Top 5 Video Marketing Metrics to Track Performance

10 min read

Top 5 Video Marketing Metrics to Track Performance

Investing in creative video content has become a top priority for many brands around the world and its popularity doesn’t seem to be decreasing.   

According to HubSpot, marketers feel more positive about the ROI offered by video than ever before, as it continues to positively influence traffic, leads, sales, and audience insight.

To make sure this is the case for your own campaigns, focusing on the right performance metrics is key. This helps you track ROI and ensures you are investing in the right kind of content for your business. 

We’ve outlined some of the key video marketing metrics you need to track to determine the success of your video marketing campaigns.

1. Video view completion rates

Video plays (or views) are one of the most common metrics used to track video marketing performance.

However, what counts as a ‘view’ can vary depending on the platform you are advertising on. This can lead to misinformed conclusions on the success of your campaign. 

Here is a quick summary of what is counted as a view on different social media platforms: 

  • YouTube: A view of more than 30 seconds or if a user intentionally watches a video 
  • Facebook: A view of 3 seconds or more or 97% of the video’s total length
  • LinkedIn: A view of 2 seconds or more while the video is at least 50% on screen
  • Instagram: A view of 3 seconds or more (repeated loops not included)
  • Twitter: A view of 2 seconds or more while the video is at least 50% on screen

For most major platforms, a view can be counted after only a few short seconds. You can safely assume that your message was not conveyed in such a short amount of time or with only 50% of the ad showing on the screen. 

Other metrics such as ‘ThruPlay’ on Facebook are available to you and are counted when someone views at least 15 seconds of your video or 97% of your video (whichever comes first). 

This can be a better metric to track if you have micro-content, but this isn’t ideal if you have video content that is 90 seconds or longer.

Rather than looking at the views, focus on the video view completion rates. 

For example, you can track how many people have watched at least 75% of the video or more.  On LinkedIn, you can even track how many people watched your video in a full-screen format, indicating high engagement with the content.

This is a better approach to tracking how many viewers watched your video instead of focusing on those who likely only scrolled past.

2. Shares & comments

Having people interact with your video on social media is another key success metric, as it can tell you a lot about whether it’s the right content for your target audience. 

Typical interactions (depending on the platform) can include:

  • Likes or reactions
  • Post saves
  • Comments 
  • Shares

While any kind of interaction is welcome, there are some that will pack a bigger punch when it comes to gauging success. 

For example, you may feature a video that gets lots of likes, but this doesn’t always mean that those taking this action will be fully engaged. They may like it absent-mindedly and continue on to the next post.

Instead, you should focus on the number of shares and comments your video receives. 

This indicates that you have meaningful and relevant content because a comment takes up more time and a share means your audience is willing to associate themselves with your brand and vouch for your product or service. 

Plus, platforms like Instagram tend to favour comments and shares over likes and are more likely to prioritise that content.

3. Demographics

Next, you should always keep a close eye on who is engaging with your video. 

It is good to measure view rates and post engagement, but you need to remember to identify who is actually racking up these metrics. 

For example, if you are a company selling a service targeted at 45-55-year-old females, but the video is being delivered to 25-34-year-old males, then your chances of a successful campaign will decrease.  

Not to mention that it will likely drive down other key metrics, as it’s not meaningful and relevant content to this group of people. 

You can easily monitor your demographics through your reporting tools, such as Google Analytics or Facebook Ads Manager to identify these gaps and adjust your targeting accordingly.

4. Click-through rate 

Next, we need to take the view rates, shares and comments and compare them to the click-through rate (or CTR) of the ad that your video is supporting. 

Measuring a CTR is simple. It is the number of views divided by the number of people who clicked. 

It is a strong indicator of campaign success when it comes to whether the video delivers the right message. Your audience may find your content entertaining and therefore like, comment or share it, but a video is often used to support a wider campaign and needs to funnel your traffic to your landing page.

The ideal CTR varies depending on what platform you are advertising on and the industry you are in. 

Facebook CTRs for video ads usually average around 2.2%, which is the highest out of other ad formats. 

LinkedIn click-through rates, on the other hand, tend to be less.  Sponsored videos have an average CTR of 0.44% as compared to text ads that average of around 0.02%. This can change depending on the country you are advertising to and the seniority of the target audience.

5. Conversion rates

Finally, we will tie the above metrics together with conversions, as this is the ultimate indicator of how your video marketing campaigns are performing.

Any of the video marketing metrics we discussed is key to a successful video campaign, but the ultimate goal is to convert the traffic into paying customers or qualified leads.  

Whether you are using your video on a landing page or social media platform, you will need to be able to identify how much of the traffic that saw your video actually converted.

Knowing this will indicate how well your content is relaying your message and the action that you want your audience to take. 

You ideally want to make sure you are familiar with how to track your conversions before you start any campaign so that you have clear metrics from the beginning.

Summary

So, remember, if you are monitoring your video campaign performance, be sure to focus on: 

Want to keep reading?

We have a wide range of branded content articles to choose from. Here are some that might be of interest to you: 

You can also find inspiration for animated video content here, where we feature projects for global brands that have utilised animated video for their marketing and communications.

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