Video marketing is bigger than ever, with millions of new videos appearing daily on YouTube. At the same time, it is still challenging to manage all of the tasks involved in video creation and optimization. It helps if you have an automation tool to boost your productivity. TubeBuddy is one of those tools. It has a number of features that help you get more views, optimize your videos, and promote them to a wider audience.
You can use TubeBuddy for free as a browser extension and mobile app. However, if you want to access the more advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the paid plans. In this TubeBuddy review, we’ll explore some of the main features and benefits of TubeBuddy, provide the latest TubeBuddy discount coupons, and also make a short comparison to another video marketing app, VidIQ.
To get the best possible results from your video marketing, you need solid time management skills. At the same time, no matter how fast and efficient you are, there’s only so much you can accomplish by working manually. If you spend hours optimizing every video individually, you’ll find it hard to make consistent headway. TubeBuddy has many automation tools that can save you lots of time.
Advanced embed codes. YouTube itself provides limited options for embedding. With TubeBuddy, you have many more capabilities. You can customize the appearance of your videos and playlist. You can instantly get the embed code for your video without having to go to the video on your YouTube page. There are numerous options such as Hide Suggested Videos, Disable Full Screen, Loop Video, Disable Play Controls, and more.
Bulk copy cards.Video cards are powerful for adding a call-to-action to your videos. However, it’s quite time-consuming to do this manually. TubeBuddy automates the process, letting you copy cards across as many of your videos as you want. This is not only faster but allows you to create a custom look for your cards. You can also bulk delete cards.
Bulk update your playlists. You can instantly change the order of a playlist, set it to public or private, or remove videos from your playlist.
Automate end screen edits. If you’ve changed your offer, you may need to edit the end screens on multiple videos. You can do this quickly to some or all of your videos.
Find, replace, or append. Another automated task you may need to perform is to bulk change titles or descriptions for all or some of your videos. For example, you can easily change a link in the description, add new information, or remove something that’s no longer relevant.
Identify demonetized videos. YouTube often demonetizes videos for various reasons. If you have lots of videos, you may not even realize when this happens. Now you can quickly find which videos are demonetized and bulk submit them for review.
YouTube SEO
The first goal for video marketers is to get their videos seen. You can increase traffic with paid advertising, but it’s also nice to get as much organic traffic as possible. If you want more viewers to find your videos, you need to optimize them for the YouTube search engine. Video SEO, like website SEO, requires attention to many details, such as keywords in your titles and descriptions. TubeBuddy helps you improve your video SEO.
SEO Studio. If you want your videos to appear in searches and under “related videos,” you need to optimize your metadata. SEO Studio identifies the ideal title, description, and tags for all your videos.
Auto-translator. One clever SEO trick that most video creators don’t bother with is translating video titles and descriptions into other languages. This essentially multiplies your SEO, allowing your videos to rank in other countries.
Search Rank Tracking. A major part of SEO is keeping track of your rankings, which can change by the hour. TubeBuddy makes it simple to stay informed of your rankings on YouTube as well as Google. You can also track your competitors’ videos.
Promotional Tools
TubeBuddy has several ways to help you reach your audience in creative ways.
Vid2Vid Promotions. Promote one video in the descriptions of other videos. This is another task that TubeBuddy automates for you.
Create special links and codes. Promote your videos or channel on social media, in an email signature, or on your website.
Publish YouTube videos to Facebook (for Star plan and above). The powerful trick here is that your video will appear as a native Facebook video, which helps you get more views than if you posted it the usual way from YouTube.
Improve Engagement With Viewers
TubeBuddy has some great features that help you improve interaction with viewers.
Pick a Winner. Create a contest and randomly select a viewer who comments on your video. This is a fun way to incentivize engagement.
Manage comments. If you’re attracting lots of comments for certain videos, you can manage them with advanced filtering options. For example, you can focus on spammy comments, positive comments, or comments that use important keywords (such as the name of a product). You can also identify new commenters, someone asking a question, or Patreon supporters.
Canned Responses. If you get certain common questions, it gets tedious to type the same answers over and over. With this feature, you can use pre-written messages.
Pricing for TubeBuddy
You can start using TubeBuddy for free, but if you’re a serious video marketer, you should consider upgrading to one of the paid plans. Here’s a summary of what you get with each plan.
Free: Includes Channelytics, advanced video embed, tag rankings, tag sorter, share your videos on social sites with Share Tracker. Run contests with Pick a Winner, Milestones, Alexa app integration, mobile app, suggested tags, keyword explorer, more. Some of these features are limited with the free plan.
Pro: $9/month. Includes free features plus card templates, end screen templates, best practice audit, SEO Studio, search rankings, health report, more.
Star: $19/month. All Pro features plus schedule publish, sunset videos, bulk copy cards, bulk copy end screen, bulk thumbnail overlays, bulk update playlists, demonetization doublecheck, search rank tracking (limited), Opportunity Finder, publish to Facebook, more.
Legend: $49/month. All Star features plus Comment Spotlight, Auto Translator, Tag Translator, video A/B tests, channel access, Competitor Scorecard, export comments, Retention Analyzer, more.
TubeBuddy also offers a customized Enterprise plan if you run more than 20 YouTube channels. All plans are month to month without contracts so you can cancel at any time.
TubeBuddy Discount Coupon Codes
First, you should know that year-round TubeBuddy offers a 20% discount on annual plans, and beginners with less than 1,000 subscribers get 50% off the Pro plan (monthly or annual). If you already signed up and didn’t use the 50% off option on the homepage, use coupon code RisingStarBuddy when you upgrade. That’ll give you 50% off the Pro plan.
Other than that, occasionally and periodically, TubeBuddy offers new users additional incentives and discounts in the form of coupon codes to use upon signing up. These coupons are applied inside your account. We’ll keep an updated list of these coupons here;
There are quite a few video marketing tools on the market. Before choosing one, it’s always worthwhile to do some comparison shopping. I thought it would be helpful to look at another highly rated app, VidIQ, to see how it stacks up against TubeBuddy. [See our full VidIQ review and VidIQ promo codes here].
While TubeBuddy has many tools to help you with productivity (though it also has features to enhance video SEO), VidIQ, which is available as a Firefox or Chrome extension as well as a web suite, is more focused on a single objective: getting more views. Here are some of the features you get with VidIQ:
Instant access to the most important YouTube stats such as views, average view time, views per hour, views by country, more. There’s also a VidIQ Score to give you an overview of your results.
Keyword tools. YouTube is a search engine (second only to Google), making keywords essential for video SEO. VidIQ lets you do powerful keyword research, providing many suggestions, and showing you leading videos in your niche. You get a Keyword Score for videos so you can find out if changes are in order.
Trends Alerts. YouTube is a quickly evolving platform with new topics appearing all the time. With Trends Alerts, you can quickly identify the latest trends and take timely advantage of them.
Thumbnail Generator. Thumbnails, the first image of a video that potential viewers see, can have a real impact on views. With VidIQ, you can easily create custom thumbnails that will attract more attention to your videos.
Competitive Research. You can bring up important data on your competitors for insights on how to improve your own videos.
Like TubeBuddy, VidIQ offers several plans, including a free option. Pricing is a bit more complicated, as each plan has tiers based on how many videos you’re working on.
Basic (Free): 1 user, 1 channel, track 3 competitors, Video Scorecard, Live Stats Bar, more.
Pro: Starts at $7.50/month. Track 6 competitors, Analytics and keywords tools, YouTube description campaigns, top trending videos, more.
Boost: Starts at $39/month. Average users get twice as many views on new videos. Track 20 competitors, VidIQ Keyword Engine, 5+ trend alerts, SEO title & description recommendations, more.
There’s also a Boost+ plan for agencies that starts at $415/month that includes personalized coaching.
So which is better for your video marketing goals, TubeBuddy or VidIQ? They are both powerful tools that will help you create more optimized videos. Each tool has some strong points while they overlap in some areas. Pricing is comparable, with TubeBuddy offering a $9/month plan and VidIQ starting at $7.50/month. TubeBuddy has some great productivity tools, such as managing your YouTube cards. VidIQ’s trending videos feature is extremely helpful, not only for finding keywords but for getting a big picture look at what people are watching.
As both TubeBuddy and VidIQ offer free browser extensions, there’s no reason not to try both. At that point, you could decide which one you prefer and upgrade. On the other hand, there are video marketers who have paid plans with both.
Is TubeBuddy Right For You?
Video marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach your audience. At the same time, it’s not easy to keep up with all of the tasks necessary to upload, optimize, and promote your videos. The larger your channel grows, the more important it is to start automating as many tasks as possible. TubeBuddy has a wide array of tools to help you save time, get more accomplished, and see better results.
I’d recommend trying the browser extension and experimenting with some of the free features. You might also compare it to VidIQ, as the two are complementary in many ways. When you start using an automation tool such as TubeBuddy, you’ll find that you can cramp up more videos in a shorter time, as well as start getting more views and engagement from your videos.