Quantifying video metrics is a wide open enterprise for all, including publishers; plus, innovation and analytics from the experts
Views, visits, traffic, clicks, opens, time spent with media … charting response to your content and using that data to court ad buyers and convert subscribers is a challenge. Now, add video metrics to all of that, just for good “measure.”
The good news? For now, pretty much anything goes when it comes to tracking consumption. From Facebook to first-time video publishers, reporting how many of who’s watching for what duration is not an exact science, to say the least.
TheMediaBriefing.com has more on this and much else of interest to digital magazines with recent coverage. Let’s see what they have to say!
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Video Metrics a Matter of Trust
Monetizing video content is a must for publishers, if only because the space is getting crowded and consumers expect some video component from media companies. But as TheMediaBriefing.com reports, compiling accurate and reliable video metrics continues to be a slippery slope.
“That competition necessarily means that everybody is keen to establish an edge over the others or, in the case of the digital upstarts looking to steal away some of linear television’s adspend, parity with a more established competitor. It’s an entirely understandable urge, but there’s a growing acknowledgment that while competition in common, the language publishers use to demonstrate that edge is far from universal. Yesterday, for instance, saw widespread circulation of an article on Gizmodo titled ‘Internet video views is a 100 percent [bull] metric.’ Its author, Kevin Draper, explains why linear television companies are irate about digital pureplay claims to have achieved parity in terms of average viewership,” Chris Sutcliffe writes.
“None of this is exactly unexpected; since there is no universally accepted measurement of what counts as a video view it’s perfectly natural that publishers and platforms will massage their numbers to appeal to advertisers. But a lack of transparency around advertising practices is, in part, what has led to the current doldrums of the digital display ad market. Much of the potential confusion for advertisers Draper alludes to in the Gizmodo piece is as a result of wildly disparate players converging on the same online video playing field. As a result of their varied histories each is bringing a set of statistics and measurements that’s different from the others, and it will inevitably be difficult for advertisers to reconcile all of them and find which is ‘best.'”
Media Expert Carolyn Morgan on Digital Publishing Innovation
Highly recommended column from Carolyn Morgan on TheMediaBriefing.com succinctly outlining how digital publishers are currently innovating, and how they must continue to do so.
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“Stories are now being told in more visual ways. Digital news service AJ Plus tells news stories in short captioned videos that don’t need audio turned on. Facebook video is catching up You Tube in terms of number of online views, and the volume of video sharing on Snapchat rivals image sharing,” Morgan writes.
“Features are also more interactive – with contributions from readers an important part of how a story develops. And data is being used to create engaging graphics that illustrate the stats behind the headlines. Print alone – or basic web-sites – just can’t begin to deliver this type of visual, engaging storytelling, so publishers need to develop more sophisticated digital platforms for their content.”
Bauer Xcel Media Digital Data Director on Analytics
TheMediaBriefing.com has a great interview with Bauer Xcel Media Director of Digital Data Deni Boncheva about her preferred approach to analytics.
“As a large media company, we have many different digital data collection points – from registrations, demographic info, engagement data, comments, social and insurance data to audio and subscription data. Multiple teams can then use the data: content/editorial, ecommerce & marketing, ad sales, product and performance marketing. It is also important to note here that having a stable process of gathering data is vital as well as how you organise all different teams to be data literate and focused,” Boncheva told Georgie Davies.
“We have a central data team at Bauer – we have implemented a full data stack and we also manage the platforms. We act like an agency within the business and serve a purpose – to gather and store data in a secured way; to make it available and help the business monetise the data as well as to help grow audiences and revenue.”
Have you tried your hand at video metrics? Making sense out of it? Let us know in the comments!
To read more about video metrics and other industry news, visit TheMediaBriefing.com.
