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Tracking Competitors

Keep tabs on other creators in your niche to discover what's working. Subscribr monitors their uploads and surfaces videos that perform unusually well, giving you inspiration for your own content.

What is Competitor Tracking?

When you add a channel to your competitor list, Subscribr:

  • Monitors new uploads - Tracks when they publish new videos
  • Identifies outliers - Flags videos performing significantly above their average
  • Analyzes trends - Spots patterns in successful content
  • Sends digests - Emails you weekly summaries of noteworthy videos

This helps you stay informed about your niche without manually checking multiple channels.

The Competitors Page

Access your competitors from the channel navigation. The page shows:

Tracked Channels

A list of all channels you're monitoring, with key stats like subscriber count, recent upload frequency, and average views.

Recent Outliers

Videos from your tracked channels that performed significantly better than the channel's average. These are often the most valuable for research - they show what topics, formats, or approaches resonated with audiences.

New Uploads

The latest videos from your tracked channels, so you can see what competitors are publishing.

Adding Competitors

  1. Go to your channel's Competitors page
  2. Click Add Competitor
  3. Enter a YouTube channel URL or handle (e.g., @mkbhd or https://youtube.com/@mkbhd)
  4. Click Add

How Many Competitors?

Start with 5-10 channels that are similar to yours in niche and size. Too many makes the data noisy; too few limits your insights.

Understanding Outliers

An outlier is a video that performed significantly better than the channel's typical content. Subscribr uses a multiplier to identify these:

  • 1.5x = Video got 50% more views than the channel's average
  • 2x = Video got double the typical views
  • 3x = Video performed 3 times better than average

Higher multipliers indicate more exceptional performance. You can adjust the threshold in your channel settings.

Why Outliers Matter

Outliers reveal what resonates with audiences. When you find one, ask:

  • What topic did they cover?
  • What was the title/thumbnail approach?
  • Was it timely (news, trends, events)?
  • What format did they use?

This analysis can inspire your own content ideas.

Weekly Digest Emails

Get a summary of competitor activity delivered to your inbox every Monday.

Enabling Digests

  1. Go to Channel Settings
  2. Find the Competitor Intel section
  3. Check Send weekly competitor insights
  4. Adjust the outlier threshold and length filter as needed
  5. Save your settings

Digest Contents

Each email includes:

  • Top outlier videos from the past week
  • Notable new uploads from tracked channels
  • Quick stats on competitor activity

Competitor Settings

Fine-tune your tracking from Channel Settings:

Outlier Threshold

Set how exceptional a video must be to appear as an outlier. Lower values (1.5x) show more videos; higher values (2x+) show only standout performers.

Length Filter

Choose to see:

  • All Videos - Everything including shorts
  • Shorts Only - Videos under 3 minutes
  • Long Form - Videos over 3 minutes

This helps if you focus on a specific video format.

Using Competitor Insights

Here's how to turn competitor data into content:

Find Proven Topics

If multiple competitors have outliers on similar topics, that's a signal the topic resonates. Consider your unique angle on it.

Spot Format Trends

Notice if outliers share common formats (listicles, tutorials, reactions). These formats might work well for your audience too.

Identify Gaps

Look for topics your competitors haven't covered well. Their misses can be your opportunities.

Time Your Content

If a competitor's outlier was tied to a news event or trend, similar timing might work for you.

Removing Competitors

  1. Go to your Competitors page
  2. Find the channel you want to remove
  3. Click the remove/delete option
  4. Confirm the removal

The channel's data will be removed from your tracking.

Privacy Note

Competitor tracking uses publicly available YouTube data. You're not accessing any private information - just what anyone can see on YouTube.

Next Steps