Top Metrics Used in Online Video Analytics

There is a need for online marketing tools to become more consumer-centric. They need to deliver a message, show interesting content and at the same time, be able to entice consumers into buying the product or service advertised. Thus videos help increase the visibility of a business, thereby leading to enhanced web traffic and conversions.

For the above-mentioned benefits, however, it becomes important to ensure that the video:

• Is in sync with consumer behavioral patterns
• Ensures an optimized viewing experience

This can only be achieved with the help of online video analytics or web video analytics. An essential part of every video marketing strategy, web video analytics help to measure, analyze and report videos viewed online. Thus it helps to understand consumer behavioral patterns and analyze the quality of the service. Panel-based metrics are used to determine the same. So precise are these metrics that each and every user action while watching these online videos gets effectively captured for analysis.

But to enable a proper analysis of all the data coming in, it is important to understand the parameters that usually define the success of an online video marketing strategy. These parameters usually include a clear understanding of the:

• Goals which need to be precise and clearly defined
• People or the target audience niche that the video campaign aims to cater to
• Data analysis metrics relevance.

Using the above as the core need of the strategy, some key metrics need to be adopted that will help track down various statistics related to the videos posted, campaigns undertaken, posts uploaded and the audiences targeted.

Key metrics of online video analytics

The goal of every online video marketing strategy is to:

• Build awareness about a brand
• Increase its sales by increasing web traffic
• Capture potential customers as well as retain the existing

All these lead towards one supreme goal; to increase business revenue and profitability. Thus it becomes mandatory to ensure that any marketing strategy adopted is perfectly aligned to the business goals, mission and vision.

To enable this, the success rate of the video marketing strategy needs to be measured using certain key metrics like:

• Play rate: Analysis of the page visitor percentage is essential at the initial stage of every online video posted. This is a measure of the number of web visitors who visit the uploaded video and click on the play button to watch it. Thus the play rate metrics can be effectively used for:

1. Identifying the location of the video content,
2. Understanding its position vis-à-vis its competitors and
3. Analyzing how successful the video is at alluring and enticing web visitors.

The play rate can be effectively increased by:

1. Creating a thumbnail that is relevant, vibrant and engaging
2. Video modification so that its contents and message get communicated crisply and properly
3. Opting for the optimum size of the video

It is not the attractiveness of the video that increases its play rate; it is its content quality. Thus a video that appeals to a broader audience is likely to have a better play rate than one that is specialized. However, it is also important to realize that the play rates differ from video to video.

• View count: Simply speaking, it measures the number of times a video gets watched thereby showing the reach of the video. But every platform has different ways of counting views. The view count also additionally counts how many viewers have watched 95% of the uploaded video. To increase view count, the video needs to be shared generously on social media and through emails. Additionally, making use of relevant influencers also helps increase the reach of the video thereby enhancing its view count.
• Engagement: The percentage of the video the audience generally watches is an important and relevant metric of online video analytics. It gives a clear understanding of the quality of content uploaded in the video. While viewer engagement is a sure way to obtain business goals of business visibility, brand building, conversions etc., it is also the toughest to achieve. Understanding what will click with the viewer and what will make him stay for the entire length of the video is quite a challenging job. Also, engagement is a gradual and continuous process that builds over a period of time. At the initial stages of video upload, viewer engagement and fan following are quite low. This picks up over time. But there are certain parameters which need to be analyzed to understand the success rate of viewer engagement like:

1. Whether viewers are watching the full video or only specific parts of it
2. Presence of a CTA or call-to-action at the end of the video and if the audience is reaching up to that level etc.

Some ways by which viewer engagement can be increased are:

1. Videos uploaded need to be short and crisp
2. Story created should have a bearing with or appeal to the audience
3. The effectiveness of the product or service in the audience’s daily life needs to be conveyed etc.

• Social shares: The propensity to share a video only comes when and if the viewer likes it. This creates a chain reaction wherein this sharing continues and reach of information widens. Hence social sharing is an important metric for analyzing the acceptability of the video. The more the shares, the greater is the acceptability and impact, thus satisfying the basic aim of the online video marketing campaign.
• Conversions: This is considered to be the most important metric because the conversion rate indicates the number of leads or clients the online video uploaded has successfully gained for the business. The importance of conversion rate in online video analytics also stems from the fact that it directly impacts the ROI of a business.

Almost every industry requires data analysis in some form or the other. This analysis helps measure its standing amidst competition and to understand if the efforts taken to gain a competitive edge are yielding results. This is the most important reason why online video analytics is gaining rapid emphasis.

Additionally, with the ongoing pandemic supporting online business, it becomes imperative to capture the market before the competition takes it all away. Client acquisition is as important as its retention and the above-mentioned metrics help ensure success in both.