Why Video Measurement Matters

Pebble stones on the Baikal beach
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I believe video measurement is foundational to every company’s online data. I also believe that video has not received the attention and documentation needed for its core role in every brand’s online portfolio. As the video Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the Adobe Consulting team, I know that clients are struggling to get video measurement right and that it is an area that is moving and changing at a very fast rate.

Over the coming weeks and months I will be writing about video analytics from planning to implementation to analysis. Through this blog series I plan to share the tips and tricks that will make video measurement easy, valuable and even fun.

Video analytics matters because video content matters. Video is making money, costing money, or (more likely) doing both at your company. Just like any other aspect of your online content, having and understanding video data will allow you to take video content to the next level, from optimization to monetization.

Video measurement is at its most powerful when it is part of the bigger picture of your company’s success. If you silo video data apart from the rest of your on-line data, it is impossible to know the full impact of video. As soon as video data nestles in among your content data, it becomes part of the story about ad campaign success or the user experience with your brand. Video can and should be a seamless component of your online measurement.

Take this contextual concept further, and video measurement becomes the core data for the dynamic optimization of video ad content, making effective monetization easy. Not only will you know which visitor segments watched the most video, you can dynamically customize video content and video ads to suit your visitors. See Adobe’s Project Primetime for more on that topic. This is when video data gets really fun, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

All good analytics start with a solid foundation, where confidence in the data is a given, and a deep understanding of success can be achieved. My next three articles will cover the basics from planning your video measurement strategy, to an implementation overview, and a look at some of the key video reports available in SiteCatalyst.