Thought For the Day: Internet and Innovation should have no boundaries
Video_marketing

There’s no doubt about it, video marketing is on the increase. And with 78% of marketers saying video has directly helped increase sales, it’s no surprise that most brands are developing their on-screen presence. 

Having a well-planned video marketing strategy and implementing the correct type of video on the right channel is critical to video marketing success. 

Hit the right notes, and video marketing brings with it a whole bag of benefits – 

  • Increased traffic
  • More brand awareness
  • Higher conversion rates 
  • Brand authority 

But here’s the problem: How do businesses measure the outcome of their video marketing efforts? After all, it’s not like traditional content marketing. Video isn’t as easy to track and often relies on data collected by other platforms, like social media channels, 

Failure to measure effectiveness correctly and video marketing could end up eating revenue instead of boosting it. 

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. As video technology advances, so too does the ability to track its success. Let’s dive into learning how to figure out if your video marketing efforts are converting into sales. 

How To Use Data To Measure A Video’s Success

What’s the secret to measuring your video marketing? 

It’s not as technical as you might think. 

The key is to prevent yourself from getting bogged down in every piece of data out there. Instead, tap into the data that best matches the video’s end goal. 

Know Your Goals And KPIs

Quickly scanning views isn’t going to give you a reliable impression of whether your video is hitting the mark. 

So before starting, you have to know your goals. What’s the aim of the video? 

Would you like to generate leads? 

How about boost engagement? 

Perhaps you want to convert viewers into buyers? 

Once you’ve got the goals in place, it becomes much easier to know which data to target to measure success. 

Ideally, each stage of the buyer’s journey should contain a video with a different goal. In turn, that means that each phase uses different KPIs as tracking tools. 

Undoubtedly there’ll be overlap between phases. So flexibility is required when measuring the success of your video marketing

Awareness Phase Key Performance Indicators

The awareness phase usually includes educational, explainer, and informative videos. The main aim is to teach consumers about the brand and engage and persuade them to follow or sign up for more information

There are various forms of data you can tap into when it comes to tracking engagement. 

Impressions

Impressions mainly apply to social media channels, like Facebook and Instagram. 

In short, impressions enable a brand to see how many times a video has appeared on a feed, whether viewed or not. 

How does this help? 

If your video isn’t getting the reach you hoped for, it’s time to rethink the ad settings and try some A/B testing. 

But remember, when it comes to impressions, if one person sees the video more than once, it counts as another impression. So the data is a little unreliable. 

Likes And Dislikes 

There’s no clearer indication of whether your video content is hitting the mark on social media.

Lots of likes – it’s well-received. 

Lots of dislikes – there’s something drastically wrong with your messaging. 

And if there’s no engagement at all, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. 

Be warned, though. The problem with likes and dislikes is that they’re very generalized. Always compare them with other metrics to get a more accurate picture. 

Shares

Ahh, the perfect compliment – if your content is shared for the right reason, of course. 

Positive reactions to video content through sharing helps you understand what consumers find engaging. It’s clear the video has resonated with the viewer enough to encourage the share. 

Want more shares? 

Be cheeky and ask for shares within the video content. If you don’t ask, you don’t get! 

Comments

It takes more effort to leave a comment than simply scrolling and viewing. 

So when a comment appears, you know your content has made an impression. 

Comments are helpful in that they help you improve future video content. By taking your audience’s opinions into account, you can ensure your content continues to resonate with their needs and wants. 

However, the truth of the matter is there’ll always be unpleasant characters online. Trolls exist, and undoubtedly they’ll appear at some point in your comment section. 

Use positive and helpful feedback. And while it’s important to listen to customer gripes, it’s equally as important to dismiss the trolls from your data. 

Measuring The Success Of Videos In The Consideration Phase 

Once through the awareness stage, the buyer starts to compare your product with competitors. It’s at this phase they weigh up all the options. 

Video marketing within this stage needs to push the consumer in the right direction successfully. So it’s essential to measure to check it’s achieving its goal. 

There is some overlap with the awareness stage when it comes to the type of data to monitor. Engagement rates still need to be high, and therefore, all those metrics listed above still apply to the consideration stage. 

But the consideration phase also calls for insights into view/play rates, watch rates, and ad lift recall. 

View Rates 

Sometimes known as play rates, this data measures how many times a visitor clicks the play button on a specific video. 

Views are useful as they provide a quick glance at how popular your video is. For example, if the goal is brand awareness and the video has a high view rate, it indicates the strategy is working. 

How do you work out the view rate? 

So what’s considered a good play/view rate? 

According to Databox, a decent play rate on average is 41%-60%. 

But here’s the catch: each channel measures views in slightly different ways. For example, YouTube counts a view as 30 seconds of play, whereas, for Facebook, a view is only 3 seconds. 

Equally, you need to take ad metrics into account when analyzing views/plays for ads. For example, was the post boosted? Or was it promoted to a much larger audience than your usual video marketing? 

Remember to carry out controlled testing to get an accurate insight. 

Watch Rates

Watch rates (or view-through rates) indicate how many people watched your video the whole way through. 

Watch rates tend to vary from industry to industry. Occasionally the length of the video can affect the watch rate, but in general, if a video is entertaining and engaging, it shouldn’t matter how long it is. Data suggests that 45% of viewers will watch a video until the end, regardless of its length. 

If the watch rate isn’t as high as you’d like it, try checking a few things – 

  • Is the start of the video hooking attention? 
  • Is the thumbnail appealing? 
  • Is the video in the right place? 
  • Is the surrounding copy working? 

Ad Lift Recall 

Ad recall gives you an idea of how memorable your video content is. Handy when judging the effectiveness of an ad. 

Both Facebook and YouTube have different methods of measuring add recall. Facebook asks your targeted audience a recall question, whereas YouTube offers a broader brand lift strategy. (However, there are restrictions on who can use this service.) 

Not all video metrics provide accurate insights. For example, even with low click-through rates, it doesn’t necessarily mean the campaign failed. 

You need to go back to the start and figure out why those clicks didn’t happen. 

And knowing whether your ad was grabbing attention or not is a valuable place to start. Ad lift recall gives you this data. 

How To Measure Video Marketing In The Decision Stage 

Knowing which form of marketing led to a customer hitting the buy button means you can replicate it to gain more conversions. 

So it’s vital to know whether your video marketing affects conversion rates. 

Again, the truth is there’s a lot of overlap with the other types of measurement metrics referred to already. But that doesn’t mean there are other metrics to focus on for this specific phase. 

Click-Through Rate 

Click-through rate can sometimes refer to the number of times a viewer has clicked on the video thumbnail. But for videos on sites where pop-ups are a feature, it’s also essential to know who’s clicking on those links. 

This metric shows who’s taken the next step down the sales funnel, especially if the link leads them to purchase and check-out. 

The thing is, it’s not easy to add CTAs to video. YouTube allows plenty of opportunities to add pop-up CTAs. However, other platforms like Vimeo only offer end of video CTAs. 

And when it comes to video embedded on a website, it’s even trickier. Creating a custom URL helps track where visitors end up after viewing the video. 

Compare click-through rates of different videos to see which works best. If your CTR rate is low, try the following – 

  • Write more compelling CTAs
  • Test CTAs
  • Create engaging thumbnails
  • Focus on a clearly defined target audience

Go From Strength To Strength With Video Marketing Metrics 

There’s no denying it. Video is a tricky marketing medium to measure. 

But stick with it. Knowing where your video marketing strengths lie and what needs more focus is the key to improving your video ROI and increasing your revenue. 

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.


Discover more from DigiPro Marketers

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

By Torrey Tayenaka

Torrey Tayenaka is the co-founder and CEO at Sparkhouse, an Orange County based video production agency. He is often asked to contribute expertise in publications like Entrepreneur, Single Grain and Forbes. Sparkhouse is known for transforming video marketing and advertising into real conversations.Rather than hitting the consumer over the head with blatant ads, Sparkhouse creates interesting, entertaining and useful videos that enrich the lives of his clients’ customers. In addition to Sparkhouse, Torrey has also founded the companies Eva Smart Shower, Litehouse & Forge54.

Leave a Reply

Discover more from DigiPro Marketers

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading