Digital video is emerging as an increasingly vital tool for companies to communicate with and engage prospective customers. But despite the unique opportunities video presents, most enterprises continue to lag in the adoption of strong measurement capabilities, experts say.
Writing recently for GigaOm, Rachel Delacour, CEO of BIME Analytics, noted that while companies are making strong headway into the world of data storage – thanks largely to the proliferation of open-source protocols – there has yet to be a widespread investment in business intelligence tools designed to analyze video usage.
“[M]ost companies still struggle to make sense of the basic requirements for all the different big data technologies out there — from budget to necessary staff skills,” she writes. “That’s a pity because mining video data is a particularly valuable asset. The foray into the rich data sets of social media and video lets companies large and small literally see more and sell more.”
Indeed companies can no longer afford to ignore video. Digital video is now the fourth largest category for digital ad spending, with revenues up three-fold since 2011.
Video is especially useful for “top-of-funnel” demand generation strategies such as branding and content marketing; as of 2012 more than 90% of respondents to one industry survey said they prefer to receive their information through video over white papers, case studies, even live demos with reps.
While clicks, completions and impressions have long served as the standard of ad measurement, the complex engagement of video ads requires a new set of metrics. In January, BrandAds released a list of the top ten video metrics advertisers should use this year.
Reach, or the size of the audience
Frequency, or the number of times a consumer is exposed
Gross Rating Points, which gauges the size of a brand’s piece of the audience
Demographics
Time Spent
Completion Rate
Drop-off Point
Brand Lift, which measures campaign-driven influence
Optimal Frequency, which refers to how many times a viewer needs to be exposed to a video to generate brand lift
Viewable CPM, or the average cost per impression
But maximizing reliable measurements also requires a common language. So in March, the Interactive Advertising Bureau updated its video metrics for the first time since 2009 in an effort to keep pace with rapidly changing user dynamics.
The IAB added several new metrics, including an “Ad expand/collapse” measurement, which accounts for non-user initiated ad behavior rather than expand/collapse metrics, which refer to player behavior. The association also responded to the increasing prevalence of a “skip” option with a metric that describes when a user intentionally skips a linear video ad by clicking a button or other control mechanism.
As video advertising matures, likely experts will find even more sophisticated ways to measure viewer behavior.