Wistia is one of the best video hosting sites on the market. Consistently focused on data, customization, and integration with third-party services, Wistia is specifically designed to work for businesses. If you’re looking to enhance your video marketing strategy, Wistia is the perfect platform to start making sense of the numbers your video is generating.
Once you upload your video onto Wistia, you’ll have access to a wealth of video metrics that measure specific types of data. Ranging from the number of views your video garners to the type of community your content is nurturing, you can see exactly what your video content is doing. Without this thorough analysis, you won’t accurately report on its value and what improvements it needs.
We have compiled a list of all of the important analytics Wistia uses to measure your video content. Although this might seem to be overwhelming, you’ll know which analytics best benefit your branding and the kind of video content you want to cultivate.
But before you begin, there are a few things you need to consider:
- Determine the goal of your video. What do you expect your video to achieve? Make sure it’s focused enough.
- Define your target audience. Who do you want to watch your video? How do you expect them to view it?
- Choose your metrics. Once you’ve figured out the goal and target audience for your video, focus on a couple of the most important metrics for this piece of content.
1. View Count
The view count indicates the total number of plays. At the beginning of your video’s story, you want to know if your content is making the rounds and gaining brand awareness. You want to know if your company is getting the right amount of exposure through your video content.
You can improve your view count by sharing your video with social media influencers, sharing it via email and social media, and by using paid promotion methods, such as paid advertising.
Whilst view count does give you a good idea of the audience breadth it’s reaching, many video marketers focus too much on this aspect and ignore the higher value of data other analytics can offer. Depending on the goal of your video, we recommend coupling your view count with other metrics to gain a better assessment of your video content.
2. Engagement
The rate of engagement indicates the percentage of a video a viewer has watched. This is one of the most useful metrics in telling the quality of the views your video is reaching. How long are viewers watching your video? When do they stop watching? And, most importantly, why?
Depending on the context of your video goals, a low engagement rate isn’t always a problem. For example, an informative video will want to answer viewers’ queries swiftly and concisely. Once viewers feel educated after having one question answered, they won’t necessarily stay and watch the whole thing. However, if your video has a Call to Action at the very end, you want as many viewers as possible to watch the entire video.
Wistia also provides an engagement graph to show you exactly where viewers are resonating with your video. The blue section tells you where viewers are most engaged and where they stop watching. It’s normal to see a steady decline in viewers, but if there’s a sharp decrease, review your video to see where it’s going wrong. The orange section shows where your viewers are rewinding your video and watching specific parts multiple times. This is useful when you’re considering cutting down your video content to share on social media.
(Include image of engagement graph from own video)
3. Play Rate
The play rate indicates the number of people who watched the video on the web page it is located on. This helps you see how relevant your video is in its location and if the web page gives it enough context.
Before you consider placing a video on a web page, you need to think about the purpose of your video. A video that’s central to the topic of your webpage will receive a higher play rate than a supplemental video.
If your play rate isn’t as high as you would like, there are a few things you can do:
- Alter the video’s position on the web page. Move it to a more prominent or obvious location.
- Alter the video’s position on the website. Move it to a more prominent or relevant web page.
- Change the thumbnail. We recommend using humans in your thumbnail as they gain more attention.
- Choose different text. Make sure the text around the thumbnail is as relevant as possible.
- Increase the size of the embed. Ensure it’s obvious enough.
4. Heatmaps
Heatmaps measure audience engagement and behaviour. They are a unique tool as they provide a huge amount of data relevant to each viewer’s watching habits. This gives you a more specific outlook on how engaged your audience is.
Heatmaps give you a second-by-second analysis of each viewer’s engagement with your video. You can see their location, how many of your videos they’ve seen already, where specifically they’ve rewound your video, and the time and date they played it. You can even see the IP address, the device and the webpage they watched the video on.
So what can you do with all of this data? Regarding location, you can see which viewers from which places are the most and least engaged. Which parts of your video resonate more with your viewers? Which web pages have higher play rates?
This detailed outlook on engagement examines the relevancy of your video, helping you tweak your video content marketing strategy.
5. Conversions
Conversions indicate how many viewers are converting after watching your video, such as subscribing or buying a product. If you’re a marketer, you want to see how many viewers are converting to consumer. Wistia has a couple of ways to measure conversions:
Lead Generation
Wistia’s Turnstile email collector lets you assemble a list of verified leads into a database directly from your video. You can even place this form at the beginning of your video, requiring your viewers to enter their details before watching.
To measure the conversion rate, compare the number of leads your video is generating to the number of views. This will show how effective your marketing materials are in encouraging viewers to sign up for more.
Call to Action
Wistia lets you place either a full-screen Call to Action or an annotation link midway or at the end of your video. These methods can direct viewers to your products and services, subscribe, or download information from your website. Wistia’s options for this include a simple text Call to Action, a custom image or using HTML.
To track conversions, ensure that you’re using the right Google UTM link, which shows via Google Analytics how many viewers are converting.
This metric is more useful for product and sales videos. Measuring conversion rates for educational videos risks creating self-promotional and sales videos. Viewers will quickly become disengaged with your video content and your brand.
6. A/B Testing
A/B testing tests and measures what is working, what needs improvement and how you can enhance your video marketing strategy. You can compare different types of video content (such as live-action vs animation), thumbnails (such as image vs video), and Call to Action (such as full-screen Call to Action vs annotation link).
Using this feature, you can play more than one video simultaneously and compare precisely engagement rates. This will allow you to edit and optimise your videos accordingly and even examine video performance against specific metrics.
7. Social Media
Social media measures the extent of word of mouth. It can be difficult to measure the shareability of your content, but using a few little digital tricks up your sleeve will help you see how far and wide your brand is gaining online recognition.
If people are excited to share your company, they’ll be talking about you in ways you won’t be able to measure. On social media, however, this does leave a digital footprint. But this isn’t just about likes, comments, shares, and retweets. Pay special attention to the content of those shares. Even if any publicity is good publicity, you don’t want negative feedback about your video content and company being broadcast out into the world.
If you want to see more social sharing, here’s what you can do:
- Incorporate clear signs to share your content. Visible social media and share icons are your best bet, especially if they’re accessible throughout the entire video.
- Create more educational and entertaining content. This type of video content tends to gain more shares and attention than product and sales videos. Viewers aren’t necessarily looking for something to buy; they also want answers.
- Use open graph tags. These are snippets of code that control how URLs appear when shared on social media. They don’t just make your content more eye-catching; they also help social media platforms understand the main focus of your content, increasing brand visibility through search.
8. Conversations
Conversations indicate clarity about your services with viewers and potential customers. If your video’s purpose is to answer questions and clarify issues, you can track how many support calls or emails you’re still receiving about that topic. More specifically, you can examine the quality of those questions. If they’re about more advanced knowledge, you’ve clearly and concisely explained the basics.
You can improve the quality of the conversations you’re having with viewers by investigating your website. Look for specific web pages where information may be unclear and see if adding a video helps. If one section of your video is being rewatched multiple times, make sure it’s logical and not confusing.
9. Site Metrics
Site metrics indicate user experience. Seeing improvements in your overall website metrics will show that your video content is working and keeping visitors engaged. If you’re not reaping these benefits, consider changing the context and purpose of your videos. Incorporating video into your content marketing strategy is vital in this day and age, but you need to think about its alignment with your marketing goals.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the number of viewers who enter your site without leaving your page. If you’re a marketer, you should look out for this metric because this will tell you how and why visitors are converting to your brand. Video can be a compelling and captivating tool for intriguing visitors and keeping them engaged.
You want your bounce rate to be as low as possible. If it’s too high for your liking, examine your website as a whole. Make sure your navigation buttons are clear. Do visitors know what to do next after reading or watching your content?
Time Spent on Page
If viewers are watching your video content, that means they’re spending more time on the web page where it’s embedded.
Have a look at how well your web page kept visitors hooked before adding video content and if there are any contrasts. If the number has increased, they’ve probably spent the majority of that time watching your video. If not, make the relevant changes to the play rate and engagement.
10. Comments
Comments indicate the level of community engagement. Video aids discussion around your brand, fostering familiarity with your company. You want your product or services to start conversations with the public, and comments are a great way to see how well these are resonating with users.
You can examine the content of these comments and see which types of video viewers are more engaged with. Does your video divide opinion? Answer questions? Elicit emotion? Aside from sales, you get a better picture of your audience’s reaction to your branding.
Humanising your marketing approach, inviting a direct discussion from your audience, and clearly answering queries from viewers are all effective ways to encourage comments and build a community around your company.
Final Thoughts
Metrics on Wistia may seem like a minefield, but the reality is that you only need two to analyse your video’s success. By examining the correct metrics, you can nurture the potential of your video content marketing strategy. Without these precious snippets of data, you won’t know exactly how and why your video content is working.
We can make video work for you, not the other way around. With over 2000 videos, both animated and live-action, we can sort all of the logistics associated with your video, meaning no hassle or stress on your part. Still interested? Give us a call to get our creative partnership started.
