Measuring the results of your video campaign is no easy task. Besides knowing which metrics to keep an eye on, you’ve got to know which analytics platform can best measure those metrics. So, where do you start?
Once you’ve outlined which metrics you want to measure, your next step is comparing potential video hosts. Most video hosting platforms provide a wide array of analytics, but before settling on a host, make sure they can offer you the data you need.
Then, once you’ve found the right host, you can begin thinking about the data popular distribution methods provide, including social media platforms and advertising platforms. These platforms combined can give you a clear picture of your video’s overall performance so you can measure ROI and know if your video is a success.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular video platforms and what they can offer you.
Video Hosts
Your video hosting platform will be the foundation for your data analytics. Hosting platforms provide the most straightforward metrics you can use to measure the success of your video, including video views, impressions, view-through rate, basic viewer demographics, and more. Though hosts don’t usually provide a lot of information about viewer behavior post-view, your video host should allow you to embed your video almost anywhere and measure viewer behavior separately.
YouTube – YouTube is by far the most popular video hosting solution. YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google, and because Google owns YouTube, it’s often given preferential treatment when it comes to appearing in search engine results pages. YouTube videos are easy to embed and are extremely user-friendly. It’s free to use for both viewers and content creators, and it provides a wealth of data, including total views, comments, ratings, viewer demographics, referrals and inbound links, and more.
Wistia – Wistia is slightly more expensive than its competitors, but it offers a beautiful solution for video hosting often preferred by entrepreneurs and small to medium businesses. It also offers advanced lead capture tools, including call to action buttons and forms. Its analytics are highly in depth, providing heat maps, engagement statistics, and CRM integrations not offered by other hosting platforms. But Wistia does charge per video upload, so the more video content you have, the more it’ll cost you.
Vidyard – Vidyard provides tons of engagement analytics, but really shines when it comes to individual viewer analytics. You can see just how engaged each viewer is, how many videos they watch, and where exactly they stop watching or skip, giving you a clear picture of the effectiveness of your video. You can even create a viewer history, helping you build unique viewer profiles. Their prices aren’t publicly announced, but you can request a custom quote – likely a high price to match the expanse of their offerings.
Vimeo – Vimeo provides a slightly more professional hosting solution, though there are limits to how many videos you can upload for free. (Any more and you’ll have to pay for a Vimeo monthly subscription.) Vimeo, though, does provide powerful analytics, customization options, and a tight-knit community of videographers. Overall, their player is great for higher quality video and provides a more seamless experience without disruptive advertising. Analytics include total views, time watched, and a breadth of individual reports, including region and device reports.
SproutVideo – SproutVideo’s analytics and customization tools are incredibly informative and help paint a very clear picture of your video’s performance. With tons of integration capabilities, resolution and SEO capabilities, and technical support, SproutVideo is a more multifaceted solution for those looking to get more out of their video. It includes tons more options for video player editing, video privacy and encoding, and player API customizations. SproutVideo has three different payment tiers, starting at $59.99 per month.
Cincopa – Cincopa provides video hosting and web management tools. It’s less of a hosting tool and more of an enhancement platform that helps you promote your brand, publish your content, build an online store, and more. Still, it aggregates video stats in an easy-to-use dashboard and provides in depth viewer data and actionable insights you’ll love.
Brightcove – Brightcove is a video hosting, publishing, and integration platform that helps optimize your video performance across sites, devices, and apps. They’ve developed impressive technology that simplifies data analysis and gives you access to any metric you could want. But their cheapest plan starts at $199 per month, so be sure you need such a robust tool before committing.
Social Media Platforms
Most social media platforms now have native video players that allow you to upload your video straight to their site. While having to go to every individual social media platform to gather insights can be tiresome, it can make or break your video’s success. Focus on one or two platforms to start, and depending on your results, expand from there.
Facebook – Facebook is the largest social media platform and has the opportunity to expose your video to the largest audience. And, thanks to all the data it collects, it has the most specific audience targeting tools of any platform out there. If your audience is active on Facebook, be sure to use it to its full capacity. It provides a ton of data, including video performance numbers, like average reach and clicks; audience retention numbers, like view duration and repeat views; and engagement metrics, like comments, shares, and likes.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is especially crucial for small and medium businesses. Though the analytics data on native LinkedIn videos isn’t as robust (they offer impressions, clicks, social actions, and engagement percentage data), it can be an easy way to directly reach your target audience. If your video relates to the work or employment industry, then you definitely need to use LinkedIn.
Twitter – Twitter video is similar to LinkedIn — though you can see per Tweet analytics, like views, retweets, and likes, it doesn’t give you a very good sense of trends or performance over time for video. Still, video is the most engaged with form of content, beating out link and image posts, so don’t neglect Twitter if you’re trying to grow your brand awareness.
Instagram – Once primarily a platform for image sharing, Instagram is now a big player in the video world thanks to Instagram Stories. Stories now have over 300 million daily active users and has increased the amount of time users spend browsing the platform. Again, you won’t find very robust metrics on Instagram – you can see Story view count and that’s about it – but uploading videos usually increases your profile visits, website clicks, and more.
Analytics Tools
Analytic tools are the data granddaddies. With free and paid options, these can be a little tougher to implement, but will provide more than enough data tracking and conversion information to answer any questions you might have. They’re the ultimate in data analysis, so weigh each option carefully.
Kissmetrics – Kissmetrics is a web analytics solution that tracks your analytics from the first time a user engages with your brand, to the point they convert into a buyer and beyond. Because Kissmetrics doesn’t focus solely on video performance, its abilities are much greater than your average hosting or social platform. It’s a powerful tool than can track your website performance, ad performance, A/B tests, and more. From funnel tracking to cohort reports and more, this will definitely give you any video analysis information you might need.
Google Analytics – Besides your video hosting platform, which will give you the best overall performance data, Google Analytics is your best bet when it comes to analyzing your video’s website performance. It’s not only free to use, but it’s one of the most robust analytics tools around and can track clicks and conversions, referral data, demographics data, revenue data, and more. Just make sure GA is correctly implemented on your website and it’ll give you more information than you know what to do with!
As you can see, the technology and software available to you is seemingly endless, especially when it comes to your video marketing strategy. With the right tools, you’ll gain actionable insights that’ll not only tell you how your video is performing, but help you optimize your video’s distribution and advertising efforts.
If you’re ready to get started with video, see how Lemonlight can help you produce the video you’ve always wanted.
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