Vevo kicked off operations in North America in December 2009, and has since attracted strong traffic to its content. According to ComScore media metrics the company ranked as the fifth largest U.S. video content property by total unique users in March 2011, with 52.6m unique viewers racking up 241.2m video viewing sessions. By comparison the top ranker, Google Sites (mainly driven by YouTube views) reached 143.2m unique viewers for a total of 1971.9m video viewing sessions. Syndication with Google-owned YouTube has significantly helped to drive consumption of Vevo's content.

The partnership with YouTube has allowed Vevo to embed its own branded player and, more crucially, maintain control of in-stream advertising. By controlling the ad sales Vevo aims to fetch premium CPM rates, guaranteeing to advertisers their marketing is displayed alongside relevant content. However, questions still remain on whether the company will manage to attract CPM rates to match its impressive traffic performance. Traditionally CPM rates associated with music have fared much lower than those for premium online video, such as catch-up TV, due to non-exclusivity and wide availability of such content.

The JV has one glaring omission in its catalogue, as Warner Music Group (WMG) has notably by-passed striking a deal with the company in favour of maintaining control over its content distributed online. In Q2 2010 WMG signed a long-term digital sales partnership with MTV Networks (MTVN), handing MTVN exclusive rights to sell advertising inventory around WMG music video content in the U.S. While the deal does not cover the UK or other international markets, there are no signs of WMG intending to license its content to the JV at the present.