Video commerce analytics communicate the business impact of video to decision-makers. As indicated in earlier posts, the cross-functional nature of online video in an e-commerce organization implies that stakeholders may be scattered throughout the business. Therefore, a successful video commerce analytics initiative needs to take into consideration the metrics likely to be of value both to departmental-level stakeholders that own responsibility for a specific business function (site merchandising, online advertising, customer experience, etc) as well as decision-makers that oversee the entire e-commerce program. A successful video commerce analytics initiative also needs to present information to decision-makers in terms that are meaningful to the business. The business world is already too cluttered with reports – no one needs additional meaningless “video reports” to sift through.
First, let’s take a look at a highly simplified version of a video commerce conversion process:
Video Commerce Conversion Process:
- Find the video
- Watch the video
- Engage with the video
- Convert
Leaders of successful video commerce programs understand and exploit the integrated nature of the
FIND >> WATCH >> ENGAGE >> CONVERT
process to maximize the value of video commerce efforts.
I believe a successful video commerce analytics framework must consider [at least] the following elements as foundational building blocks:
- The video commerce conversion process
- Video commerce analytics users
- Intent of each video
- Channel in which each video is published
Video Commerce Analytics Users:
Not all video commerce analytics users necessarily seek out the same information. Stakeholders value metrics that most closely impact their particular business function.
- Executives
- Search Experts
- Affiliate Marketing Experts
- Emerging Channel Experts
- Online Advertising Experts
- Site Merchandising Experts
- Usability/Experience Experts
- Video/Creative Production Experts
- Product Management Experts
- Web Analytics & Business Intelligence Professionals
Intent of a Video:
Not all videos have the same intent. When assessing a video’s performance, I believe one needs to apply appropriate intent-based success metrics. For example, a service video may not be successful in acquiring new customers, but it could still be considered successful if it reduces servicing costs. Likewise, an acquisition-focused video may do well at driving traffic while failing to convert shoppers into buyers.
Acquire New Customers:
- Emotional/Viral
- Product Demo
- Special Offer
- Branding
- Customer Testimonial
- Features & Benefits
- Product Demo
- Third Party Endorsement
Convert Shoppers:
- Features & Benefits
- How-To/Product Demo
- Customer Testimonial
- Entertainment/Lifestyle
Grow Customers:
- Entertainment/Lifestyle
- Other
Service Customers:
- How-To/Product Demo
- How-To/Training
Video-Ready Channels:
Leaders of e-commerce organizations regularly assign responsibility within the organization by channel. Video commerce analytics need to include information of video performance within each channel and across channels.
- Search (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Video Search Engines)
- Affiliate Sites
- Retail Video Site (e.g. Self-Produced, YouTube Channel)
- In-Video (e.g. Product Placement or Ad)
- Social Network/Blog (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter)
- Email (e.g. In Email, Campaign Landing Page)
- Ad Network (e.g. AdBrite, BrightRoll, ValueClick)
- Video Services (e.g. YouTube, iTunes, Viddler)
- On-Site: Product Page
- On-Site: Brand Page
- On-Site: Category Page
- On-Site: Search Results Page
- On-Site: Retail Blog Page
- On-Site: Home Page
- On-Site: Other
The suggested metrics for overall and per-stakeholder analytics will be the subject of the next post. Originally, I planned on including them in this post, but in the interest of sparing you from reading through five pages of information in a single post, I’ll save it for next time. I hope everyone had a great weekend.
Happy Selling!
