• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, March 18, 2015

Sunday is the best day of the week for consumers to watch videos about your product.

So says the latest benchmark study from e-commerce technology company Invodo, analyzing the performance of online video in driving sales. Shoppers were most likely to view or engage with a product video on a Sunday than any other day the week.

The benchmark report also found that video continues to have a highly effective impact on e-commerce. Online shoppers who watched videos about the products they were considering were 1.6 times more likely to make a purchase that those who didn’t. Also, video is most effective when the customer is furthest along the purchase funnel. Put simply, that means video can help close the deal.

However, the influence of video slipped slightly year over year. The prior year’s study had found that online shoppers who watch product videos were 1.8 times more likely to buy. The small decrease may be due to more video being available in general from brands, which can also lead to more ineffective video being available. However, the top- performing retailer’s videos influenced purchases by 3.3 times.

The key to making sure video about a product drives sales depends on a number of factors, including the ideal placement of the video on the product page. For instance, videos on product detail pages were viewed 75% more frequently than across a website as a whole. About 10% of visitors to e-commerce webpages with video watched the videos, but on product pages, video view rates were closer to 17%. Top performers generated view rates of about 17% across the board for their sites. Invodo’s platform is used by brands including  Verizon, AT&T, Samsonite and L’Oreal.

In related news, online video firm Innovid benchmarked interactive online video ads and found they can drive increases in awareness levels by nearly 150%, with a 50% increase in engagement on premium publishers compared to pre-roll ads.