• by Avi Brown , October 4, 2013

In the wake of Rockstar Games’ massive $800-million-in-one-day success with Grand Theft Auto V, the power of video advertising is more apparent than ever. As entertainment marketers double down on digital video, the need for independent measurement, hard data and a new perspective on the definition of key performance indicators is paramount. When driving consumer awareness of a new game, movie, or TV title, there are many important data points worth monitoring, but some are more important than others. I’ve outlined three of the most important metrics that no video marketer should ever go without:

Drop-off Point by Creative

Not all video ads are created equal. In this era of data-driven marketing, the media plan is not the only part of a marketing strategy that should be influenced by data. Even the creative process should be informed by insights associated with different approaches to making a video ad. Split testing completely different video ads, or even subtly different edits of the same creative concept, gives marketers confidence in the video creative they put their media budget behind. Measuring the exact point within a video creative when consumers’ attention is lost is an extremely powerful way to ensure that the specific ad being distributed gets the most view-through. This metric is called drop-off point. It’s not a completion rate percentage, but rather the exact moment within a video creative when consumers lose interest in a specific video creative. Doubling down on distributing a video ad that people are actually watching may seem obvious, but most marketers don’t consider drop-off point today.

Brand Lift by Audience Segment

While many marketers assume that gamers are primarily 18-to-24-year-old males, the truth is that the average gamer is 35 years old and 45% likely to be female. While audience and contextual targeting are important digital marketing tools, visibility into whether or not a video campaign is actually influencing consumers is more important. Understanding which demographic is most influenced and which specific video creative is most influential is essential for targeting intelligently. Regardless of how advanced and accurate a marketer’s targeting technology of choice may be, making decisions about whom to target is typically based on gut assumptions rather than hard data. Brand lift by audience segment is the key to better video targeting. Whether it’s a general demographic or a highly specific psychographic segment, marketers who identifying the audiences most influenced by their creative will always achieve more success than those who simply trust their instincts.

Social Lift and Sentiment

In addition to doubling down on the most watchable video creative and identifying its most influenced audience segments, a savvy marketer must also keep their finger on the pulse of their branded conversation. Including a campaign’s official hashtag in a video creative is a great way to boost or create a new conversation. Consumers love to talk about entertainment brands, but they may not always have good things to say. Monitoring the increase in the volume of the social conversation is a great way to quantify the impact that a marketing campaign has on jumpstarting the social graph. But without an understanding of the sentiment of that conversation, it’s all too easy to make bad decisions about how to respond to it. Marketers can leverage positive sentiment and do damage control when the conversation moves in a negative direction. The two keys to an informed approach to the social component of any video marketing campaign are, understanding the increase in the volume of branded mentions, which is called social lift, and monitoring the sentiment of those mentions. 

While marketers continue to flock to video, causing the format’s share of budget to exponentially increase every year, there is still an enormous amount of waste being generated. Flying blind is a fool’s errand in this age of big data and high technology. Marketers must become more sophisticated to stay ahead of the curve. While the three metrics outlined above are just the tip of the iceberg, they are indicative of a marketer’s video ad IQ. If a marketer doesn’t already monitor these metrics and leverage them to achieve maximum success, it’s time for that marketer to do whatever it takes to increase their video ad intelligence.