YouTube commenters as prospects

The comment section is a support forum nobody runs

People watch YouTube to learn how to do something or to decide what to buy. When the video does not cover their exact case, they ask in the comments: "does this work if you have more than one location?", "I tried this and the import fails at step 4", "which plan did you use for this?". Those comments are rarely answered by the creator, and almost never by a vendor.

That is the opening. A YouTube comment is a buyer asking a public question with nobody answering it.

Which buyers you meet

YouTube's audience is broad, so the video selects the buyer. Productive video types:

Who you will not reliably reach: senior buyers at large companies (they watch but rarely comment), and anyone in a field where video tutorials are not the norm.

What a signal looks like

• A follow-up question about their own case. "Would this work for a 30-person team?" Strong.
• A failure report. "Followed this and it broke when I connected my calendar." Strong, especially under a competitor's tutorial.
• A regret. "Bought this last month after watching, the reporting is useless." Strong, and the reviewer is unlikely to have been approached.
• A comparison request. "Can you do one comparing this to [other tool]?" Medium: has a shortlist.
• Praise. "Great video, thanks!" No signal at all.

How to do it by hand

1. Search YouTube for your problem phrase and for each competitor's name plus "review", "tutorial", "vs", "setup".
2. Prefer videos from the last year with active comments. Old videos with a steady trickle of new comments are gold: people are still finding them at the moment of need.
3. Sort comments by newest. Top comments are mostly jokes and early praise.
4. Copy each comment that describes a specific situation, with the handle and date.
5. Click through to the commenter's channel. Some run business channels with a name and a website in the About section. Most have nothing.
6. Reply under the comment with an actual answer. Other viewers with the same question see it too.
7. For identifiable businesses, follow up through their own site, referring to the question they asked.

Budget forty minutes for a first pass over five or six good videos.

What you can and cannot learn

You can learn: handle, channel name, any public channel description and links, and the full text of what they wrote, often with surprising detail about their setup.

You cannot learn: email addresses, employer, or anything else unless they put it on their channel. YouTube does not give creators the contact details of commenters.

YouTube's rules

YouTube's spam policy prohibits "using high-volume, repetitive, or deceptive comments, live chats, or other messages to drive traffic to or engagement with content", and gives the example of posting identical or similar "check out my channel" messages across hundreds of videos. Comments that trip spam filters are held or hidden, so a pasted pitch often never appears at all. The Terms of Service also restrict automated access to the service beyond what YouTube permits.

Practical rules:

• Write each reply for the person and the question.
• Skip the link unless they ask for one, and say it is yours.
• Do not reply to every comment on a competitor's video. Creators can remove you and the viewers can see what you are doing.

Realistic results and why it fails

We have no trustworthy number for how many YouTube commenters become customers. The ways it most often goes wrong are predictable, though:

• Choosing big channels. Huge creators attract entertainment viewers. A mid-sized channel aimed squarely at your buyer has a better ratio.
• Reading top comments only. The buyers are in the newest comments and the replies.
• No way to follow up. Most commenters are anonymous; the public reply is often your only shot.
• Ignoring old videos. A three-year-old tutorial that ranks well keeps collecting new buyers every week.

How Sluice does it

In Sluice, YouTube searches use the signal phrase alone, since YouTube search is global and adding a town mostly finds videos about the town. Paste a specific video (a competitor's review is a good start) and Sluice reads who engaged with it. Each person is looked up for role, company and location where possible, then scored 0 to 100 against your customer profile, with separate judgements on approachability and on whether their comment suggests they have the problem now. People at 70 or more are worth contacting, each linked back to the video.

The honest limits: most YouTube commenters resolve to no company, so many leads carry only their comment. Sluice drafts a reply from what they wrote, and you post it yourself. Signals keep their own record of people found and how many cleared 70, so a phrase that only finds fans can be switched off.

If your competitors also have review pages, their unhappy customers are easier to find on G2 or Capterra. For live audiences, see Twitch, and for short-form creators, TikTok.