Check and boost your video effectiveness with these top metrics

Video marketing is getting wider and develops way faster than any other communication channel in 2021. This year`s research claims that 93% of marketers who use video say that it’s an important part of their marketing strategy. There are more and more opportunities to reach your target audience each day. The processes of making visuals from scratch are getting quicker and easier due to the abundance of apps available. The process of communication with the client becomes easier itself.

All these things make video ads as accessible as context ads. But here the question appears: what is a proper way of analyzing the effectiveness of your video and what are the top metrics to measure it? In this article, we have described these key-points:

• Metrics for you to pay attention to if you want to analyze your video campaigns and make them better (even if the word metrics scares you now).
• In case the video works not as planned, we have some advice on how to avoid that and boost the numbers.

Marketers normally divide video metrics into media metrics, brand metrics, and business metrics. We will simply divide them into important and useful metrics and those that we could omit. So, let’s hit it to the world of CTR`s and views that will boost your video on the net. Here are some fresh numbers from video marketers that show how they measure success in 2021:

– The most commonly cited metric is video engagement (including shares, comments, likes, etc.). 63% of video marketers responded this way.

– Next up was video reach – determined by the number of views – with 58%.

– Leads and click – throughs were next, with 55%.

– Customer engagement was a consideration for 43% of video marketers.

– A surprisingly low 29% of video marketers said that bottom line sales were part of their evaluation of video ROI.

View count – test whether your video is vibrant enough

You might think you know everything about It, but… Views – it’s the most obvious success tracker that shows how many times your video has been shown on a person’s screen. But you can never tell with the view-rate on your video, whether you have succeeded in your unique brand goals with your video campaign or not. For example on YouTube, a “view” is when 30 seconds of a video has been played by the viewer.

On the contrary, Facebook needs the video to be on a person’s screen for only 3 seconds to count it as a “viewed video”. Now you understand why the most popular video length that video marketers create is up to 30 seconds. Right, they need to catch the person’s attention from the first seconds. Just keep in mind that views depend. But you still better track them to analyze the quality of your content. Here are a few tips to boost your view-rate:

• Create paid campaigns on the websites where your audience could be found. You may have an effective video itself, but still, it could not be viewed by the users as they are simply not the right audience for you. Remember that for some products having lots of unuseful views might be worse than 3 views from the “hot-clients”.
• Post in the “right time”. Make deep research on your audience’s behavior on the net: simply visit Instagram or Facebook settings and find the best hours for your posting.
• Test different target audiences, as well as different videos for each particular audience so you can find the most effective one.

Play rate 

Why so? When it comes to your video`s play rate we speak about how many visitors clicked on your video and began to watch it. The more people have seen your video and clicked on it – the more of your target audience you have reached. This metric is a great test for your video because it shows:

• • Whether the placement is relevant. In case your video`s play rate is lower than you thought it would be, then better think of the placement that you have chosen. Each social network, or website, or even a Facebook group has its main audience. In case you have posted an explainer video about your product to your TikTok account – well, it’s not the best way to reach the right audience. Better promote your video on YouTube or your Facebook page!
  • In case you are using ad tools to promote your video on your social networks – analyze your target audience by creating at least 5 detailed portraits with your audience`s age, preferences, interests, locations, and their crossed paths with your product.
  • Is the video that was created bright, engaging, vibrant, and eye-catching enough? The number of clicks will grant you the answer.
  • Optimize your video for search. If you won’t do that – no one will find it. You have to make sure it’s optimized with the right words, descriptions, and information for the bots to index it.

And remember, not all the videos will have equal play rates due to the content and product type.

Customer engagement

Stats don’t lie, right? The average engagement is the percent, showing how much of your video viewers have watched on average. Are the viewers watching it till the end, as it might mostly happen with the story-driven narrative of an animated explainer video? Or they are jumping around to view specific parts only like in a Q&A video? What if you have a CTA (Call To Action) button hidden at the end of the video?

Then those are important questions, as you need to know to make sure whether the person gets to your CTA or not. And engagement is a real helper here. Here are some tips to pay attention to in case you want to boost the engagement rate of your video:

• The shorter – the better! Cut off the unnecessary parts of your video to make it clear and concise. The idea of an up to 2-minute video is to provide your viewer with 3-4 tips or ideas, and then summarize with your CTA. That could be a “subscribe to our social networks”, “download the file” or “get your discount” button.
• Be user-friendly and follow your user`s needs. In the case that at your landing page the user needs to find a useful explainer video of how to use your product – better do that than greet him with an ad that they will probably stop watching and hit it to the other website.
• Pay attention to your average engagement. Especially the engagement graphs that spotlights some “attention holes” when your user simply stops watching. Work out why it happens and improve your video.

“Two minutes is the perfect length for the videos we’ve been producing. We’re trying to educate the audience and then provide a call-to-action for them to either contact us or visit our website,” –  says Wealth Continuum Group’s Kelly Andersen. Below you can see a Databox research that shows the strong points of a video with a high engagement.

Conversion rate

This might be one of the most insightful metrics to measure your video success. Conversion is always being shown in a percent number. But the result of your conversion could be different, depending on the opportunities on your website. It could be an online form the person filled or a subscription, as well as a purchase. To measure your Conversion rate use Google Analytics or Facebook Ads. A product video itself is a great way to boost your conversion, though here are some more tips from our Animation studio:

• Answer the questions before the person is going to ask them with the help of the video. Always provide valuable information.
• Place your explainer video on the right page of your website to convert successfully.
• Include clickable CTAs not only at the end/at the beginning, but let them help you convert through the entire video.

Click-through Rate or CTR 

While measuring the conversion, you can also have a look at the other useful metrics. CTR is going to show which percent of people clicked on any CTA that you have hidden in your vid. For a clearer view: in case your CTR is high, but the conversion is low – it`s time to conclude that your video is cool and encourages the viewers just like it should. At the same time, your website might not be that cool or user-friendly yet. 

To improve the CTRs in your video content you can use these tips:

• Try placing your CTA to a different part of your video. 
• Then improve your average engagement rate. The more people will watch your video piece – the more would likely click through. 
• Make sure that your CTA is highly relevant to this particular video.

Shares, likes, comments

Well, every person on the internet with no doubt is tracking them. Among those 3 (shares, likes, and comments), shares are absolutely the best way to help your video become a viral video. First of all, shares lead to a higher conversion rate since more people are engaged with the content.

Secondly, by analyzing the number of shares you could measure whether your video is good enough (or not) to share with your viewers.  the more shares your video receives, the more visibility your brand has.  How to boost that?

• Create content that would likely be shared. That means it should probably be an educational video, an entertaining one, or an emotional vid with the character animation.
• Ask your viewers and your team to share it! 

But don’t just pay attention to the number of shares only. Keep an eye on the extensive measurable feedback like comments. Track them to find out if people say positive or negative things mostly and whether they get the message right.

To sum up 

We do know that metrics could be tough in case you are new to video marketing. Tracking the effectiveness of the video created is way easier by its appearance and visual qualities, but that’s only the first part.

To make sure that your videos work effectively use those metrics explained and improve your results! Find out whether it works for your brand’s unique goals. Cause better metrics = better video.