Using asset labels

The features described in this article are available only to partners who use YouTube's Content ID matching system.

Labels help you organize your assets into custom categories. You can search for assets based on their labels, update all assets with a particular label, create campaigns for labeled assets, view performance reports or analytics, or simply use labels to organize your asset library.

Follow the steps below to use asset labels in the user interface. You can also manage labels using the Content and Rights Administration XML feed or the YouTube Content ID API. For tips on how to best utilize your asset labels, visit our Asset labels best practices page.

Create a label

You can apply up to 30 labels to an asset (up to a total of 5000 labels per content owner).

  1. Go to the Assets list page for your YouTube content owner.
  2. Select one or more assets to apply the new label to, by clicking the check box next to the assets.
  3. Click the Labels drop-down. You'll see a list of the labels you've created.
  4. Enter the text of the new label in the search box at the top of the list.
    • The label needs to have at least two characters and no more than 30 characters.
    • The label text can include spaces; prohibited characters are angled brackets, commas, colons, ampersands, and the vertical pipe character (|).
  5. Underneath the search box, click "your label name" (create new).
Add labels to assets
  1. Go to the Assets list page for your YouTube content owner.
  2. Click the check boxes next to the assets you want to add labels to.
  3. Click the Labels drop-down. You'll see a list of your labels.
  4. Click the check box next to each label you want to add to the selected assets. You can filter the list of labels by entering text in the search box. As you type, the list displays matching labels.
  5. Click Add. 

You can also add labels to assets using the assets label tag in the Content and Rights Administration XML feed.

Delete labels
  1. Go to the Labels list page for your YouTube content owner.
  2. Select the row for the label you want to delete. You'll see a list of the assets using the label appears.
  3. At the top of the page, click the Trash icon next to the label name.
  4. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete. Once you delete, you can't undo it. It removes the label from all assets, claims, and campaigns that use it.
View assets, claims & campaigns that use labels

You can see all of your labels and the assets, claims, and campaigns using those label on the Labels page. 

  • Click on a label's row to see a list of the assets that have that label
  • Click campaigns or claims to see a list of the other items that use the label.
See asset label reporting
You can see asset label information in the Video report and the Asset performance report. Look in the Asset Labels column, which lets you filter or group items by your asset labels.
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