A successful video marketing strategy has several working parts — paying attention to the biggest trends, identifying key opportunities to upsell and making the most of your creative, to name a few. But before you can begin any of these steps, you need to know what your strategy is trying to accomplish — and that insight comes from tracking your video metrics.
With so many options to choose from, though, finding the right metrics for your campaign can be daunting. And time and energy spent researching cuts into your actual calculations and implementing your plan.
As a key innovator in making videos data-driven, we know how critical it is to capture — and collect — the right information. We’ll show you the top 4 metrics you can easily add to your list and start tracking, as well as examples of video campaigns that succeeded in each.
Why Use Video Metrics?
Nearly 80% of marketers who have yet to use video marketing plan on starting in 2022. Businesses are quickly realizing the demand for video in brand communications. But even though this format creates a more engaging message, it’s not enough to put your message in a video and expect it to work.
Determining whether your messaging is actually meaningful and resonates with your audience comes down to measuring data and then acting upon your findings. Simply put, metrics unlock insight into your audience’s reception to your marketing efforts, helping you make your video marketing strategy smarter.
Among engagement, retention and audience metrics available, the following 4 are great to include in your data analytics. Here’s what they mean and what they look like in action.
1. View Count
This metric is one of the most common, but for good reason. It shows, plain and simple, how many times your video has been viewed. But there are a few nuances you should be aware of.
Many platforms have their own way of calculating the view count. On YouTube, the viewer must watch the video for at least 30 seconds. On TikTok, the moment a video is clicked, a view is counted.
Why Is View Count in Video Campaigns Important?
Measuring your video’s view count is useful if you’ve set a goal for your campaign to drive brand visibility. You want to increase your chances of qualifying more leads and making more sales — a high view count is indicative you have a large pool of prospects to start with.
What brand did it best?
To celebrate Season 9 and build excitement for Season X, Fortnite sent a personalized recap video to players showing them the top highlights of their gameplay. The videos hit a total view count in the tens of millions, aided in large part by social sharing (essential when it comes to video marketing for video games).
One key part of their success — especially important for global video campaigns — was making the video available in multiple languages. This was nothing new for Fortnite, who released a Personalized Video in 12 languages way back in Season 6, and automation tools made it easy.
The takeaway? If a high view count is one video metric you want to see, be sure to empower social sharing and localize your video for a global audience.
2. Video Completion Rate
Do your viewers drop off before finishing your video? Do they watch it until the end? This metric determines how many times your video is seen from start to finish or, depending on the way this video metric is measured, it might be from start to near completion.
Why Care About Video Completion Rate in Your Video Marketing?
Video completion rate reflects whether your video is of value to your viewers. A high video completion rate shows that most of your viewers found your video to be interesting or useful. They may have learned something new from your explainer video — or they kept watching your year-in-review because they enjoyed it.
On the other hand, a low video completion rate is indicative that your campaign may not be connecting with your customers or failing to capture their attention right away. Try breaking the mold to get them excited. Greet them by first name to make for a more engaging experience. Swap generic clips for scenes unique to their story. It’s all possible when you have the right technology.
What brand did it best?
As a sponsor of the Boston Marathon, adidas created a dynamic video campaign that really connected with runners. Each video was personalized with data from that individual’s race, including their start time, where they ranked among others and actual footage of the moment they crossed the finish line. It gave runners a fun way to look back at how they performed during the marathon. And they could share the video with friends and other fitness fanatics to show off their hard work and big wins.
Viewers loved it. The video campaign told a compelling story runners actually wanted to watch until the end.
Success: This video drove an astonishing 95% video completion rate. Translation? Almost everyone who watched it stayed until the end! Now that’s good content.
3. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate — commonly referred to as CTR — shows how many people have clicked on a specific link or CTA in comparison to how many times your video has been viewed. It’s a great way to see at a glance if your video was successful in getting your customer to take the next step.
Why does CTR in your video metrics matter?
You want your video to send a message. But your audience needs to not just hear it. They also need to understand it. A high CTR indicates your video clearly communicates — and resonates — with your audience. They’ve viewed your video and found it to be valuable. Now, they want to see what else your brand has to offer.
Did you know videos can be interactive? You can make it easy for your audience to take action by adding a CTA right inside the video. It’s a seamless CX as the viewer goes from the video to your website, sending an email or whatever you want to happen next.
What brand did it best?
When the Financial Times created a data-driven year in review for subscribers, they opted for an interactive video. CTAs were relevant for their audience, including following a new topic and continuing to their site to keep reading.
This strategy drove engagement, proving so effective that the Financial Times did another year-in-review campaign the next year. This time, they added CTAs to let users click through to sign up for the newsletter, take advantage of subscription offers and more.
It’s no surprise interactive video is great at increasing, well, interactivity. It’s in the name! You can put the CTA below the video, above the video or elsewhere in your message, but there’s nothing like including it in the middle of the story so the viewer can take action right then.
Here are just some of the results we’ve seen with in-video CTAs:
- 24% CTR, surpassing our mortgage client’s benchmark
- 126% uplift in CTR for a banking client, compared to a non-interactive video
4. Conversion Rate
Let’s talk about what really matters here. Your video’s conversion rate is the percentage of viewers who have taken a desired action. It includes downloading content, making a purchase or any other end goal you have in mind.
Why should you care about conversion rate in your video communications?
Conversions are critical to your brand’s bottom line. Does your video encourage your viewer to renew their services, join your loyalty club or try your latest product? Conversion rates are the true test of how effective your video marketing efforts are in moving your customer through the funnel.
What brand did it best?
Take a look at this video from Entain. To drive customer loyalty, they sent each player a video offering a special reward for a recommended game.
Personalized data featured throughout made each gift feel extra special. And the campaign was deemed a success once all of the numbers were crunched. When it came to conversions, the campaign saw 88% of customers redeem the reward offered in the video.
Start Measuring Your Video Metrics
Whether you’re looking to promote a new product, drive brand awareness or increase customer loyalty, video is the most engaging way to communicate. But to truly grow your metrics, your video needs to speak to not just your audience as a whole — it needs to reach every individual. And videos, when they’re dynamic, engaging and personalized, do exactly that.
Want to achieve impressive metrics like 10x higher engagement, 20% churn reduction and 6x higher conversions? We can help your numbers soar. Schedule a call, and let’s talk.
