If you haven’t already reached out to a video marketing agency, by now, your marketing team has (or has been trying to) convince you of the benefits of integrating video campaigns into your company or franchise’s marketing plan to reach new customers and help build brand awareness. You’re probably wondering how to invest in the right resources to enhance your marketing strategy and are working on a plan to create personalized video content to appeal to your target audience.
With US digital video ad spending expected to reach $58.39 billion by this year, you’re on the right track. After all, video continues to demonstrate its value in any marketer’s portfolio as one of the most effective and engaging forms of content.
Beyond just “views and clicks”, a key question to ask is, how do you know that your videos are actually resonating with your audience and accomplishing their purpose? The answer lies in understanding the deeper metrics video can offer. By leveraging the right data and measuring video’s effectiveness, these insights can unlock a treasure trove of information such as your audiences’ preferred trends, their viewing habits and so much more.
Don’t Judge my Metrics! (But really, you should)
Metrics are, quite simply, a quantifiable measure of tracking and judging the performance and success of a particular function. Whether you’re into quantitative data or not, understanding how to analyze data properly could be the difference between how close your company is to reaching its targeted goals and the possibility that things may not be going as well as they seem.
The same concept applies to understanding the metrics that video campaigns derive through analysis of the data collected. This is integral in providing insight into the effectiveness of your video marketing campaigns, which in turn, can help your business pivot as needed as you work your way into creating a more solid video marketing strategy.
Video metrics are also important because different metrics can prove to be useful along the different stages of your video marketing campaign and can measure the effectiveness of the goals for each of your videos. Analyzing this data along the way helps to connect the various touch points of the content your consumer is watching which can help craft your campaign and develop an effective lead nurturing process.
Types of Video Metrics and Best practices for Video Marketing Measurement
Here, we take a closer look at the various types of video metrics and how they are important in measuring a video’s success rate, as well as strategies and best practices for video marketing measurement:
1. Likes, dislikes, and comments
The greater the likes, the greater the chances are that your viewer will share the video that they are watching. Likes and dislikes are especially useful and can indicate the receptiveness of new content versus old. When your audience leaves comments, this brings the engagement level up a notch as now you can see the emotional response from your viewers toward your video. The more positive of a reaction, the more likely the video will be shared as your viewer trusts your brand enough to spread the message themselves.
BEST PRACTICE: By paying attention to your audience and setting your video goals intentionally, you’re more likely to create stronger messages and more relevant content. If your goal is to have your video shared widely, then this is a useful metric to keep an eye on.
2. View Count
View count tracks the number of times someone viewed your video. This is a straightforward metric of measuring just how interested someone was in viewing your video in part or in full.
Different platforms on social media use different timelines for measuring exactly what a view count is:
- Facebook and Instagram: 3 seconds
- Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Reddit: 50% of the ad is in view for 2 seconds
- YouTube and Google: 30 seconds, or if an ad is less than 30 seconds
- Snapchat: 2 seconds
- TikTok: The instant the video starts playing, it is considered a view count.
BEST PRACTICE: Since views are not consistent across the various platforms, it’s important to craft and share the right video on the right platform. For example, 20% of your audience will click away from a video after 10 seconds or less. With this metric in mind, you’re not likely to share a lengthier video on a platform designed for shorter engagement.
3. Click-through rate (CTR):
Refers to the number of times a viewer will click on an ad as compared to the number of times it’s shown. If your video metrics show a high CTR, it means that your viewers are actively heeding the call to action (CTA) and are more likely to take the steps you’re expecting them to take.
BEST PRACTICE: Making sure your video is high on the engagement spectrum may help to encourage users to watch the entire video until they reach the end CTA. Another option is to shorten your video and position your CTA either in the beginning or middle to ensure the viewer takes action.
4. Unique Views:
Common in the growth stage of your video campaign, unique views are a useful metric for determining how many new viewers are interested in your video content.
BEST PRACTICE: Look for new markets to promote your video to help capture new viewership. Another way to expand your reach is to incentivize your viewers to share your video and create content that is useful, engaging, and easy to follow.
5. Play Rate and Replays:
This metric displays the number of people that click on a video after visiting a website or the number of times a video was rewatched. This is an incredibly useful metric for demonstrating if your video content needs to be optimized or revamped. High numbers of rewatches indicate that viewers may have found something engaging or helpful in the video after watching it the first time.
BEST PRACTICE: Try to eliminate any confusion that may occur when your viewer visits your site by ensuring your content and descriptions match the relevant video. Make sure to have video embedded in various parts of your website to drive engagement.
Achieve Effective and Engaging Video Content Metrics
Creating fun, engaging, personalized, and useful video content sounds simple enough, but if you’re not measuring your success you may be underutilizing the capacity for greatness that your videos have. Video marketing can do wonders for your brand but without paying special attention to ways to grow your metrics, your videos might be falling flat.
We encourage you to reach out to our team to schedule a call with our video production experts who can help drive your campaign goals to new heights and help you achieve video metrics that are sure to impress by way of effective and engaging video content.
