Brands are missing opportunities to improve their return on marketing investment from YouTube, with 84% failing to combine strong audience reach with strong engagement, according to new research.

The YouTube Growth Gap report, published by YouTube marketing agency Navigate Video with support from academics at the University of Sussex Business School, analysed 998 brand channels across 10 industries globally in July 2026.

The findings suggest that brands are focusing too heavily on views and audience size, while overlooking opportunities to build relationships with viewers and direct them towards further engagement or purchases.

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The research found that 94% of brands never pin a comment, while 72% never reply to viewers. 7% have disabled comments entirely, and 24% do not include an external link in any video description.

“There’s a real gap between what YouTube can do for brands and what many are actually getting from it,” said Stuart Stubbs, founder of Navigate Video.

“The problem isn’t a lack of content. Most brands are already producing plenty of it. The problem is that success too often starts and ends with the number of views, and views alone don’t tell you whether that content is working for the brand.”

The 998 channels analysed contained more than 1.4 million videos, representing a substantial investment in content creation. However, more than 40% of the brands had never added timestamps to a video, while more than 30% had never added a tag.

The report also found that 97% of brands scored higher on their channel setup than on the work carried out with individual uploads.

More than two-thirds scored below half marks for video packaging and metadata, the weakest-performing area assessed in the research. This covers elements such as titles, descriptions and playlists that can help audiences discover content.

Stubbs said brands were missing opportunities to improve organic discovery, including through search engines and AI tools.

“YouTube has changed, but many brands haven’t changed the way they use it. It’s no longer simply somewhere to host video, it’s becoming an increasingly important part of how people search for and discover information,” he said.

The report also highlighted a gap between popularity and channel quality. The 100 most-watched consumer brand channels achieved an average channel quality score of 48 out of 100 under Navigate Video’s assessment framework.

Dr Matilde Lucheschi, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Sussex Business School, said that understanding the factors behind performance was essential to identifying improvements.

“Numbers tell us what is happening, but not necessarily why,” she said. “Our analysis showed that even the biggest brands can struggle to navigate this complexity. Our frameworks aim to make it easier to diagnose what is driving performance and identify where action is needed.”

The report recommends that marketers pay closer attention to engagement, metadata and the steps that help viewers move from watching a video to taking further action.

The full YouTube Growth Gap report is available from Navigate Video.