Imagine that you just posted a video for your company online. A lot of work went into that video—the creative, the storyboard, the whole production process. It took a lot of work. You’re hopeful that it will gain traction and bring a strong ROI for the company.
But, do you know how viewers are responding to your video?
Are you tracking the right metrics?
The true value of a well-targeted video marketing strategy lies in the analytics, which differentiates it from videos posted with a “set it and forget it” approach.
Video marketing analytics give you the data you need to test and optimize your videos, offer more value to your viewers, and boost your ROI. The data you gather from one video can be used to make future campaigns more impactful.
The metrics you should track would depend on your marketing goals for the specific video and the funnel stage it belongs to.
For example, if you’re focused on building awareness for your brand or product, then you might want to pay attention to metrics like product views and engagement. On the other hand, if your focus is on the consideration or conversion phase, then tracking click-throughs and conversions will be more valuable.
Here, we’ll cover metrics you can use to measure success as well as how to calculate your ROI with COTU’s analytics platform.
Table of Contents
6 Metrics To Measure Video Marketing Success
Product Level Metrics
Video Level Metrics
Video Marketing Analytics: How To Determine Video Marketing ROI With COTU
Improve Video Metrics With A/B Testing
Benchmarks for Interactive Video Marketing
6 Metrics To Measure Video Marketing Success
As a marketing professional or company owner, your goal is to get the highest possible return on each dollar in your budget. Tracking the right video metrics is key to maximizing your ROI, and that’s exactly what COTU allows you to do.
In the words of one COTU customer, “2023 is about making every dollar count. I think your platform is innovative and a great fit. I’ll need to demonstrate ROI right out of the gate, which is why this [platform] is so appealing.”
Video marketing can be immensely successful. There are stats and studies to prove it, but some companies still struggle to quantify that success. With traditional video, people may have trouble understanding exactly how it’s impacting their sales or conversions.
The data that comes with the COTU platform illuminates that darkness with its array of analytics features. For example, it lets you know EXACTLY how many times a product was clicked in a video and which video had the most impact on conversions. In short, interactive video analytics make video success tangible!
Richard Baugh, CEO at COTU, sums it up like this: “The value that this brings to your brand is a clear understanding of the success of your videos. It’s justifying your return on investment. It’s better understanding your brand, your client, your sales strategy, and the success of your video marketing campaigns.”
Want To Understand Your Video Marketing Success Better?
Now that we know the value of video marketing analytics, let’s discuss some metrics that can help you determine your video marketing success.
Product Views
In the COTU platform, you can see the number of times a product card or drawer was clicked on to view a specific product. Tracking this metric alone could show you very clearly which products in a video are catching your viewers’ attention. This insight could help you decide which products you should promote more in the future and which products might need a different strategy in order to grab customers’ attention.
How You Could Improve This Metric
Many factors can affect this metric so you’ll need to pinpoint the cause before you can solve it. For example, if the first product card appears too long after the video starts, viewers may drop off before ever seeing the product. In this case, product views could be improved by showcasing the product earlier in the video.
A poor-quality video or product photo could also negatively impact product views. Product visuals are the easiest way for an online shopper to see what they’d get for their money, so it’s vital to ensure that your video and images showcase the product features clearly. Improving video and image quality could directly improve product views.
Product Engagement
The expandable product cards used by COTU allow viewers to click on the card to expand it and access more details about the product right in the video. COTU measures engagement based on how many people clicked to expand a product card. This metric can give you a little more insight into your viewers’ interest in a product since they’re going beyond the image on the product card to find more information about the product.
How You Could Improve This Metric
One way to improve product engagement is to spin a story around your product. Make the products relatable by showcasing them in situations that your viewers could see themselves experiencing in real-life. In this way, your product would seem more practical, which could inspire viewers to explore it some more.
Using product groups to display related products as a set can stimulate more interest in them. Gathering all the pieces that go together in one place could motivate viewers to expand the cards and learn more about the featured products.
Product Click-Throughs
Product click-throughs are the number of viewers who click on the CTA (Call-to-Action) on the product card to reach the product page or landing page. A high CTR (Click-Through Rate) is an indication that your video content invokes buying intent in potential customers. It indicates that you’ve successfully presented your product to viewers in a way that appeals to them and demonstrates value.
How You Could Improve This Metric
To improve click-through rates, ensure your CTAs clearly tell the viewer what they should do and where it will lead them. Of course, the image quality and the information on the expandable card are also crucial in motivating customers to click through to the linked page.
You could also consider increasing the number of CTAs for the same product in a video. For example, you could have one CTA on a product card that appears when the product shows up in the video, while adding another one in the end screen carousel to give the customers another chance to click through to the product page.
Product Conversions
Product conversions refer to the number of viewers who purchased a product after watching a video. Ultimately, this is the end goal of any marketing campaign. This is the metric that will let you know the specific monetary return on your investment.
How You Could Improve This Metric
One way to improve the conversion rate is to include clear and relevant product information on product cards and landing pages. You could also offer incentives, like discounts, to encourage viewers to make a purchase.
Video Views
Video views, also known as reach, count the number of individuals who have seen your video even if they did not watch it till the end. This indicator can measure your success if your goal is to get your brand in front of a new audience.
How You Could Improve This Metric
One of the best ways to improve your view count is to share your videos on several different platforms. It’s good to keep your target audience in mind when choosing your distribution platforms to ensure the right people will see your video. You can also embed relevant videos on high-traffic product pages and within blog posts.
Play Rate
The play rate of a video is the percentage of persons who click on your video after seeing it. So, if 100 people see your video, but only 50 click to watch it, then the play rate for that video is 50%. This metric can be more insightful than views or impressions when you’re trying to measure your audience’s interest in your campaigns.
How You Could Improve This Metric
Creative thumbnails with clear text overlays can be very effective at drawing people’s attention to your videos. Another great way is to print QR codes on physical product packaging so that people shopping in-store can watch the video and learn more about the product.
Watch Time
The watch time of a video is the average time that viewers spend watching that specific video. This metric also lets you see at which point in the video timeline most people are dropping off. High watch time means your video is engaging until the end. Similarly, early drop-offs could mean that your video is not relevant enough or for some reason, it’s unable to sustain viewers’ attention.
How You Could Improve This Metric
The first few seconds of your video will likely determine whether viewers stay or leave. Try to make your introduction as intriguing as possible. If your video is interactive, clearly state how it works to prevent viewers’ from leaving the video just because they couldn’t figure out how to engage with the interactive elements.
Keep the pace of the video in mind, too. The pace should be quick with short scenes; you can use jump cuts to break up longer scenes. Another way to improve watch time is to ensure the content of the video is hyper-specific and relevant to your target audience.
Video Marketing Analytics: How To Determine Video Marketing ROI With COTU
The video marketing analytics that you can get from COTU provide the missing link between video success and ROI. For example, if you’re a fashion brand and use linear videos to promote your merchandise, you will have no way of knowing how many customers bought a fishing shirt directly after watching your video.
Similarly, whether it’s shown on a streaming service, linear television, or traditional broadcasting, you can’t track what action people take as a result of the content they see on these channels.
With COTU, this level of insight is possible.
COTU’s robust analytics feature allows you to clearly identify which products got the most views, which got the most clicks, and how many people clicked on the links in the video to reach the product page.
The data COTU provides for determining ROI is unparalleled in the market. As Baugh puts it, “What COTU allows is tangible knowledge of the effectiveness and the impact of video campaigns with products or people.”
Video marketing ROI depends on marketing goals. In the COTU dashboard, you can set campaign goals, including general goals and audience goals, and look at the views, engagements, and conversions to set benchmarks for your projects.
To get the most out of the COTU platform, it’s good to set your specific video marketing goals from the start. What, exactly, do you want to achieve from your video campaign?
Are you looking to increase awareness of a particular product? Boost sales? Or perhaps you’re looking to drive traffic to a specific product page? Knowing your objective makes it possible to create winning content and accurately measure the desired ROI.
Here are some common video marketing campaign goals and how you can use COTU to determine relevant ROI:
Goal 1: Increase Traffic to a Product Page
With a goal to drive traffic to a specific page, product click-through would be the most valuable metric to focus on.
Goal 2: Increase Product Sales/Revenue
If your goal is to drive more sales, product conversions might be the most meaningful metric for determining ROI.
Goal 3: Increase Product Awareness
Product view, product engagement, and product click-throughs are all great metrics to determine ROI for this goal. Each of these metrics could offer meaningful insight into the level of interest viewers show in the product.
Improve Video Metrics With A/B Testing
One of the significant benefits of tracking your video analytics is that you can perform A/B testing to fine-tune the customer experience of your interactive video.
Imagine you’re creating a campaign to launch a water bottle. Here’s how you can fine-tune your campaign through A/B testing various aspects of the video and compare video metrics to see which features work better for viewers:
- Do customers prefer an individual product or a product kit? You can choose to show a single card that pops out and highlights the individual water bottle or you could group the products in a drawer that comes out to show the water bottle along with the hat, glasses, and sweatshirt worn by the model.
- Do product cards get more clicks when they appear during the video or in the end-screen carousel? If you don’t want to distract viewers from the message in the video, you can choose to show clickable product cards at the end of the video. You can compare the results of this video with a similar one in which product cards appear during the video.
- How long should the card stay on screen? Does a product card get more clicks when it stays on the screen for three seconds, five seconds, or the entire time? You can test it out and choose the best time frame.
- How long should the video be? Should you create a 15-second ad, a 5-minute video, or a 5-hour episode? You can experiment or base your decision on historic data since each of these demand a different approach.
- Which color scheme gets the best results? You can publish your campaign with different color schemes to test whether it makes any difference, or which one gets the best result.
- How does a video perform on different platforms? You can publish similar videos on different blogs and compare the results to choose which publisher to work with on future campaigns. You can share your video on different social media platforms, or via email, and determine the most profitable distribution channels for your campaign.
Each video requires a tasteful touch based on your product, your customers, and your goals. You can A/B test all these crucial variables with COTU to configure a winning customer experience for your video.
Read More: 15 Ways Interactive Video Can Improve the Online Shopping Experience for Your Customers
Benchmarks for Interactive Video Marketing
Benchmarks collected by other companies can be helpful to understand where your video analytics stand. Some of the most vital interactive video benchmarks to look out for include watch time, completion rate, click-through rates, and video views.
- Views: Interactive content generates 4-5x more pageviews than regular content.
- Watch time: Viewers watch interactive videos for 13 minutes on average, compared to 8.5 minutes for regular videos. Viewers generally watch more than 90% of a video on connected TV and about 77% on mobile.
- Completion rate: Interactive videos have a 36% higher completion rate than regular videos. Their average completion rate is over 90% on connected TV, compared to around 70% on mobile.
- Engagement: Interactivity can boost engagement by 52.6% compared to linear videos.
- CTR: The click-through rate for interactive videos is 10X higher than for linear videos.
- Conversion: Interactive videos generate twice the conversions than using passive content.
COTU makes it very easy for you to measure the success of your video marketing campaigns and impress your boss with justifiable video ROI metrics. Contact our experts to learn more about the different video metrics you can track to see real results from your campaigns.