With the new and improved YouTube data source connector being available to all, we are now planning to retire the YouTube (Legacy) data source connector by the end of 2024.
To help you transition your queries away from the legacy data source, this guide discusses various features and functionalities so you can replicate the same data with the new YouTube connector.
Key differences
Below table highlights the major differences between the two YouTube data sources. Some of these differences will affect how you transition your queries.
YouTube (Legacy) | YouTube | |
Accounts | Uses channel reports and videos as "accounts" | Uses channels |
Report types | No report type selection | Has report type selection |
Video fetch limits | Up to 5000 | Up to 1500 most recently published videos |
Performance | Extremely slow to load (especially for larger channels) Login may fail for larger channels Quota issues prevalent | Much faster to load data Faster login Data fetching optimized, less likely to hit quota issues |
Licenses
All paid users of the old YouTube (Legacy) connector should have been granted an automatic license for the new YouTube connector as part of the same package.
If you have any questions or issues with your YouTube license, contact our support team.
Known issues and quirks
The "Videos performance" query type fetches a maximum of 1500 of the most recently published videos. Other report types don't have this limitation.
If you want to get the sum of the engagement on the channel for a specific period, use the "Channel overview" query type instead of "Videos performance". The "Channel overview" query type as it's not affected by the video fetching limits and will provide the full count.
The date range for video query types fetches what engagements happened on each date, not which videos were published on that date. So if a video published two years ago got a view yesterday, it will still show up in the data set for yesterday.
See our support articles for YouTube for additional help.
Transitioning queries
Currently, there is no migration tool available. You'll need to recreate the query in your destination of choice using the new YouTube data source connector.
Follow these instructions to transition your queries:
- Select the YouTube data source and go through the Google login process. YouTube has the same access and permissions requirements as YouTube (Legacy) so you can use the same Google login. For more details, see the YouTube connection guide.
Note you may need to repeat the login process several times if you have access to multiple channels. - You'll need to select a query type. What you need to use will depend on what channel report and fields you were using earlier in the YouTube (Legacy) connector. For more details about what each query type does, see the YouTube connection guide.
Note for Looker Studio
As each query type may have different fields, you will need to create different data sources for each query type. See this guide for working with query types in Looker Studio.
Note for data warehouse and data lake destinations
We have a fully-featured standard table set available for YouTube.
It is not really compatible with the YouTube (Legacy) standard table, which is quite simple, but you can recreate a similar setup with a custom table using the “Videos performance” query type and selecting the same video fields: Date, Data source, Video ID, Video title, Comments, Likes, Dislikes, Shares, and Video views.
Channel report to query type guide
The following table shows the various channel report selection options that are available in YouTube (Legacy) connector and which query type setting to use for similar setting in the new YouTube connector. Also the Field mapping guide below offers more details on which fields are available in which query types.
If using in YouTube (Legacy)... | Use instead in YouTube |
All accounts | All accounts is available in the account selection, but it's not a query type. "Videos performance" is probably the closest in behavior. |
ALL LISTED VIDEOS | "Videos performance" query type |
CHANNEL TOTALS | "Channel overview" query type |
TOP VIDEOS | No equivalent. "Videos performance" is probably the closest in behavior. |
Specific video selection | "Videos performance" or "Single video performance" query type |
Field mapping guide
The following tables shows the mapping between fields (metrics and dimension) in YouTube (Legacy) and YouTube to help you recreate your queries. Note that not all fields were ported over, and YouTube may have new fields not previously available. The YouTube column also lists which query types the fields are available in.
Metrics
YouTube (Legacy) | YouTube |
Channel subscribers count | Channel total subscribers
|
Channel video count | Channel total video count
|
| - | Channel total page views
|
Video views | Video views
|
| - | Videos added to playlist
|
| - | Videos removed from playlist
|
Estimated time watched (days) | Use Estimated minutes watched instead and calculate by dividing by 1440 |
Estimated time watched (minutes) | Estimated minutes watched
|
Avg. view percentage | Average view duration percentage (%)
|
Avg. view duration (min) | Average view duration (min)
|
Avg. view duration (sec) | Average view duration (sec)
|
Avg. view duration (h:m:s) | Average view duration (h:m:s)
|
Viewer percentage | Viewer percentage
|
Comments | Comments
|
Likes | Likes
|
Dislikes | Dislikes
|
Shares | Shares
|
Subscribers gained | Gained subscribers
|
Subscribers lost | Lost subscribers
|
Audience watch ratio | Audience watch ratio
|
Relative retention performance | Relative retention performance
|
Earnings (Google-sold ads) | Estimated revenue
|
Estimated ad revenue | - |
Estimated Premium partner ad revenue | - |
Gross revenue (Google-sold & DoubleClick partner-sold ads) | Gross revenue (USD) - Default
|
Ad impressions | Ad impressions
|
Monetized playbacks | Monetized Playbacks
|
Gross revenue per 1000 impressions | CPM
|
Gross revenue per 1000 playbacks | Playback Based CPM
|
| - | YouTube Premium views
|
| - | Estimated YouTube Premium minutes watched
|
Annotation impressions | Annotation impressions
|
Annotation clicks | Annotation clicks
|
Annotation clickable impressions | Annotation clickable impressions
|
Annotation click-through rate (CTR) % | Annotation click through rate
|
Annotation closes | Annotation closes
|
Annotation closable impressions | Annotation closable impressions
|
Annotation close rate % | Annotation close rate
|
Unique viewers (deprecated by Google, don't use) | - |
| - | Card impressions
|
| - | Card clicks
|
| - | Card click rate
|
Card teaser impressions
| |
| - | Card teaser clicks
|
| - | Card teaser click rate
|
Dimensions
YouTube (Legacy) | YouTube |
Year | Year
|
| - | Year of week (Sun-Sat)
|
| - | Year of week (Mon-Sun)
|
Year & month | Year & month
|
| - | Year & week (Sun-Sat)
|
Year & week (Mon-Sun) | Year & week (Mon-Sun)
|
Month | Month
|
| - | Week (Sun-Sat)
|
Week (Mon-Sun) | Week (Mon-Sun)
|
Week (Mon-Sun, dates) | - |
| - | Day of month
|
| - | Day of week (Sun-Sat)
|
| - | Day of week (Mon-Sun)
|
Date | Date
For "Single video performance" report, use Published date instead |
Video/channel name | This has been split into separate fields.
|
Video/channel ID | This has been split into separate fields.
Channel ID
|
| - | Channel URL
|
| - | Channel description
|
| - | Channel custom URL
|
| - | Channel created date
|
| - | Channel thumbnail URL
|
| - | Channel thumbnail
|
| - | Channel country
|
| - | Channel hidden subscribers
|
Video published date | Published date
|
| - | Published time
|
Video URL | Video URL
|
Video image URL | Video thumbnail URL
|
Video image | Video thumbnail
|
Video description | Video description
|
Video tags | Will be added soon! |
Video category | - |
Video length | Video length
|
Video resolution | - |
Video has captions | - |
Video is licensed content | - |
Video age restriction | - |
Video privacy status | Video visibility status
|
| - | Video upload status
|
| - | Video failure reason
|
| - | Video rejection reason
|
| - | Video embeddability
|
| - | Video public stats viewable
|
| - | Video made for kids
|
| - | Creator content type
|
| - | Live broadcast content
|
| - | Live or on-demand
|
Country | Country
|
US state | US State
|
Age group | Age group
|
Gender | Gender
|
Gender & age group | - |
Operating system | Operating system
|
Device type | Device type
|
| - | YouTube product
|
Playback location | - |
Playback location detail for embedded playbacks | - |
Traffic source | Traffic source type
|
Traffic source detail | - |
Sharing service | - |
Elapsed video time ratio | Elapsed video time ratio
|
Ad type | Ad type
|