Ultimate Guide to Measuring Your Video Marketing Efforts

Video marketing is a great way to get your brand name out there and build trust with customers. It's also perfect for explaining complicated products or services, because videos show how they work in an easy-to-understand format. 

For businesses, using video is now more important than ever. With the pandemic taking its toll and forcing people to stay home more often, brands have seen increased video consumption from consumers. That shows no signs of slowing, with research showing that nine out of 10 viewers want to see more videos from brands and businesses.

But it's not as easy as grabbing your mobile phone and filming an Instagram Reel! Getting a great ROI from your video marketing takes planning and time. For videos to be successful as a long-term strategy, they need goals, testing, and evaluation. 

Measuring the success of your video efforts is just as important as planning them. Knowing what makes a video successful — whatever the platform or the video type — is the first step to achieving a profitable ROI.

Here’s how you can approach measuring your marketing video metrics.

Insights and Data That Help You Measure Video Engagement

One of the easiest video insights to measure is engagement. Social media platforms provide viewers with a variety of ways to rate content. Paying attention to these metrics helps brands understand more about the impact of their content. 

Impressions

When tracking brand awareness, consider using impressions. Impressions measure how many times your content was displayed, regardless of whether users clicked on it. 

Keep in mind that impressions are slightly different from reach, which measures how many users clicked on your content. If someone sees your video more than once in their feed, it counts as another impression. Therefore, your impressions will always be higher than your reach.

If your impression count is low, it could mean you need to revise your marketing plan. Perhaps you are targeting the wrong audience or aren’t using engaging imagery or topics. Take a closer look.

Likes and Dislikes

Each video platform comes with its own way for users to signal their approval. Since it's so easy to see, and social media insights usually add up the likes, this method makes tracking engagement easy. 

A video that gets a lot of likes shows that your content resonates with your target audience. If they've taken the time to interact using a “like” or a positive emoji, you know your content is hitting the mark. 

However, it works both ways. If your audience is engaging with the video by using negative emojis, it's clear that your content may be off target. 

Although easy to measure, likes and dislikes are a bit hit and miss. Some viewers may love your content but choose not to respond on social media. The best thing is to use this metric as a basic guide alongside more robust data. 

Shares and Comments

Comments are a solid indicator of whether your video content is making an impression. Paying attention to the language used and the points made by your audience can also be valuable for customer research. 

Sharing a video is even more insightful than comments. A user who shares your video expresses their willingness to associate your content with their views and opinions. The viewer is interested enough in what you posted to pass it on to others.

Best of all, the more comments and shares you get, the more the algorithm is likely to show your content in Explore tabs.  

Sometimes your content will bring about comments that don't necessarily support your messaging. Remember, this isn't always a bad thing. Differing opinions make the world an interesting place – if you can justify your views, then a little controversy can create engagement. 

Learn More: Why Do You Need a Company Culture Video?

Is Your Content Converting? These Data Insights will Help You Find Out

Although video marketing offers easy ways to track engagement, tracking conversions is more challenging. However, it's not impossible, and some platforms like YouTube make it easier with printable data. 

Play Rates and Watch time

If you have posted your video, you'll want to know how many people are watching it. Your play rate represents the number of people who see your video and click to watch it. 

For example, if you have a 25% play rate, only a quarter of the people noticing your video are actually clicking the play button. 

There's no need to be disheartened if play rates are low. Several reasons can cause low play rates, including:

• Not posting on the appropriate channel
• Targeting the wrong audience
• Posting content that is off-trend 
• Using a thumbnail or descriptive copy that doesn't capture attention

The more engaging your video is, the longer people will stay around to watch it. Watch time data is useful when figuring out if your audience is interested in the video enough to watch it through to the end. And if they aren't, this data helps you evaluate at what point their attention drifts away.

The longer your audience watches your video, the more likely it is to rank on Google and YouTube. 

Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate (CTR) is one of the most important metrics to check when looking at the effectiveness of your content. 

You calculate the CTR by taking the number of video views and dividing it by the number of clicks. If the aim of your video is to generate leads, the CTR is an important indicator of its success.

Adding an attractive thumbnail and an engaging title to the video will likely increase the CTR. Use captions on social media, and create an intriguing call to action to improve your CTR. 

Not all platforms calculate CTR metrics in the same way, so be sure you know which numbers are going into the equations.

Measure Your Efforts And Power Up Your Video Marketing for 2022

The key to maximizing your ROI is using metrics and data to measure your video marketing strategy. Tracking your video marketing and implementing the information will help you create an effective and accountable strategy. 

Measure your analytics alongside testing and provide your brand with various video content options to maximize customer engagement.

Don't be afraid to experiment, and always match your metrics to your goals. Remember, a measurement that doesn't work on one channel may work on another. 

Additional Video Marketing Resources

Want to dig deeper? Weidert Group has a full resource hub about the world of video marketing! Get video production tips, find out which types of videos are important for your business, and more!