More than Views: Diving into Video Analytics Beyond View Counts

Published paper: More than views: Diving into video analytics beyond view counts

View counts are universally accepted as an important metric when analyzing video viewership. Views are easy to measure and easy to understand for all stakeholders. But developing a meaningful understanding of video performance and potential comes from metrics well beyond just view counts.

While view counts are considered a measure of success or popularity, there are layers of additional metrics from which we can extract valuable insights to help inform key decisions and strategies. This analysis can, in turn, help to improve overall video viewership.

An understanding of video analytics provides value across a video’s entire workflow chain. Video producers, content managers, and marketing specialists alike can benefit from knowing how to analyze data and act upon trends—influencing the production, distribution, and promotion of video content.

In this how-to session, we will look at video viewership data across some of the more widely-used platforms, with a focus on YouTube and Google Analytics toolsets.

Attendees will learn basic to intermediate approaches for identifying key viewership metrics. We will review strategies for using data and analysis to help inform production, distribution, and marketing decisions. As part of the investigation, we will ask questions such as the following:

How much of a video did your viewers watch? Where did the viewer watch the video? How did the viewer find your video? From which devices did your viewers watch your video? How do trends vary across devices, regions, or referrals, and what might that data suggest?