Video analytics
Aug 3rd, 2008 by Chris Cooney
Over at Analytics Talk, Justin Cutroni writes about using the Google Analytics Event model to track users viewing and interactions with online video. Using the method Cutroni describes, an embedded YouTube player on a site can capture Google Analytics data not only about which videos users watch, but also their interactions with controls and how long they spend watching each video.
Neato!
I have to imagine this in-depth user behavior data has existed for a while on proprietary video systems like TiVo and of course YouTube itself, but the effect more widespread access to video analytics could impact the approach to video content measurement and even creation. Of course, spreading this measurement beyond YouTube will also exponentially broaden Google’s knowledge base of viewer behavior, content trends and distribution. The world domination continues…
Now video producers and media buyers can now have the same granular intelligence and feedback about viewer interaction with video that Web analysts have on ordinary Web sites. Maybe the ads will get better…or…maybe customers will realize no one is watching, or at least not who Nielson says are watching.
So then analytics, combined with inevitable marriage of video with Google’s current text-only SEM model, might bring the evolution of YouTube into a viable revenue-generating platform thanks to analytics ability to concisely target content and directly show ROI based on behavior.
The trick will be that the pay-per-click model might not scale with video. Imagine the astronomical cost of success if say your clever viral ad of a gorilla playing drums to promote milk got a few million clicks at $5/click. Maybe the cost is worth the intelligence it brings, but this model would quickly take the “little guy”, who today enjoys a scaleable solution in text-based SEM, out of the picture. And there’s the fact that today that viral ad doesn’t cost anybody a dime, except Google.
As Generation Y turns more to the online channel for video delivery the stakes and the hype will no doubt continue to grow. It is very exciting to be in this field at the time when video has become participatory and now is becoming integrated and measurable.
