Most of us have at least a basic familiarity with website analytics like Google Analytics. They help us understand visitor behavior and improve our online marketing based on that behavior. But not everyone is aware that we have access to these same metrics and insights when it comes to our explainer videos.
Why Video Analytics? A Quick View
The analytics tools available to us are extremely powerful so it can be a little daunting to delve into them initially. Fortunately you can gain really valuable insights even when you’re first beginning to learn how to use them. Before we get into details, let’s take a quick look at the kinds of insights you can learn and how they can be valuable.
Demographics: Who, When, Where…
The first set we’ll look at are demographics: Who’s watching, where are they, how many of them, etc. You can see viewers on maps and by source (YouTube channels, your website, videos embedded in other sites, by device, etc.). This tells you where they are and the most effective ways to reach them. And they can offer specifics that drive actions like sales calls. For example, if you have a high geographic concentration of views in an area where you have a prospective customer, combined with many views originating from same referrer, you may have a video being shared across a team. Time to figure out who they are and make a contact.
Devices: Know Your Prospect By The Device They Use To View Your Videos
Devices are another key metric. They help you build a marketing persona to target. Are you getting a lot of views on iOS devices like iPhones? Apple users are a somewhat different demographic than Android users. Should you be optimizing your video content for mobile vs. desktop?
Sharing: How Are Your Videos Being Shared?
Are you seeing viewers embedding your videos in social media like Facebook or sharing on Twitter? Analytics can help you understand these patterns and may suggest places to target your social media efforts that are more effective. When you combine video analytics with those offered by the social platforms, you can amplify your efforts with judicious targeting of ads and social pages related to those videos.
The important learning here is to use analytics to fine-tune your targeting and sales efforts. Share them on a regular basis with your sales, marketing and engineering teams.
Digging Into Your Analytics
The first step is to set up a video channel for your company or product on platforms like YouTube or an analytics partner like Vidyard. A channel gives you a place to feature all your videos in one place and it helps you embed and serve up those videos from a central location that has analytics built-in and set up for you. We partner with Vidyard who offers a suite of tools that will allow our clients to analyze viewer behavior, split-test splash and thumbnail images for effectiveness and build strategic calls-to-action pop-out forms. In addition to some key tools – they also integrate with Hubspot, Marketo, Eloqua and Salesforce.com. Let’s take a quick look at the tools;
Behavioral Analytics
Who’s watching your videos? Where are they located? How did they find you? How much of the video are they watching? Analytics offer you the answers to these questions and enable you to create fast visual reports to help your team understand your viewer behavior. When you link these analytics to other marketing tactics like Pay Per Click (PPC) ads and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you can begin to optimize your video marketing and identify opportunities to build stronger connections with your prospects.
A/B Split Testing
Vidyard offers a unique feature that helps you ensure that your videos capture attention before the user clicks on them. You can set up alternative splash and thumbnail images from the video (These are the static images shown when the video is on a web page or a video channel). Once you’ve set these up you can run A/B tests to determine which images capture the most Play clicks. Think of it as a ‘book cover’ test that help you create a ‘cover’ for your video that is really compelling.
Calls To Action
Typically the call to action on a video is a URL graphic at the end of the video that links the viewer to a ‘Learn More’ landing page. However, your call to action options with Switch Video and Vidyard are much more dynamic and flexible depending on the goals of your video campaign. You can build-in Call To Action modules that slide out from your video and enable sign-ups for offers, email captures, Contact Me offers and more, as part of the video itself. And you can test the effectiveness of these offers with the analytics and A/B testing tools we’ve just discussed.
Return On Investment (ROI): What Are Your Goals?
In the end, the effectiveness of your analytics and testing tools are only as good as the benchmarks or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you’ve set when planning your campaigns. These benchmarks measure the actual effect of viewing your video tied to a specific desired outcome. These may include:
Email/contact info capture
Freemium or Trial Offer sign-up
Contact Us
Complete Qualification Survey
Share On Social Sites
Setting specific goals for your campaign gives you a focused approach to understanding video analytics and using that understanding to optimize your message and channels.
Video is a marketing media that is highly measurable and highly sharable. It can be viewed on virtually any device, anywhere. It can be saved for future viewing and viewers can share on social media, their own blogs and use as a tool in presentations or sales process. And all of these actions can be measured, observed and targeted. It offers an amazing ROI opportunity that is completely measurable when you use video analytics. Even more important, learning to use and share analytics reports gives you a measure of control and the ability to optimize the effectiveness of your video marketing campaigns. Even a simple understanding of these tools can give you a significant competitive advantage and help you build video campaigns that generate growth and higher profitability- with data that proves it.
