Image source: jsawkins
Especially recently, digital video has proven to be an extraordinarily effective way to market products and services. But many marketers have missed the trend because they don’t adequately measure video performance, according to a new survey from Demand Metric.
Nearly half of participants report ROI is improving for marketing videos, but a quarter say they don’t know what their returns are, according to the State of Video Marketing report from video platform Vidyard. Respondents who use advanced analytics are twice as likely to say their ROI is better and are more likely to increase their video budgets year over year. Just 14% use advanced analytics, a percentage that’s been constant each year of the study.
The Imperative of Advanced Metrics
Data on viewing provides marketers insights about their audience and where they are in the buying journey. Integrating viewing data with marketing automation and CRM systems leads to deeper understanding of a viewer’s interest in completing a purchase, but those integrations continue to lag. Just 13% of respondents said they have integrated their data and are taking advantage of it.
“The use of advanced metrics has become imperative for organizations that produce higher volumes of videos annually, as these metrics enable optimizing performance and understanding the true ROI of their investment,” the report states.
Other key findings of the research include:
- The return on investment of video marketing has remained consistent over the last three years since Demand Metric began tracking it.
- More than 90% of the study’s participants said video marketing content is becoming more important, a consistent three-year trend.
- More than half of participants produce 11 or more videos per year. Large companies produce the most videos.
- An average of 96% of participants say that conversion performance for video has stayed the same or improved, consistent with previous years.
- The use of advanced analytics remains at 14%, unchanged from previous years.
- Using video to support account-based marketing is just emerging with fewer than 10% using it.
“While many brands continue to chase the viral video hype, this report makes it clear that videos don’t need to go viral to be successful,” said Michael Litt, CEO and co-founder of Vidyard, in a press release. “In fact, it’s becoming clear that personalized, targeted videos used throughout the sales funnel are more engaging and more effective at turning viewers into customers.”
Video Measurement a Work in Progress?
Some say video measurement remains a work in progress, due to social media networks’ varying definitions of video metrics. For instance, some video players or platforms define a view as a video watched for at least a second, while others don’t consider it a view unless run for three seconds or more.
“We talk about metrics all of the time here,” Devra Prywes, vice president of marketing and insight at Unruly, told DMNews. “Brands and agencies will come in and ask ‘What should we be measuring?’ You can measure so many things now. You need to be really clear on what your goals are.”
“It comes down to the marketers being critical and asking the right questions,” by understanding the “methodology behind the metrics” Prywes said
“There are metrics that should have no debate: no fraud and [obvious] viewability,” Yoav Naveh, vice president of video at Taboola, told DMNews. Most experts say viewability should mean the entire video is within the screen, though some providers have different terms.
Bottom Line: Many marketers don’t obtain the full benefits of video due to shortcomings in measuring video performance. Advanced analytics and integrating data with marketing automation and CRM systems can provide an in-depth understanding of viewers’ actions and interest in completing purchases.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
