When discussing video analytics, it’s important to differentiate between analytics as they relate to your video product intended for paid consumers, and your video marketing efforts designed to generate new customers and sales. Exploring video analytics from both angles can provide insight to help you improve your entire sales funnel from product development to marketing through product consumption.

Video Product Analytics
A clear understanding of your video product analytics is key to the continued improvement and optimization of your video content. By understanding how your videos are being delivered to your customer, and in what formats, you can ensure your viewers are getting the best customer experience possible. For example, consumers today expect to be able to access and consume video content instantly, so making this easy for them to do will increase customer satisfaction. Are your customers streaming your videos, or are they downloading them to a device? Offering both streaming and downloadable video options will give customers video viewing versatility with or without an internet connection. Long buffering or download times can decrease viewership so it’s important to keep a close eye and ear on customer feedback to identify areas of weakness.

Video analytics can also provide valuable insight into how viewers are consuming your video content. Which products are customers accessing the most? How many views does each video have? What is the average view time? Is there a point in your videos at which viewership drops off? If customers don’t make it all the way to the end of your videos, take a look at your content and ask yourself the following questions:  Are you videos too long? Is the content interesting and engaging? What can I do to increase the length of viewership?

Additionally, understanding how and when your customers are viewing your content as well as where they are accessing it from can be beneficial. If your viewers are accessing content primarily from mobile devices, make sure you’re providing a seamless, mobile optimized experience and that your video lengths are tailored accordingly (viewership duration on mobile tends to be shorter than on a computer or TV). By understanding your peak viewership times, you can know when to have ample customer support and be accessible for any customer questions that may arise. Where are your customers located geographically? If you have a significant international viewer base, you may want to consider translating your content if English is not the first language of your audience.

Identifying your organic and referral traffic sources can be helpful as well. How are people finding your video content naturally, without marketing or advertisement? If customers are converting through organic or free referral traffic, it can help advise your marketing campaigns and you can dedicate marketing resources on the traffic sources that are already working.

Video Marketing Analytics
Your video marketing analytics can provide valuable insight into what’s working and what isn’t, so that you can tweak and tailor your efforts and budget accordingly. Whether you’re incorporating video trailers or clips into your marketing campaigns, or using other forms or content to drive traffic to your video products, these key metrics will help you understand where your efforts are succeeding.

In marketing on social media platforms, search, display advertising or email, the more closely you measure your campaigns and adjust accordingly, the higher your return on investment. First off, with any marketing campaign you’re striving for the maximum number of highly targeted eyeballs on your content, also known as views. Once your target customer sees your marketing content, your goal is to get engagement, whether that be likes, comments, clicks or shares. This is a good indication that your content is resonating with your target audience. Ultimately, you want your marketing to lead to a conversion. That can come in many forms, include capturing a lead or snagging a sale.

At the completion of every marketing campaign, look closely to see who is engaging with your content and converting at the highest rates. You can dial in on demographic, psychographic and location data to get even more targeted with your future marketing.

The savviest product creators and marketers live and breathe by their analytics. Video analytics in particular is an incredibly powerful tool that when used correctly to advise your product development and marketing efforts, will have you earning major profits faster than you’ve ever thought possible.