8 Video Marketing KPIs - What You Should Know in 2023

As the New Year celebration spirit shrugs off, the self-growth mode kicks in. 

Plans are made, resolutions are drawn, and diaries and schedulers get filled like we’re on a tactical mission. For marketers, things just don’t end there. 
The New Year welcomes new goals and targets in our work life too. To crush these targets, marketers run different campaigns. The success of every campaign is determined by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

In this blog, we’ll talk about one such crucial strategy: video marketing. We will also find out what are the essential KPIs for measuring the success of a video marketing campaign. 

Even if you’re experienced in video marketing, we recommend checking this out. You might pick up some crispy nuggets of information.

What are the trends in video marketing in 2022?

Video marketing burst into the scene 80 years ago when Bulova Watch company aired their 10-second TV commercial in the US. Bulova watches still exist, but if you look at their marketing videos now, they will look a lot different from the 1941 black and white TV commercial. 

They are focusing on a multitude of platforms to stay relevant with the current buyers. Their videos are on social media with more than 200K followers on Instagram. YouTube contributes up to 22% of the brand’s social media traffic.

The point here is that video marketing is not limited to one device, channel or geographic location anymore. If you have a video idea, you can share it with the world. There is so much happening in the video industry that not covering the upcoming video trends will keep the purpose of this blog partially unfulfilled.

Therefore, before we head to measuring the KPI’s, here are some changes in the video marketing space that are expected to take place in 2022.

The rise and rise of User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by customers and shared on social media and other channels. This type of content includes:

• Images
• Videos 
• Blog posts
• Testimonials
• Audio recordings 
• Other types of content shared on the web 
  

There could be many reasons why a user creates content about a brand and share it with others. But, having a positive experience with a product and letting others know about it seems to be the highest motivator.

In 2022 and beyond, UGC will gain more importance as buyers look for social proof before buying a product. 99% of Gen Z shoppers prefer to buy products that have reviews in the form of images and videos. Naturally, there is going to be more demand for how people feel about using a product. 

For example, this infographics shows that 85% of users have more confidence in UGC than in content produced directly by brands.

Social media platforms will be the favorites for UGC, with Instagram doing most of the heavy lifting. One of the reasons for it is that Instagram enjoys a higher engagement rate when compared to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter. 

What will be interesting to see is how brands respond to this. Brands like Starbucks already share UGC from their own accounts, which has fetched them more engagement than their own marketing content. It’s a bit hard to tell now, but going by the trend, more brands would encourage their users to share their experiences with the product. 

Growth of AR in video marketing

As customers look for more social proof from UGC, they will also demand a more immersive experience in video marketing. This can put some companies in a frenzy, finding new ways to make their videos more real. But, the smarter ones know that there is already a way: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). If you’re unfamiliar with AR and VR, here’s a quick introduction. 

AR is adding digital content into the real environment with the help of mobile devices. The M-Commerce industry is expected to hit $488 billion by 2024. AR could be a game-changer for companies who want to build their M-commerce market share aggressively. Burger King’s ‘Burn that Ad’ campaign is one of the best AR use cases in marketing. 

Along with the immersive experience, AR can be an incredibly powerful tool for adding more transparency to a brand’s relationship with its customers. With the power of AR, customers can try a product before they buy it. There are two big advantages to this: 

• Customers are more confident before buying the product 
• The brand reduces the number of product returns
  

Brands like IKEA, Snapchat, Adidas, and Amazon have already started experimenting with AR. But, the most recent example of AR would be ASOS. To boost their sales during the pandemic, ASOS launched the ‘See my Fit’ campaign where users can visualize a piece of clothing on different body types. ASOS saw a jump of 275% in their sales, and a good chunk of it can be attributed to AR as 72% of people engage in impulsive buying after watching an AR video.

The rising popularity of short-form videos

For the record, any video under 3-minutes is considered a short-form video. Short-form videos have gained massive popularity, with Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube being the marquee names among short-form video platforms. 

People generally love watching videos, and in 2020, people spent a record 103 minutes just watching digital videos. But, with an attention span shorter than 10 seconds, full-length videos take too much time and require a lot of concentration..

Consumers now find short-form videos more entertaining and better investment for their short attention spans. TikTok has emerged to be the favorite platform for users to consume short-form videos. On average, users spend 26 minutes on TikTok with an average video duration of 16 seconds.

The same story continues for other social media platforms. YouTube Shorts, which was launched in 2020, generates more than 15 billion daily views. Instagram Reels, on the other hand, gets 22% higher engagement as compared to other videos on Instagram

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Famous brands have already started promoting short-form content in the form of challenges, UGC, product tips, and behind the scenes. There is a tremendous opportunity for brands to connect with their audience using short-form videos. If they still choose to abstain from it, there is a lot to lose. 

The demand for explainer videos

Other than being fun, video content is an effective tool for retaining information for a long time. Besides, you can learn stuff quicker by watching a video than by reading a blog or an instructional manual. The time and effort incentive also give videos the superpower to influence buying decisions - As per Wyzowl, 96% of people watch an explainer video before deciding to buy a product. In fact, the same report also suggests that explainer videos are the most common type of videos created by marketers.

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If you try to join the dots, you’ll realize that neglecting explainer videos makes your marketing strategy weaker.. If a brand doesn’t create explainer video content, it can be considered a lack of empathy for clients and potential customers. As consumers get more specific about their relationship with brands, it won’t take them a lot of time to look away.

Right now is a crucial time for brands to invest in explainer videos. Not only because buyers demand it, but it’s easier than ever to make a video today. . You don’t necessarily need a team or pay thousands of dollars to recruit an agency. Using a screen recorder, you can make good quality explainer videos by recording your screen and webcam both.

The emergence of Video-first marketing 

Video-first marketing is about giving more emphasis to videos in marketing. It’s about pivoting your marketing strategy by keeping videos at the core.

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Video-first marketing strategy  guides clients through the buyer’s funnel with the help of videos that match with buyers’ requirements at each stage. This way, the videos stay relevant, highly engaging, and attract more traffic. 

However, video-first marketing implies the use  of other marketing channels. In fact, additional channels are an effective way of gathering more video views. For example, you can include YouTube Shorts in emails and landing pages.

Popular brands like Starbucks have started emphasizing videos in their marketing strategy. The company posts a wide range of videos starting with explainer videos about their app and ending with a nutritional value of Grande cold coffee. 

Measuring the right video marketing KPIs

So far  we focused on understanding video marketing trends,and how companies can benefit from them in 2022. 

Now, we shift our focus towards calculating the KPIs. KPIs are numbers that tell you how your videos are performing. The performance of your videos tell you if you need to make changes to your current plan. Having clarity on what KPIs you should measure makes your job easier.

We have broken down the KPIs as per the major platforms mentioned above. 

1. Instagram

Instagram has 500 million daily users. Therefore, it should be your number one choice for sharing brand videos. But, due to the platform’s popularity, the competition will be high. Make sure that you don’t miss out on these KPIs to stay at the top of your game.

Completion rate for Instagram stories

Instagram Stories are a type of short-form content that you can share with your followers to build engagement. The maximum duration of each frame is 15 seconds, and they are visible only for 24 hours. But don’t underestimate its power. 

Instagram stories are highly effective for sharing product tips, updates or other fun activities like challenges. If you have more things to share with your followers, you will need more frames to complete the story. In that case, you need to be aware of how the audience is engaging with the complete content.

You can do this by calculating the completion rate. All you have to do is click on the Instagram story that you want to analyze and swipe up. Once you do that, your screen will look like this:

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Don’t get jittery if you don’t see the completion rate here. The Discovery section of Instagram insights gives all the information for calculating your completion rate. You have to click on every frame in the story to know the number of views (highlighted in the above picture) on each frame. 

After you have checked the view of the last frame, divide it by the number of views on the first frame, and then multiply it by 100. Therefore, if the number of views on the first frame is 187 and in the last frame it’s 110, then the completion rate will be approximately 59%. This means that almost 6 out of 10 people have watched your entire Instagram story.

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There is no standard for the ideal Instagram story completion rate. This table can act as a benchmark for your brand.

Accounts reached for Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels is similar to Instagram Stories. One big difference between them is that Reels can be made using videos only. The maximum video length is 30 seconds, but you can add different sound effects to your video and edit videos in different ways, which is unavailable with Instagram Stories. 

Reels can be great for brands to tell more about their company, its employees, and values. You can also include positive testimonials or show support for a cause. There are endless possibilities here. Brands like Red Bull have already built huge popularity with Instagram Reels, some even clocking 2.4 million views.

In Reels, you can track a bunch of metrics, but  one of the most important is Accounts reached. The accounts reached metric tells you how many unique users have watched your Reel at least once.

To check that, log in to your Instagram account and click on this logo 

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All your Instagram Reels are displayed here. To get insights about each Reel, you have to choose them individually and then click on the three dots at the bottom right of the screen. If you did everything correctly, you’ll be able to check all the insights on your Reel’s performance.

Accounts reached can be a useful metric, especially when you’re planning to reach a wider audience. If you’re consistently getting higher numbers here, then your content is working. More people are becoming familiar with your brand. However, if the number is low, you have to find ways to improve it by posting at different times of the day or trying out new ideas. 

Peak concurrent viewers for Instagram live

If short-form videos are your jam, then by all means, go ahead and show your excellence. Having said that, if you’re planning to keep Instagram in the backseat for longer videos, then think again. 

The Instagram Live feature is excellent for making product announcements, sharing how-to ideas, and announcing big product launches. Viewers are more attracted to this type of content since it’s often unscripted and gives them an opportunity to communicate with a brand directly.

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If you’re planning to run an Instagram Live video, Peak Concurrent viewers is the one KPI you can’t ignore.. Since the number of viewers is not constant. it’s difficult to find out the exact number of views on Live videos. Viewers join and leave the session continuously. 

However, Peak Concurrent Viewers gives a solid idea by telling you the highest number of viewers watching your video at any given period of time. It is a primaryKPI for measuring your Live videos’ success and something that you can set as a benchmark for your future videos too.

2.TikTok

We already discussed TikTok videos. The platform istrending and growing its popularity by a massive number every single day. Before we talk about the essential KPIs, it’s important to note that you need to have a Pro account in TikTok to check the analytics. So if you don’t have that, make sure that you get the Pro subscription.

Follow these steps to access the TikTok’s analytics section
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From mobile

1) Log in to your TikTok account

2) Select Settings and Privacy in the top right corner

3) Choose Account

4) Click on Creators Tool Tab

5) Select Analytics

From Desktop

1) Log in to your TikTok account

2) Hover over your profile picture

3) Clink on View Analytics

The analytics section of TikTok is broken down into three sections:

• Overview 
• Content 
• Followers
  

Overview tells you how your videos have fared overall. KPIs such as likes, comments, and views for a date range get displayed here. You can also check the number of Live videos in a specific date range

The Content tab tells more about your videos’ watch time and play time. Moreover, it provides an overview of the reached audience and the location of your audience.

The Followers tab gives more insights into the gender distribution of your audience, the most common geolocations, the videos they like to watch, and the sounds they like listening to.

Videos your followers watched 

This exceptional metric makes TikTok stand out from other platforms. 

Under the Followers tab, you will find an option that tells you what other videos your followers have watched. You don’t have to spend time computing what your followers like to watch and what type of videos they engage with. You get the information here which you can use to replicate and create similar videos. 

To make things even better, you can also browse through sounds they’re listening to and pair it with your video.  If a particular kind of music is getting very famous, then you will have a higher chance of getting omre engagement. One such example of a particular music going viral on TikTok is the alors on danse music 

Traffic Source Types

Traffic Source Types can help you build a holistic picture of where your audience is coming from . It’s similar to Google Analytics which tells you the source of people visiting your website. 

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The traffic source divides the total traffic into three categories: Personal Profile, For You, and Following.

The personal profile includes the people who do not follow you but still watch your videos.

The For You category is the common section where all the major and viral videos get listed. Like the explore section of Instagram. If you’re getting more views from here, rest assured, your videos are doing great.

Following viewers are the ones that have come to your video from the following page. Having a lot of views from this section means you have an active base of followers, and they enjoy your content.

3. Facebook

Facebook gets 4 billion video watches every single day Breathing down Instagram’s and TikTok’s necks. When it comes to analytics, Facebook videos share a few common ones with its counterparts. However, there are a few surprises here too. Let’s dive in.

10-second video views 

It can be frustrating to get plentiful views on your videos but relatively low engagement. Often, this happens because people do not watch the video till the end. They stick only for a while, and then they drop off. That means videos that don’t reveal the main idea until the end will have lower engagement rates. Remember the Goldfish attention span we talked about earlier? 

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The 10-second video KPI gives you a breakdown of how many people watched the video for the first-10 seconds. You can compare this with the 30-second views breakdown by choosing it from the drop-down. This will further tell you about how many people you’re losing within this time span. If there is a considerable difference, it’s time to shift your hook towards the beginning of the video. 

Facebook reactions

Facebook reactions tell you how your audience reacts to your live videos. This goes deeper than likes, dislikes, and shares. The KPI here shows you the level of emotional connection of your audience with your brand.

Viewers can express their feelings using any of the above emojis when you host a Facebook live video. This might not sound like a big deal, but when you’re amassing all the best possibilities for having a personal bond with your audience, knowing their reactions will tell you how deeply they’re invested in your content. 

4. YouTube

YouTube is a platform that was made for watching, uploading, and sharing videos. It’s still one of the most-sought platforms for learning new things using videos. It has become a search engine of its own kind with second-highest search volume after Google.

YouTube has basic KPIs like number of views, growth in subscribers, video engagement, daily active users and likewise that you just can’t avoid measuring when you’re tracking the performance of your videos.

But, as you get more mature on YouTube, creating a playlist is an action that you can't ignore.  Playlists are great for arranging your videos under different topics, and giving your audience a chance to access curated content. There is one KPI that has to be measured to check the playlist performance. 

Playlists Overview

The Playlists Overview, as the name suggests, gives you a snapshot of how your playlists are performing. This video marketing KPI provides you with a comprehensive overview of different metrics ranging from views to video saves.

A high engagement rate in all playlists is a positive sign for companies.  However, if the result is otherwise, you can use ideas like plugging your playlist link to your videos in the description or just mentioning it in the initial part of the video gives a healthy boost to video playlists.

Keep an eye on all video marketing KPIs with Improvado

Video marketing is undergoing rapid changes. The emerging trends indicate that a significant changes await for marketers. 

It’s time to revisit your video marketing strategy and incorporate these trends. As you’re on this, draw up a list of KPIs for measuring the performance of videos on different platforms. 

There’s no strict one-size-fits-all solution for video marketing. However, referring to the 8 essential KPIs we mentioned above gives you a better idea of how your videos perform. It’s also important to note that measuring KPIs is not a one-time activity. Choosing a time frame and following it consistently to monitor the performance of videos is the key to success in video marketing in 2022.