Without detailed information on who’s watching—not to mention where, when, for how long, and on what devices—it’s impossible to prove the business value of your video communications initiative. The ability to measure video traffic beyond "views"-including audience dropoff, what sites and search terms are referring viewers, and audience geography-offers content publishers deeper insight into both the viewing habits of their audience and the extent of their video's reach. At the
Online Video Platform Summit, this all-star panel that examines what is the important data you should be collecting and how to use that data to improve the effectiveness of your video and increase your ROI.
Paul Riismandel, session moderator, started the discussion by asking the panel, "What is the data that is most important for online video publishers? What drives ROI?"
Dan Piech of
comScore, says that the most important metrics are the ones that differentiate you. What can you provide that is different from your competitors? You might have a different service, then prove it. What makes your viewers different from other viewers? Are they more engaged, in one thing more than another? That's where data helps show you those differentiation points.
According to Dan Berra of
Unicast, engagement is primary metric they focus on in the advertising space. They are tracking how much are people interacting and spending time within that video environment to prove ROI to advertisers. AJ McGowen of
Unicorn Media adds that the most important metrics are actionable, and helps you make good business decisions. It's not just about quality of service and did the video have a fast start of buffer, it's about the quality of the content and did people find it engaging – and for publishers it's about how to make the content better.
For Bismarck Lepe of
Ooyala, it really depends on the business case you're trying to solve to define how you measure success. Brett Wilson of
TubeMogul says that in general, publishers that sell ads should care about the metrics that their advertisers care about, which is reach, audience and performance. Brand marketers aren't as interested in the real-time metrics as much as they are interested attitudinal metrics – what's the brand lift, what's the purchase intent, or recall? – and the industry could do a better job at creating standard metrics they understand.
The panel all agree that while the industry has similar measures for engagement and reach, it still needs to come together and agree on true key measures of success, even down to what is counted as a view. Data has to be meaningful for publishers to deliver the best possible viewing experience, and at the end of the day it's about a creating that personal experience with great content. It's the social nature of online video that makes it uniquely powerful.
Watch the video below for more of the discussion and to hear where we are going with video analytics, and how publishers can better track their metrics across the different screens.
