The challenge of getting good insights from your video content

Traditional video analytics can help your brand understand the success of your video content, but it can be hard to truly measure how well your videos are doing. In a marketplace that’s constantly changing and growing, marketers need all the advantages and insights they can get.

Data drives decision making in many aspects of your business, and it should be the same when it comes to content creation. Rather than assuming what content your audience will enjoy, using data can help you craft content that is engaging, while also helping you achieve your business goals.

Traditional video metrics don’t always tell the full picture, as vanity metrics like total views, likes, comments and shares can mask whether your audience is passively consuming your content, or actively engaging. Read on to learn more about how interactive video can give you better insight into how your video content is actually performing, as well as how it can help you create more innovative content along the way.

Are you getting the most out of your analytics?

How well is your video content actually doing? Traditional video metrics aren’t able to tell you the full story when it comes to measuring whether your content is resonating with your audience, which means you don’t know if your business goals are any closer to being achieved. Traditional video statistics don’t directly measure whether people are visiting your calls-to-action (which might be located in the video description, or asking people to submit an enquiry by visiting your website). Some of the statistics you’ll find when looking at traditional video analytics on sites like YouTube and Google Analytics include:

• Total view time: tallies the total amount of time your audience spent watching your video

• Retention rate: at what point of the video did people leave

• Likes/dislikes, comments and shares: ‘measures’ whether your audience liked your video or not (but doesn’t track if they engaged with your call/s-to-action)

While these metrics may be helpful in certain situations, they don’t tell the full story. It can be tempting to believe that the view count is the best representation of your content’s success, but that isn’t giving you the bigger picture. Relying on the view count won’t show you whether people are actively engaging with your content, or watching in the background. However, interactive video can show you a more comprehensive view when you’re measuring the success of your video content, as it illustrates whether people are interacting with the calls-to-actions placed throughout your videos.

While these metrics may be helpful in certain situations, they don’t tell the full story. It can be tempting to believe that the view count is the best representation of your content’s success, but that isn’t giving you the bigger picture. Relying on the view count won’t show you whether people are actively engaging with your content, or watching in the background. However, interactive video can show you a more comprehensive view when you’re measuring the success of your video content, as it illustrates whether people are interacting with the calls-to-actions placed throughout your videos.

How does the analytics from interactive video compare?

Whilst interactive video gives you more ways to be creative through pop up information overlays and branching (‘choose-your-own-adventure’) technology that help you explore non-linear narratives, it also gives you deeper, richer behavioural insights into your audience.

Vudoo’s interactive video analytics can help you assess whether your investment into video content is actually paying off. Understanding how video content can help you achieve your business goals (whether you’re looking for brand awareness, sales, audience education or something else) is possible through tracking what interactions users are clicking on, and seeing whether they’re following through with the post-interaction action.

If you’re finding that your content isn’t achieving the results you were looking for, you can edit the interactions based on the data from your audience. Finding certain interactions are more popular than others? Make them more prominent. Is your audience looking to learn more about a specific topic? Link to more information on that topic. Sometimes, all that stands between you and video success is a singular tweak of your content, but with traditional video, this can be easier said than done. However, with Vudoo’s interactive video technology, you can tweak interactions long after you’ve first pressed publish.

Above is an example of some of the statistics present in Vudoo’s analytics dashboard. The dashboard captures a range of statistics and data about the success of your video, as well as what your audience looks like. You’ll find statistics like:

• Interaction rate: the percentage of users that interact with your content while watching it

• Conversion rate: the percentage of users that took action while watching your content

• Viewer retention: how far into your video your audience watched

• Hotspot clicks: what interactions people are clicking on and how often

• Views vs interactions per day: a daily breakdown of the interaction rate

• Interactions by type per day: measures the level of engagement with polls, questions, hotspots and other types of interactions in the video

• Qualitative data: Responses from any polls, questions or forms embedded in the video

A lot of these statistics aren’t available with traditional video, or are more surface-level when compared to the data that’s available through interactive video analytics.

Vudoo’s analytics dashboard also offers a more comprehensive insight into what your audience looks like. You can work out where in the world they’re based, and where they’re finding your video (your website, paid ads, social media etc). This can help you work out whether you need to be focusing on other markets and/or investing more in certain channels above others. Real-time analytics mean you can make these decisions on the fly, rather than waiting for the end of your campaign to assess the results.

Interactive video can help you achieve your business objectives

Analytics can help you get the most out of both your current campaigns, and future objectives. Rip Curl used branching (‘choose-your-own-adventure’) technology to help users find their perfect swimwear, giving them the option to make choices based on the purpose of the swimwear, as well as their body characteristics. They were then presented with relevant products that they could purchase with a few clicks.

While this was a very useful campaign for consumers, it also provided a range of data and information to Rip Curl. They were able to learn whether their audience was more interested in beach wear or surf wear, as well as showing them what body types were most common amongst their audience. They could then develop future product ranges based on this information. They were also able to track conversions and sales revenue through the shoppable video technology, and could do this across multiple regions thanks to Vudoo’s platform.

An example of using branching to determine what your audience is most interested in buying.

The Australian Taxation Office, meanwhile, used interactive video to create a campaign to assist their audience with lodging their tax returns. Branching features allowed users to select the topics that they were looking to learn more about, with the interactions taking them to videos that explained those topics in-depth. Interactive video allowed them to track the engagement levels of their audience by seeing who clicked all the way to the end, including the amount of outbound clicks to the landing pages that they used for the video campaign.

The ATO has also been able to use analytics to determine which options were most popular, and thus which parts of the tax return people struggle with completing, as well as using the data to measurethe most popular (and not-so-popular) methods of lodging a tax return. They can use this information to continue to create resources that speak to these areas, which will help clear up any issues people might have come tax time. If you’re looking to learn more about your audience, then Vudoo’s analytics can help you determine what products/offerings your audience enjoys, as well as what information they need when it comes to your brand.

An example of using branching to determine what information your audience needs most.

Interactive video can help provide you with unparalleled insights

Optimising your content by understanding what content resonated most with your audience can help you get the most out of your content strategy. Different industries use interactive videos in different ways, too: retailers can use interactive video to track what their best-selling products are, while L&D companies can use interactive video to understand what topics are most popular with their audience, and create future videos on those topics. Knowing your audience inside and out is the goal of any business, and Vudoo’s analytics provide an insight into the decisions your audience makes every time they watch a piece of video content.

While traditional video can offer some insights, in today’s marketplace, you can’t afford to be relying on anything less than the full picture. Knowing what your audience is looking for, and what they’re most interested in, can help you take your business to the next level. Next time you go to create a piece of video content, don’t you want to know whether it’s resonating with your target audience, rather than hoping for the best? If so, then it’s time to invest in interactive video, and elevate your creativity and your insights.