YouTube monitoring
YouTube monitoring: find the videos that mention your brand
Reviews, tutorials and comparison videos shape what people buy, and most brands find out about them weeks late. Babel42 searches YouTube for your brand on a schedule and keeps every match in one place, newest first.
It searches the video title and description, which is where creators name the products they cover. It does not read comments or the words spoken in the video. We say that up front because some tools blur it.
Included on the free plan · no card required · 500 mentions a month free
How YouTube monitoring works
| Plans | Every plan, including Free. |
|---|---|
| How it is collected | YouTube's official Data API, searching for your keywords and sorting newest first. |
| What is searched | Video titles and descriptions. Not comments, and not what is said in the video. |
| How fresh | On your plan's schedule: every 12 hours on Free, 4 hours on Starter, 2 hours on Growth, every hour on Scale and every 30 minutes on Enterprise. A busy search is checked more often than a quiet one, within those limits. |
| History | When you create a monitor, Babel42 fetches past posts too: 90 days on Free, rising to two years on the top plans. |
| Sampling | YouTube's search stops returning results after roughly 500 videos for one search. A very broad keyword is therefore a sample, not a complete list. |
| Sentiment | AI scores every mention we collect as positive, neutral or negative, with a confidence figure. Included on every plan. |
| Channels | Follow a YouTube channel to track its uploads, subscriber growth and engagement over time. |
Write your search the way creators title videos
Because only the title and description are searched, the words that matter are the ones a creator would put there. That means product names, model numbers and the comparison phrases people search for, like "vs" and "review".
A brand name on its own also catches videos that mention it in passing. Pair it with the words that signal a real opinion:
("Acme Pay" OR "AcmePay")
AND (review OR "vs" OR alternative OR tutorial)What to do with the videos you find
A YouTube mention is usually longer-lived than a post on other networks. A good review keeps getting views for months, so it pays to act on it.
Thank and share the good ones
A creator who reviewed you well is a partner worth contacting. The authors view ranks them by reach.
Answer the critical ones
A fair complaint in a popular video deserves a reply in the comments from your team.
Track a rival's launches
Run the same search for a competitor and see which of their launches got covered, and how it was received.
Follow the channels that matter
Add the creators in your space as channels and watch their subscriber growth before you partner with them.
What YouTube monitoring cannot see
Comments and spoken words. A video that talks about you without naming you in its title or description will not match.
Very broad searches. YouTube stops returning results after roughly 500 videos per search, so a common word gives you a sample. Narrow searches are complete in practice.
Channels, from a demo project: follow the creators in your space and watch them grow.
YouTube next to the rest of the conversation
YouTube is one source in Babel42's social listening tool. One monitor can watch it alongside the other networks you pick, and the results land in the same dashboard, with the same sentiment scoring and alerts. New to the idea? Start with what social listening is.
YouTube monitoring, answered
Is YouTube monitoring free?
Yes. YouTube is on the free plan, with 500 mentions a month across two monitors. Paid plans start at $29 a month and check more often.
Does Babel42 monitor YouTube comments?
No. It searches video titles and descriptions. Comments and the words spoken in a video are not searched.
How often does Babel42 check YouTube?
Every 12 hours on the free plan, every 4 hours on Starter, 2 hours on Growth, every hour on Scale and every 30 minutes on Enterprise.
Can I track a YouTube channel's growth?
Yes. Add it as a channel and Babel42 records its uploads, subscriber growth and engagement over time.
Will I see every video that mentions my brand?
Not always. YouTube's search stops after roughly 500 results per search, so very broad keywords are sampled. A specific brand or product name usually stays well under that.
Other networks we cover
- Bluesky search and monitoring live from the firehose, on the free plan.
- X (Twitter) monitoring through the official API, as a paid add-on.
- Instagram hashtag monitoring a sampled view of the tags around your brand, on paid plans.
- News monitoring for online articles that mention you, on the free plan.
- Review monitoring for Trustpilot and Google reviews, with sentiment, on paid plans.