audience understanding is still important and the lessons we share are still applicable… it’s just that the data and the insights will be harder to find, take more time and effort to analyze, and will lack important context. 

How Audience Understanding Works

Audience Understanding, like all TubeBuddy tools, lives in the TubeBuddy panel within YouTube Studio.

The first step is to add channels to follow in your niche. These should be creators in and directly around your niche. Look for the creators who are the break-out successes and who are attracting the audiences that you’re looking to reach. A few channels are probably already coming to mind.

As you continue your YouTube journey, you can (and should) add other creators in your niche. The more relevant channels you add, the better the insights.

With several stand-out creators added to your niche, you can get into the insights. Specifically Niche Insights. 

The Leaderboard is where you’ll see all the channels that you’re monitoring ranked by subscriber count, view count, or growth rate. Here, you can see how your channel stacks up against your fellow creators. Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, right? 

Your goal is to climb this leaderboard. But how?

On the right, you’ll see break-out and stand-out content. You can choose to see Outliers, these are the individual videos that are break-out successes (and less-than-successes) across your niche. In this list, look at topics, titles, thumbnails, and treatments and use this as inspiration for your own content calendar.

Audience Understanding tools make it easy to uncover insights like:

  • Which headlines capture attention?
  • What makes a stand-out thumbnail in your niche?
  • What is your niche audience watching?
  • What specific topics seem to resonate across your niche?
  • When is the most popular day to post across your niche?
  • How often are your fellow creators posting? 

As insights bubble up and inspiration strikes, use your content calendar, schedule your efforts and turn ideas into action.

With that, let’s get specific. Here are seven ways Audience Understanding can help you grow on YouTube.

How to use Audience Insights to shape your strategy

1. Plan a winning content strategy

Problem: You’re not sure what types of videos resonate most with your audience.
Solution: With Niche Content Standouts, you can spot videos in your niche that performed above and beyond expectations. 

For example, if you’re a fitness creator, you might notice that “30-Day Challenge” videos are getting a lot of attention in your niche. You can use these insights to create your own take on the challenge trend, leading to higher engagement and a surge in subscribers.

💡 Pro Tip: Use insights from standout content to plan an entire series, keeping your audience engaged for weeks!

2. Analyze competitors for a competitive edge

Problem: You’re struggling to stand out in a crowded niche.
Solution: With Channel Growth Benchmarking, compare your performance against similar creators. You’ll uncover what’s driving their growth, like consistent posting schedules or trending video formats. The Content Calendar even highlights their posting patterns so you can refine your strategy.

💡 Pro Tip: Dig deeper, ask yourself: What does this tell me about the audience? Why do they watch X videos and ignore Y videos? Why is this channel growing faster than my channel? Use these insights to create your own unique spin on the successful formulas you uncover.

Problem: You’re not sure what topics are hot in your niche.
Solution: Stay ahead of the curve with Niche Content Standouts, which highlights breakout videos and trending topics in real-time. For example, if you’re a tech YouTuber and notice a flood of videos about a new smartphone release, you can create your own review or comparison video to ride the wave.

💡 Pro Tip: Timing is everything. When you spot a trend across your niche, act fast to get in on the action. Early movers get an advantage and can capitalize on a trend before it’s played out. 

4. Turn failures into opportunities

Problem: Some of your recent videos underperformed, and you’re scratching your head trying to figure out why.
Solution: First, make sure the head-scratching isn’t lice (eww). Assuming it’s not, use Niche Content Standouts to analyze patterns in underperforming content. You might find, for instance, that shorter, more focused videos are outperforming lengthy ones. Adjust accordingly, and watch your engagement improve.

💡 Pro Tip: Every “failure” is a lesson. Let the data guide your next move.

5. Set goals and celebrate milestones

Problem: You’re feeling stuck and unsure of your progress.
Solution: The Niche Leaderboard shows where you rank within your community and highlights key metrics like engagement rates or audience growth. Seeing your progress compared to others can be motivating, helping you set realistic goals and celebrate your wins. Focus on metrics you have some control over, like growth rate, rather than larger “vanity” metrics like views or subs. 

💡 Pro Tip: Use leaderboard insights to define specific, actionable goals for the next three months.

6. Discover growth opportunities

Problem: You want to attract more viewers but don’t know which content will expand your reach.
Solution: Niche Content Standouts highlights trending video formats or topics. As a cooking YouTuber, for example, you  might discover that “15-Minute Meals” are gaining traction. Creating a series around these insights and adapting them for your overall content strategy can help you attract new audiences, like busy professionals or students.

💡 Pro Tip: Cater to emerging audience needs while staying true to your larger content strategy.

7. Personalize content for your audience

Problem: Your content feels generic and isn’t connecting deeply with viewers.
Solution: Use the Niche Leaderboard and Niche Content Standouts to understand your audience’s preferences. As a DIY creator, you might discover their viewers prefer step-by-step tutorials with downloadable guides. Offering these extras creates a more tailored experience and builds audience loyalty.

💡 Pro Tip: Be open to all kinds of insights. Create value beyond the video, like PDFs, templates, or checklists, to deepen connections with your audience.

Why audience understanding is a game-changer

With TubeBuddy’s Audience Understanding Tools, you’ll stop second-guessing your content strategy and start creating with confidence. These tools aren’t just about data—they’re about empowering creators with insights to turn data into action.

Everything we’ve created under the banner of Audience Understanding (and everything we will create… stay tuned) is designed to help you, as a creator, gain a deeper understand of your niche, your audience, and your opportunites, and to help you make data-driven decisions to stand out.

From benchmarking your performance to discovering hidden growth opportunities, the insights you gain will empower you to tailor your content to what your audience loves, to grow faster, and to succeed on YouTube with greater clarity at every step.

Ready to Understand Your Audience Like Never Before?

Start using TubeBuddy’s Audience Understanding Tools today and see your channel in a whole new light.

Get an unfair advantage on YouTube

Give your YouTube channel the upper hand and easily optimize for more views, more subs, and more of every metric that matters.

get started

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In this article

What is Audience Understanding
How Audience Understanding Works
How to use Audience Insights to shape your strategy