How To Do a YouTube Competitor Analysis Step By Step

The idea for your business’s next viral moment might be hiding in plain sight—or likely someone else’s trending Short. When it comes to YouTube specifically, watching other creators’ videos and reviewing competitor statistics can help you chart your own unique course. 

Competitor insights can supercharge your YouTube marketing strategy. Here’s how to conduct a YouTube competitor analysis and why it matters. 

What is YouTube competitor analysis? 

A YouTube competitor analysis is a systematic review of a competing channel’s performance. These reports typically include audience engagement metrics—such as views, likes, comments, shares, and subscriber growth—as well as content themes, branding elements, and top-performing videos. The goal is to identify what does and does not resonate with your competitor’s viewers to improve your own channel’s reach and engagement.

On YouTube, any account with the same target audience can be a competitor—whether it’s an influencer or an ecommerce business usingYouTube Shopping to sell products. Analyses typically focus on channels covering similar topics or, for ecommerce businesses, with a similar product. 

Advantages of a YouTube competitor analysis

YouTube content doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s part of a vast, thriving ecosystem of millions of videos. Reviewing your own metrics can help you understand what your audience responds to, but ignoring the broader platform gives you only part of the picture. Analysing similar videos and channels helps you:

• Spot trends. If all of your competitors are making content about the same topic, you might want to weigh in with your opinion or unique perspective. Hopping onto something already popular is often easier than carving out a new niche. 
• Identify content gaps. You still want to set yourself apart when possible. Research can reveal gaps in your competitors’ coverage—subjects or topics that other creators have missed. When you identify content gaps, you can fulfill unmet viewer needs. 
• Establish performance benchmarks. Reviewing competitor data can provide context and help establish YouTube performancebenchmarks for growth, views, and engagement goals. By comparing average views per video, engagement rates, and subscriber growth, you can identify what good performance looks like in your niche and adjust your objectives accordingly.
• Pick up publishing tips. Research may help identify technical strategies for boosting engagement or search engine optimization (SEO). For example, if you notice a competitor consistently posts at a certain time of day and gets strong engagement, you might test a similar upload schedule to see if it has an impact on your own audience.

Creator Amanda Rach Lee built her YouTube channel to more than two million subscribers by focusing on long-form content that builds community. 

“I’m really focused on community building and that is done through YouTube longer-form videos and streaming,” she explains in her Shopify Masters interview.

On YouTube, many viewers build relationships with creators, making it an ideal platform for businesses that want to establish deep connections with their audience—and understand what similar channels are doing to achieve that.

How to analyze a competitor’s YouTube channel

1. Identify your competitors
2. Review channel health metrics
3. Study content themes
4. Analyze YouTube strategy for SEO
5. Assess engagement
6. Set your own course

A YouTube competitor analysis involves watching competitor videos to generate ideas for your content, keeping an eye on how they’re meeting key YouTube metrics like views per video or subscriber growth. Here are the essential elements of a YouTube competitor analysis:

1. Identify your competitors 

Start by identifying the channel or channels that you’d like to track. To find creators working in your niche, select two or three keywords your business targets and use the YouTube search bar to query each one. YouTube’s algorithm returns customized results based on your browsing history, so try logging out and searching in incognito mode to view a generic list. Click on the top several results for each term and review the channels.

Select channels that cover a similar subject matter, since these likely share the same target audience as you. Pay attention to the top creators in your space and accounts with about the same number of views and subscribers, as similar-sized channels can reveal realistic growth and engagement benchmarks. The most successful videos reflect audience preferences.

An ecommerce business selling planters, plants, and accessories, for example, could practice YouTube marketing with a houseplant-focused channel. To check for competitors, they might search for the term “best houseplants.”

2. Review channel health metrics 

Review each channel’s profile to gauge key metrics like follower count, total channel video views, and engagement rate. Consider using a competitor analysis tool to pull a summary of high-level statistics. Third-party competitor analysis tools use public information from the YouTube Data API to track channel growth rates and calculate engagement rates, saving time by eliminating the need to gather numbers from individual videos.

For example, using Social Blade to research Wildfern—a top competitor in the houseplant space—reveals the total number of views the channel has earned in the past 30 days. You could then compare that to your own view count to determine whether your posting frequency, video length, or topic selection might need adjusting to close the gap. You could consider whether their audience engagement suggests opportunities to refine your thumbnail design, titles, or SEO strategy to boost visibility.

3. Study content themes 

Get to know your competition by watching several videos from each channel. Review popular and recent uploads. Take note of any common themes. Does the channel publish any recurring series or repeat particular video content formats? How long are their average uploads? Which videos attract the most engagement? Consider both subject matter and presentation. 

Consider Wildfern’s top eight most popular YouTubevideos of all time. A quick review of this content reveals that 50% of the channel’s top-performing videos include the phrase “houseplant tour” in the title. This might indicate a popular video format in the houseplant niche. 

This pattern recognition—identifying that 50% of top videos include “houseplant tour”—is the type of actionable insight that competitor analysis should uncover. It suggests this format resonates with the houseplant niche audience, making it worth testing for your own channel.

Look for similar patterns in your competitors’ content: recurring formats, common video lengths, or specific hooks that appear in their most successful videos.

4. Analyze YouTube strategy for SEO 

Take note of video titles, video tags, and descriptions—the elements that affect YouTube search. Reviewing your competitor’s YouTube SEO strategy can help you find additional keywords to target and pick up optimization tips. For example, if you notice that your top competitors are all using the same set of tags in video descriptions, you might start tagging your own videos to boost rankings. 

Using the timestamp function to tag each houseplant may be a way to add additional longtail SEO keywords. While full plant names might have a much lower search volume than general terms like “best houseplants,” they’ll face much less competition. Including the full names as chapters also makes this video more navigable and may help reach viewers looking for info on specific plants. 

Alex Ikonn, co-founder of Luxy Hair, notes that YouTube’s search functionality gives it an advantage over algorithm-dependent platforms.

“If you’re able to create relevant content based on the terms that people are searching for … you can tailor it to fit your business,” he explains in his Shopify Masters interview.

This makes YouTube competitor analysis particularly valuable for product-based businesses—you can see which educational content drives discovery for similar brands.

5. Assess engagement 

Look through your competitor’s video library and take note of the videos with the most likes and comments. Try to get a sense of how your competitors are driving audience engagement. What makes these particular videos popular? 

Read through the comments to evaluate viewer sentiment and look for any themes. Did viewers leave any audience feedback that you can apply to your own channel? Do any of the videos attract comments with techniques that you can replicate? 

Reviewing Wildfern’s top videos reveals that the company often pins the top comment on its own videos to speak directly to its followers or add a link to a related video. In this example, Wildfern used the space to ask viewers a question and earned 10 responses.

6. Set your own course

Compile your findings and identify tactics that can enhance your own content strategy. Consider both subject matter and posting strategy. If all of your competitors have found success with a video about “how to repot a pothos,” you might look for ways to add your own take to the subject. 

Here are just a few concrete ways you can start making your own way on YouTube, equipped with all this new information about competitors:

• Differentiate your content format. If competitors rely heavily on tutorials, try offering behind-the-scenes videos, Q&As, or story-driven content to stand out while still targeting the same audience interest.
• Refine your posting cadence. Analyze competitors’ upload schedules to identify engagement peaks, then test alternate posting times or frequencies to find when your viewers are most active.
• Improve presentation and value. Study how top creators use thumbnails, hooks, and pacing. Apply those lessons to make your videos more clickable and binge-worthy without copying their exact approach.

Remember that YouTube success often comes from consistent action rather than perfect planning. As content creator Amanda Rach Lee advises: “Done is better than perfect … if you keep telling yourself and waiting for something to be completely perfectly packaged then you’ll just hold yourself back and you’ll never do it.”

Use competitor insights to inform your strategy, but don’t let analysis prevent you from publishing and learning what works for your unique audience.