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YouTube Content Tracking in Archive

How YouTube tracking works (key phrases vs keywords, channels, refresh cadence, limits) and why YouTube isn't connected like Instagram or TikTok.

Written by Kylie Decipeda

📋 Available on: Startup, Growth, Enterprise, Agency, and Custom plans

Archive tracks YouTube content from creators and campaigns so you can monitor mentions of your brand, discover relevant videos, and capture UGC. This article explains how YouTube tracking works, what you need to set up, and what to expect.

Overview

Archive captures YouTube content through two methods. Most workspaces use both.

  • Tracked terms — Archive searches YouTube for brand names, products, and phrases you specify, and brings back matching videos.

  • Channel tracking — Archive monitors specific YouTube channels and captures their uploads directly.

A workspace needs at least one of these to capture any YouTube content.

Tracked Terms

Tracked terms have two distinct roles: searching YouTube and filtering results. A single term can play either role on its own, or both at the same time, depending on how you want it to behave.

Key Phrase — the search query

A key phrase is what Archive actively searches for on YouTube. Every time Archive runs a pull, it queries YouTube for each of your key phrases and brings the matching videos into your workspace.

This is what makes content appear. Without key phrases (or channel sources), Archive has nothing to search for and no content will be captured.

Use key phrases for brand names, product names, campaign hashtags, slogans, and discovery phrases like {brand} review or {brand} haul.

⚠️ Important: A key phrase behaves like a YouTube search query — it returns the videos YouTube ranks highest for that term, not every video that mentions it. A broad key phrase like {brand} will surface popular results for that exact term, but more specific videos (e.g. {brand} jerky recipe, {brand} snack stick recipe) may be buried in YouTube's search results and never reach Archive's pull.

For comprehensive coverage, combine broad brand terms with long-tail variants that match specific topics, products, or content types your audience searches for. Each long-tail key phrase runs as its own search and surfaces videos that wouldn't otherwise show up under the broad term.

Examples of long-tail variants:

  • {brand} review

  • {brand} haul

  • {brand} unboxing

  • {brand} {product category} recipe

  • using {brand}

  • cooking with {brand}

  • how to use {brand}

Keyword — the filter

A keyword does not trigger its own search. It is applied as a filter on top of key phrase results: when a key phrase returns videos, only those that also contain at least one tracked keyword (or hashtag) are saved to your workspace.

Use keywords only when a key phrase is pulling too much and you want to narrow the results to brand-relevant videos.

📋 Quick summary: Key phrases find videos. Keywords narrow what is saved from those results. A workspace with only keywords (and no key phrases or channels) will capture zero YouTube content.

Terms That Serve Both Roles

A single term can be configured as both a key phrase and a keyword. When configured this way, the term:

  • Runs its own YouTube search (key phrase behavior).

  • Is also applied as a filter on top of all other key phrase results (keyword behavior).

This is useful for terms that are both broad enough to drive their own search and specific enough to keep results brand-relevant — typically your core brand name. Marking it as both ensures the brand name pulls its own results and doubles as a filter that keeps unrelated content out of other searches.

Most workspaces don't need this combined configuration — a clean separation of key phrases and keywords is enough. Use it sparingly, and only for terms where both behaviors are clearly desirable.

Where Matches Are Found

Both key phrases and keywords are matched against the same fields:

  • Video title

  • Video description

  • Hashtags extracted from title or description

  • Hidden video metadata

Both regular videos and YouTube Shorts are tracked.

📋 Note: By default, capitalization is ignored when a keyword is matched against the video title and description. See Keyword Matching Precision below to change that for a keyword.

Keyword Matching Precision

Each keyword has two settings that decide when a video counts as a match: how much of the word has to match, and whether capitalization matters.

These settings only apply when a tracked term is a keyword (the filter role), either on its own or combined with a key phrase. A term that is only a key phrase ignores both settings. To use Whole word only or Match case, configure the term as a keyword or as both a key phrase and a keyword.

Match type

  • Partial match (default) — the keyword counts anywhere in the text, including inside a longer word. Nova matches "Nova", "Novak", and "Supernova".

  • Whole word only — the keyword counts only when no letter, number, or underscore sits directly before or after it. Nova matches "Nova" and "#nova", but not "Novak" or "Supernova".

Capitalization

  • Ignore case (default) — Nova also matches "nova" and "NOVA".

  • Match case — only the exact capitalization counts. Useful when your brand name is also a common lowercase word.

Different capitalization variants can be tracked as separate terms, each with its own settings. For example, tracking both Nova and NOVA with Match case captures those two versions while leaving out nova.

What these settings affect

  • They decide which videos are saved to your workspace for that keyword. They don't change what Archive searches YouTube for — key phrase searches run the same way.

  • When a keyword uses whole word only or match case, Archive checks only the video title and description for it.

  • Whole word only removes matches inside longer words, but it doesn't confirm a video is about your brand. A video that uses the same word in another sense still matches.

Viewing roles and settings

Open Settings → Sources to see each tracked term's role and matching settings:

  • YouTube Keyword — keyword (filter)

  • YouTube Search Term — key phrase (search)

  • YouTube Search Keyword — both

YouTube Keyword and YouTube Search Keyword rows show Whole word only or Also inside words, plus Match case or Ignore case. Each setting has a tooltip that explains its behavior. YouTube Search Term rows don't show these settings because key-phrase-only terms ignore them.

Adding, Changing, or Removing Tracked Terms

Contact the Archive team to add a tracked term or change whether it is a key phrase (search), a keyword (filter), or both:

  1. Contact Archive Support (in-app chat) or your Customer Success Manager.

  2. Include in your message:

    • Your Workspace ID (Settings → bottom-left corner)

    • Whether each term should be a key phrase (search), a keyword (filter), or both

    • The exact terms you want added

  3. Allow 24–48 hours for changes to take effect after confirmation.

Removing a tracked term

  1. Open Settings → Sources.

  2. Find the term, open its three-dot menu, and remove the source.

Removing a term stops future tracking. Videos already in your workspace stay there.

📋 Tip: Don't rely on a single broad key phrase. Combine bare brand terms with multiple long-tail variants — review, haul, unboxing, recipe, how-to, etc. — to surface niche videos that wouldn't otherwise appear in YouTube's top results for the bare brand name.

Channel Tracking

You can add individual YouTube channels as sources and Archive will monitor their uploads going forward. Channel tracking is the most reliable way to capture a specific creator's content — term-based tracking does not catch 100% of matching videos.

How a Channel Is Tracked

A channel's tracking shows in the Content column on the Social Profiles page — scroll the table sideways to reach it:

  • All — Archive captures every video the creator posts, regardless of content. Set this up by adding the channel to a Creator Monitoring campaign and leaving its Tracking Settings empty.

  • Tagged — Archive only captures videos from that creator that also contain one of your tracked terms or hashtags. This is what you get when the campaign's Tracking Settings list #hashtags or @mentions.

If you added a channel and only see some of their videos in your workspace, it is likely tracked as Tagged, which only captures videos matching your tracked terms or hashtags.

📋 Note: adding a channel from the Creators or Social Profiles page only adds and labels it — it does not start capturing its content. Capture comes from the campaign.

Adding YouTube Channels

To capture a channel's uploads, add it to a Creator Monitoring campaign — the same way you add Instagram or TikTok creators:

  1. Create a Creator Monitoring campaign. Leave Tracking Settings empty to capture every video the channel posts, or add #hashtags / @mentions to capture only matching videos.

  2. Open the campaign and click + Add creators.

  3. On the Quick add tab, paste the YouTube channel URL or handle into the YouTube usernames field, then click Add (see Adding Creators to a Campaign).

Archive will begin monitoring that channel's uploads going forward. For historical content from the current month, contact Archive Support. For content from previous months, contact your Customer Success Manager.

How Often Archive Pulls from YouTube

Archive uses two different cadences depending on the source type:

  • Key phrase searches run every 4 hours. Each cycle queries YouTube for new videos matching your tracked terms.

  • Channel sources (tracked creators) are checked every 12 hours. When you add a new channel, the first pull runs immediately so the creator's recent uploads appear in your workspace without waiting for the next cycle.

Pulls are incremental — each cycle only fetches content posted since the previous pull, so historical content is not re-processed. The schedule can be customised per workspace by the Archive team if your use case requires more or less frequent pulls.

AI Filters on YouTube

When applying AI Filters to YouTube content, be aware that the filter analyzes the preview image (thumbnail) rather than watching the video itself. Depending on your filter configuration, it can also use the video title, description, tags, transcript (if available), and workspace brand context.

This means:

  • Products or content visible only within the video (not shown in the thumbnail) may be missed by the filter.

  • Missing descriptions or transcripts reduce filter accuracy — AI has less context to work with.

  • Audio-only mentions are not detected unless a transcript is available.

Limitations

  • Key phrases follow YouTube's search ranking. A key phrase only returns the top-ranked videos YouTube serves for that exact term. Niche videos that mention your brand may rank low in search and never reach Archive's pull. Add long-tail key phrase variants to cover specific topics.

  • Keep pulling key phrases to 2–3 per source. More is technically possible but not recommended — workspaces that stack many broad key phrases on a single source end up with noisy, low-relevance results. Use a small set of well-chosen terms per source instead of a long list.

  • Term-based detection is not 100%. Even with multiple key phrases, YouTube's search coverage has gaps. For reliable capture of a specific creator, add them as a channel source.

  • Keyword matching is partial and ignores case by default. A keyword can match inside longer words. Contact Archive Support to switch a keyword to whole word only or match case.

  • Private or deleted videos cannot be tracked. Archive only captures videos that are publicly available on YouTube.

  • Comments are not tracked. Archive captures the video itself along with views, likes, and engagement counts — but comment-level tracking is not supported.

  • Historical content is not backfilled automatically. By default, Archive pulls new uploads going forward. To request a backfill, contact Archive Support for the current month or your Customer Success Manager for earlier months.

  • YouTube videos can't be downloaded. YouTube videos are configured differently from other content in Archive, so they can't be downloaded. If every item you select is a YouTube video, Download Items won't appear in Quick Actions. If your selection mixes YouTube videos with other content, the YouTube videos are excluded and everything else downloads as usual.

Common Questions

  • Can I connect my YouTube account to Archive?

    No. YouTube isn't connected or authorized the way Instagram and TikTok are, and there's no YouTube login step in Settings → Sources. Archive captures YouTube content in two ways: tracked terms, which are phrases Archive searches YouTube for (contact Archive Support to add them), and channel tracking, where you paste a channel's URL or handle into a Creator Monitoring campaign. See Tracked Terms and Channel Tracking above.

  • Why isn't a specific video showing up even though it mentions my brand?

    Each key phrase behaves like a YouTube search and only returns the top-ranked results for that exact term. A video titled {brand} jerky recipe might rank high for that specific search but be buried under just {brand}. Add long-tail variants ({brand} review, {brand} haul, {brand} {product} recipe, etc.) so each one runs its own search and surfaces those niche videos. If the creator is someone you know, the most reliable option is to add them as a channel source.

  • Why don't I see videos from a small creator who tagged my brand?

    YouTube's search ranks results by relevance and reach — creators with low views can be pushed below the results page Archive's key phrase search reaches, even when your brand is mentioned right in the title or description. Adding long-tail key phrase variants helps for some niches, but for specific creators who matter to you, adding them as a YouTube channel source is the only way to guarantee every video they post gets captured.

  • If I already track {brand} as a key phrase, do I still need to add {brand} review, {brand} haul, etc.?

    Yes, if you want comprehensive coverage. The broad {brand} phrase only returns the videos YouTube ranks highest for that exact term — it will not necessarily include topic-specific videos that rank higher for more specific searches. Long-tail key phrases cast separate, narrower searches and capture videos that wouldn't otherwise appear.

  • Can the same term be both a key phrase and a keyword?

    Yes. A single term can be configured to play both roles — it will run its own YouTube search and also be applied as a filter on top of all other key phrase results. This is most useful for core brand names that are both broad enough to drive their own search and specific enough to filter unrelated content out of other searches. Request this configuration when adding the term, and the Archive team will set both behaviors on the same term.

  • I added a channel but only see some of their videos. Why?

    The channel is likely tracked as Tagged, so Archive only captures videos that also contain your tracked terms. To capture everything the channel posts, clear the #hashtags and @mentions from its Creator Monitoring campaign's Tracking Settings. You can do this yourself — no need to contact Support.

  • How far back does Archive pull content when I add a new channel?

    By default, Archive pulls new uploads going forward. For historical pulls from the current month, contact Archive Support. For earlier months, contact your Customer Success Manager.

  • What languages are supported?

    Archive tracks terms as-is, regardless of language. If your brand name contains non-Latin characters, include every variant you want captured.

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