According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Complete Forecast, by 2021, nearly 2 billion Internet video users will be watching 3 trillion minutes of video per month.

So, with this exponentially growing increase in video traffic, the role of video analytics is more vital than ever. Certainly, most platforms you place your videos at offer analytics, but the key issue for businesses is how to harness the power of analytics to inform marketing decisions. And, thus, your marketing and content production teams have to know what metrics to look at. 

After all, you cannot optimize something you don’t measure. So, you need some behind-the-scenes data to compare and contrast the performance of various videos and take actions to achieve desirable results.

You need some behind-the-scenes data to compare and contrast the performance of various videos and take actions to achieve desirable results.

What is video marketing analytics?

Like with any form of marketing, your video marketing efforts have to begin and end with measuring and analyzing your results. From vanity metrics like likes, shares, and comments, to sales metrics like conversion, video analytics give you a helicopter view on the efficiency of your efforts. By looking at video marketing analytics, you can: 

• Gain insights into who’s viewing your videos
• Discover whether your content resonates with your audience
• Create videos that boost engagement
• Measure the efficiency of your campaigns

Many businesses struggle to go beyond the most basic analytics metrics to measure their videos’  performance. This implies that they are investing in video without a real understanding of whether they’re getting any results in return.

Why and how you should be tracking it?

The easy and fully satisfying answer to the Why is simple – to measure performance, gather insights that can further be used for optimizing your video creation and marketing efforts.

Any video campaign should start with objectives and an understanding of what you’re hoping to achieve.

Serena Ryan, a Facebook Ads Strategist, Educator and Speaker, talked to Wave.video about goal-setting being the most essential part of your video marketing strategy.

She shared that your videos go through the same funnel as any other marketing activity. Thus, you have to tie specific metrics to your goals to measure success. 

So, to uncover whether your video marketing campaigns are effective, you have to ask yourself a few important questions (and video analytics will help you answer them):

• Does your video campaign target the right audience? Dive into the demographic data to discover.
• Does the campaign resonate with your core audience? If you’re targeting a demographic of females aged 25-34 and they are not viewing your videos, you have to figure out why.

• Do viewers abandon watching your videos at a precise point? The viewer could have clicked on the wrong link. However, if such abandonment takes place in large numbers, you might want to go back and reconsider the campaign.
• Is there a solid call-to-action? If you don’t see the audience converting, it could be because they are not sure what action they can take next.
• Do viewers keep engaging with your brand? If the viewer clicks out and never returns, you can try to remarket them and encourage further interaction.

Key video analytics metrics

Neil Patel recites a few pieces of research showing that using video can boost conversions by 80%, the purchase intent by 97%, and brand association by 139%.

And your video marketing efforts should aim at delivering similar value to your business. But, first, you have to understand what metrics you have to look at and how they tie into your overall marketing goals.

So, without any further ado, let’s look at the core video analytics metrics you have to monitor to measure your video’s success.

For your convenience, we separated the metrics by the stages of the marketing funnel they reflect. To discover how to track the metrics we mention below, check out this post on Wave.video’s blog.

AWARENESS STAGE VIDEO METRICS

Number of views

Views indicate the number of times people click on a video. But note that different platforms calculate views based on different viewing durations. For instance, to acquire a view on YouTube, viewers must watch for at least 30 seconds, while to get a view on Facebook, they only have to watch for 3 seconds.

It’s the simplest metric when it comes to videos. So, here’s what view data can indicate for your business:

• If you spot that a video on a particular topic generates more views than usual, this probably implies that you’ve discovered what topic appeals to your audience. 

• If a video doesn’t attract many views, don’t blame the topic straight away. Maybe you’ve posted it on a wrong platform. So, figure out which platform your core demographic is using and repurpose your video for posting it there.
• Or, maybe, your views are low just because the title doesn’t correspond to the information you’ve got within the video. Alter your title, add relevant keywords and tags.

Viewer Demographics

Video analytics can also provide insight into who’s watching your videos. Chances are, you already have a target audience in mind when targeting your video content, but always double-check your premises with video marketing analytics. Demographic data shows you which audiences find your videos most interesting.

How can video demographic data inform your marketing decisions?

• If you’re still at the target audience definition stage, audience demographics potentially help to point you in the right direction.
• If your videos don’t appear to resonate with the right demographic, consider creating different types of videos and share them across different channels.
• You can also discover new audiences for your business you might not have thought of before. If you notice that a particular audience converts better after a certain type of video,  you can adjust your marketing strategy towards their direction. It’s all about uncovering new opportunities and tapping into new markets. 

Viewer location

If your business only operates within specific areas, you need to make sure you’re reaching customers precisely where you are. This is especially relevant to local businesses who only need local customers. Thus, localized video campaigns will be the way to go, especially if you’re employing paid video campaigns.

Viewer devices

This may seem irrelevant at first glimpse. But knowing what devices your audience views your videos from can also impact your video marketing efforts. Devices data can give you insights about your viewers’ habits and help you to optimize your video content accordingly.

• With data about device types, you can adjust screen size and video resolution so that your videos display effectively.
• If your viewers are watching mainly from mobile devices, optimize your videos for on-the-go viewing (bite-sized videos that load fast). 
• Place your CTAs at spots that are friendly to the type of device the majority of your audience watches your videos from.

Traffic sources

Looking at how your viewers found the video in the first place can improve your promotion efforts. 

• It’s important to know which platforms generate the most views and what channels you should keep investing in or abandon completely. 
• If your videos are mostly watched on YouTube, for instance, and they are not driving people back to your website, you may want to move to a video hosting platform where your videos actually contribute to your website’s SEO.

ENGAGEMENT STAGE VIDEO METRICS

Play rate

Play rates imply dividing impressions by views. For instance, a video with 10,000 impressions and 1000 views, would get a play rate of 10%.

This metric shows you whether your audience is enticed to click on the play button. If you’ve placed your video on some landing page, and see that the play rate is somewhat low, you can play with various options: move the position of the video and increase its embed size, find a more attractive thumbnail, or just place the video on a different page.

Audience engagement – Watch time & Engagement rate

Watch time shows the overall amount of time a viewer watched your video, while the Engagement rate indicates the number of people who’re still watching your video at point X divided by the number of viewers who started watching.

View numbers will only tell you how many people started watching your video. But what’s more important is to look at the attention span, or watch time. You may have impressive view counts but if your viewers don’t get to that part of your video with the most important information or with the place intended to encourage them to take action, there’s no much point.

To uncover the engagement rate, separate your video into a few segments. Then,  for each segment, divide the number of people still watching at a certain point by the number of those who started watching. Afterwards, analyze each segment to see if people fast forward over certain parts, or watch some bits over and over again. This will give you some rough idea of what your audience is really looking for.

Things to take a closer look at:

• If you viewers stop watching right at the very beginning of your video, make it engaging from the start and skip the introductions.
• If your viewers are skipping certain parts and rewatching other ones, this gives you a good idea of what they find useful. Cut out the unimportant bits and keep the useful parts.
• Make sure the copy reflects the content of your video. This really decreases the drop-offs.
• If you spot many viewers dropping off at a certain point, it’s a strong indicator that our video might just be too long. The shorter you take to get your message through, the better your engagement rate.

Image source: Mondovo

Likes/Shares/Comments

Although many marketers refer to likes, shares, thumbs up, comments and so on as vanity metrics, there’s something in them to discover on top of superficial popularity of your content. Use these metrics for interaction and feedback. Try to judge the tone of comments and the overall reaction to your video content, and use this free feedback for future video marketing campaigns. After all, this is the qualitative data every business seeks out.

CONVERSION STAGE VIDEO METRICS

The more traffic you bring to your website, the better it ranks in search engines. And the more qualified that traffic is, the higher conversions you’ll get. And your videos should play a vital role in that.

CTR (click-through-rate) & Conversion rate

These metrics indicate the number of people who take action after (or while) watching your video. 

On top of entertainment, brand awareness and increased engagement, the end purpose of video content has to do with bringing conversions. All of your marketing efforts are built around business goals. 

Thus, every video should have a clear call-to-action that your audience can respond to. And to monitor the efficiency of that call-to-action, you have to look at the number of conversions. This is the metric that justifies your marketing expenses and shows the ROI. 

The click-through rate shows how many video viewers clicked on your call-to-action (CTA). You can ask them to fill in a contact form, go to your blog for more content and e-books, sign up for a demo or make a purchase. And the number of people who click on your CTA will indicate the number of conversions.

Final thoughts on how to enhance your video performance

Now when you’re equipped with all the data and metrics and you know how to interpret it to get real insights on your video performance, it’s time to think about how you can optimize your video strategy and create better videos. With all this information at your fingertips, inform your video creation teams about your findings.

But this doesn’t mean that you have to wipe your previous efforts clean and start all over again. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of video repurposing and a few video distribution tweaks and tricks. And tools like Wave.video will really facilitate your video marketing efforts: 

• Look through your existing video content and think about how you can tweak it, according to the newly discovered findings
• Start small by altering your videos to suit the most popular device types, change the colors to fit your audience’s demographics, or just cut the length of your video in half

Sometimes, it’s the little things that really make a big difference.

Happy analyzing!