7 Important Video Metrics to Track For Better Result

You need to track the right video metrics in order to make smart decisions and not waste your time.

As you know, there are lots of numbers out there. But you don’t want to be caught up tracking “vanity metrics”—those that tell you how many views or followers you have but don’t show any actionable insights. Why? Because they aren’t going to help you grow your business.

The good news is, there are plenty of other metrics that will give you the information you need to set yourself up for success, and we’re going to go over what they are, how they work, and why you should use them.

View count

View count is a metric that tells you if you’re able to deliver the video’s value within a platform-specific time frame.

Most social media platforms allow 3 seconds to pass before registering a view count, except for YouTube, which only registers views after 30 seconds.

Below are social media platforms and the number of seconds they allow before registering a view count.

• Facebook: 3 seconds
• Youtube: 30 seconds
• LinkedIn: 3 seconds
• Twitter: 3 seconds
• Instagram: 3 seconds
• Periscope: Immediately on click or after 3 seconds for autoplay
• Snapchat: Immediately on click

What's the importance of view count?

Videos are a great way to capture people's attention and make sure they remember your message. 47% of a video campaign's value comes from the video's first 3 seconds. The quicker you capture attention and deliver your message, the higher the chances of people remembering it.

How to boost your view count?

If you want people to watch your video content, it's important to make sure that the thumbnails and headlines are attractive. The first few seconds of a video are crucial to getting someone's attention, so make sure that you're using attractive custom thumbnails and attention-grabbing headlines in order to entice people to view the next videos with captivating thumbnails and headlines.

If you want to get your videos in front of more eyeballs, you'll need to think about distribution.

Here are some tips:

Promote it on social media (if possible ask influencers to share your video with their followers) and send it to people via email (Video on emails boosts click-through rates by 200-300%). You can promote through platform ads or do it for free.

Video play rate

The play rate metric is a very important one to track. It tells you how many people actually watched your video, in comparison to how many times it was shown. It takes into account the location of your video on the page or site, as well as the number of clicks it takes to watch it.

How important is a play rate?

Another metric to track is the play rate. This will give you insight into the effectiveness of your opening image on your click-to-play video ads, as well as its placement on the site. This is something you can test or experiment on: would the video work better in the middle or upper right corner? Or maybe it's better below the fold?

How to boost the play rate?

Similar to increasing the view count, the titles and thumbnails are important. The more impressive and relevant they are, the higher their chances of being played. Some studies show that customizing the player color actually helps produce an 18% higher play rate than those with a grey default.

But there’s one more thing I want to talk about: distribution-wise, it’s pretty much the same with principles in view count, you can promote it for free or through ads, but there’s one more thing you can do to increase the play rate via the search engines. Use “video-rich snippets” to let people who are searching for a particular topic or something relevant to it know that your content has a video.

Video Engagement

The engagement rate is a measure of how much of your video content was watched by your audience. In general, engagement is indicative of your content’s quality and relevance—the more engaging your videos are, the more likely they are to be seen by others and thus spread on social media.

It also indicates that users found value in the content they watched; if they had no reason to watch it, they wouldn't have spent time on it.

• Average view duration is a metric that shows how long someone watched your video. It's an important metric to track because it lets you know how engaging your videos are, and how much time people are spending with them. You can also use it to figure out where people might be dropping off, or what parts of your video they like best.
• Average video completion rate shows the number of times that a video plays to the end. If your audience presses replay, then all the better! Social media like Facebook typically gives priority to videos with high completion rates.

Why is engagement important?

Engagement is considered to be the most important metric that one should monitor. When a video has a high engagement rate, it tells you where to focus to get more leads, gives signals to publishers to give you more exposure, and guides advertisers to invest in you.

How to boost video engagement?

When it comes to video, the sweet spot length is between 30 seconds and two minutes.

This time frame is the most popular for engaging viewers and getting them to watch your entire video. After the 2-minute mark, engagement drops significantly.

While it's tempting to make everything short and sweet, it's not always the best strategy.

The most successful Facebook videos run for 4 to 20 minutes, like a TV episode. People expect that they'll watch longer on Facebook Watch than they do in their Feed. So if you want to improve engagement with your videos, test, and experiment—your data will guide you as to which works and which doesn't.

Here are some best practices:

• Keep your videos creative and brief.
• We can’t emphasize enough how important it is to track quality and context. Sure, lively videos get a lot of engagement, but if it’s talking about sensitive issues like the holocaust, for example, the mood can’t be festive.
• Targeted communication. Make sure your communication is targeted and direct to the point. That you’re talking to the right set of people at the correct point in their customer journey. Make sure everything from the headline, description, thumbnail, and the message is aligned with each other.
• With 98% of millennials watching videos on their phones, it's crucial to make sure your video content is optimized for the medium.

Social share

The number of times your video has been shared across platforms is a vital metric to track. It gives you insight into the breadth of your reach, and it's also directly related to engagement. The more times your video is shared, the more likely it is that people will engage with it!

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This is an important video metric you need to consider in tracking the effectiveness of your contents and call-to-action (CTA). When a viewer watched your entire video, it means they have reached your CTA. What’s more exciting is that they are convinced to take the action of your CTA. 

Why CTR is important?

Videos are the most effective advertising contents with the highest CTR. If your video has tons of impressions but low click-through rates, it means you need there’s something wrong. It’s convincing viewers to watch the entire video or even act on your CTA.

Here are some tips to increase the CTR of your videos:

• Maintain a video length of 30 seconds or shorter
• Never forget to use powerful CTAs like free, now, and you.
• Make use of CTA overlay and end card at before your video ends.

Conversion

This metric depends on what specific action you want your viewer to take after watching the video. Do you want them to subscribe to your channel or newsletter? Do you want them to book a free consultation or buy a product from your online store? These are some of the things you want them to do. 

The higher your conversion rate, the higher is your return on investment. In case you spent $100 on your video production, and resulted to a sales of $500. That means your return on investment is five times your capital. That’s amazing, right?

Here are some reasons why video is effective in increasing your returns:

• 96% of consumers watching videos are likely to purchase a product or service
• Demo videos are effective in delivering the benefits and function of a business

‍Feedback

These are the qualitative contents you get from your videos. It could be the comments and reactions of viewers upon watching your video ads. This is an important metric since it helps you recheck the quality of your videos.

All these metrics for your video production are essential to improving your contents. With that improvement, you can better increase your return on investment and click-through-rates of your videos.