With video projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019, it’s no wonder businesses and brands are taking it more seriously and giving video more weight in the marketing strategy. Following the trend isn’t enough, though – You and your clients need to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, how video fits into your overall marketing strategy, and how it can improve upon it. That’s where video metrics come in. In this post, we will break down eight important video metrics with examples of when and how it can benefit you to focus on them.
View Count
View count is perhaps the most straight-forward of the video metrics: It simply tells you how many times your video has been viewed. It is a raw number so it does not tell you how many of those views come from repeat viewers nor how much of the video was played per view.
For this reason, your video view count isn’t all that meaningful on its own but rather when viewed comparatively. For example, it might be helpful for you to compare each of your videos’ view counts to see which types of video (educational, demonstrations, testimonials, special offers, etc.) and/or which topics (dependant on your industry) and which platforms (website, email, or social media) bring in the most views. Gaining insight into any of these three variables can help you to understand where your time, money, and energy is best spent.
Play Rate
The percentage of people who click your video and begin watching it is known as your play rate. (It is not to be confused with your play count which is a raw number and, like the view count, can include multiple views by one viewer.) The play rate actually has less to do with your video’s content and more to do with the other content on the page (your services webpage for example) or the email that you’ve placed the video for consumption.
If your play rate is low, it could suggest that the web page or email design your video lives on is not encouraging people to click the video. This could be for any number of reasons; it could be that it’s not clear how the video will be helpful to them or it could be that the web page’s content sufficiently addresses the viewers questions and concerns so they have no reason to click play (ie video is not needed on that page). It could also be as simple as your video placement on the web page or in the email needs improvement which is an easy thing to test for.
Again, while your video play rate has more to do with the web page or email content accompanying the video versus the video itself, we should note that it’s always worth testing out different video thumbnails as it can have an effect on your play rate. For example, it’s commonly argued that thumbnails featuring people have a higher play rate than those that do not. Video metrics can be a valuable tool when A/B testing things like thumbnails or email design.
Engagement
The holy grail of all marketing metrics, let alone video metrics, seems to be engagement. Engagement is the percent of a video that a viewer watched and it helps you to gauge the quality and usefulness of your video to your viewers.
Based on what parts of your video viewers are repeatedly watching or skipping over altogether, video engagement can tell you which topics viewers find useful and which topics they do not. Your video engagement rate can also help you to understand if your video title or video description is misleading – If it is, you’re likely to see your average video engagement drop off quickly as people realize the video is not what they expected or need.
Social Shares
Whether they’re a B2C, B2B, or both, getting social is a part of almost any brand’s marketing efforts. Video marketing social shares is a measure of how often people share your video by linking to it, retweeting it, or re-posting it on any of the various social media platforms.
This measurement provides helpful information in different ways: It can help you to understand how engaged your target audience is (ie if they are they interested and/or excited enough about your video content to share it). If you’re paying attention to each share, it can also lend insight about people who may not yet be on your radar (and vice-versa) but whose questions and underlying assumptions will be apparent in the sharer’s post comments. Lastly, and perhaps the easiest to track, it can help you to identify which social media platforms are your best bet to focus your video marketing efforts based on where people are sharing and the responses their posts are receiving.
Click-Thru Rate
The click-thru rate (CTR) is the percentage of viewers that click on your video’s call-to-action (CTA). Why is this video metric so important? It can indicate whether you’re effectively presenting your offer as it relates to the pain point of your viewer.
If your CTR is high, it likely means that your video has effectively identified their problem and presented your products, service, or knowledge as being helpful to them; if the opposite is true and your CTR is low, you may want to rethink the way you present information in your video. This could mean a change in content, format, and/or delivery of the video. Comparing the CTR for videos on similar topics will help you to hone in on what your audience needs to hear or receive in order to click your CTA. It is important to note that your CTA does not have to mean your viewers purchase your products or services (although it can) but rather, it can be the first step in the customer journey; two common CTAs are “Sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay updated!” or “Learn more here!”
Conversion Rate
The number of new leads or customers you have gained based on a piece of video content is known as your video conversion rate. This video metric will require you to tag your viewers in analytical software like Google Analytics.
While the customer journey usually requires more than one piece of content to convert, you can imagine just how useful it can be to glean insights as to what types of video turn random viewers into fans, fans into leads, leads into customers, and customers into returning customers. Once you have enough video views and conversions, you’ll have data from which to note trends regarding which topics, video personalities, web pages, social media platforms, and types of video lead to conversions. You can even start parsing your data to determine which videos are more effective at inspiring many more lower-priced sales versus those that are more effective at helping you sell less but higher-priced products and services.
Site Metrics
Site metrics measure how your site is affected by your videos. Do your videos help or do they hurt your traffic to a particular webpage? Do people stay on your web page after you’ve added video or does your bounce rate go up? Are more people ordering your products and services and are they signing up to be updated about new releases and special offers?
Sharing video on your website will, in theory, help to boost your overall site metrics performance but if your numbers aren’t improving, don’t give up! Try incorporating different types of video and seriously consider changing the formatting and/or presentation of the other content on your webpages to test how it affects the behavior of your website visitors. The goal is, of course, to convert visitors into (repeat) customers and to shorten the time it takes to convert them.
Live Viewers
Have you had a chance to read our last post about creating your live video strategy? If not, please do that now and then come back and read this section. We’ll wait right here for you…
Ok, now that you’re familiar with how and why you should incorporate live video into your video marketing presence if you haven’t already, it’s probably pretty clear to you that knowing whether your live videos are gaining steam (aka viewers) is a useful video metric to keep track of and that you can use trends in live video viewership to know how to best structure your videos which will enable the most people to hear the most important parts of your message and to help you determine which types of videos and topics people tune in for and engage with.
While this video metrics breakdown list is not exhaustive, it provides you with a solid foundation of important quantifiable considerations for creating your video marketing strategy based on your business goals. The takeaways here are to create your videos with a purpose in mind, to start tracking the applicable metric(s) from the start, and to not only not be afraid to make changes to your video marketing strategy but in fact to expect to do just that.
Have questions, concerns, or ideas about creating video with purpose? Let us know by getting in touch, leaving a comment below or tagging us on Twitter @StickyPause!
