• by Mark Ghuneim , November 11, 2008

We can all agree that given our current economic climate it is now more important than ever that marketing spends be cost-effective and have clearly measurable ROI. But what does one do when what is being measured is so new that key measurement standards and practices have not been established? This is an interesting situation that is currently playing itself out in viral video marketing.

There is Money in Marketing Video

According to a recent FEED Company study, some 70% of ad-agency and media-buying executives plan to increase budgets for viral video marketing in 2009. In addition, 72% of ad-agency executives and media buyers say their clients are "interested" or "very interested" in using viral video as an integral part of their marketing campaigns.

Viral videos are attractive in this economy because they can be created and seeded in a rather affordable fashion and often utilize word-of-mouth marketing to grow in audience. Unfortunately, the meteoric rise of this medium has not been accompanied by a clear standard or measurement of ROI. This in turn creates a situation in which it can be incredibly difficult to truly understand the success or impact of a viral video campaign.

Currently, video views and impressions are the only widely used metrics for measurement--and even then, there is no consensus in terms of favorability. In the FEED study, a relatively equal percentage of respondents selected 100,000, 250,000 and 500,000, when asked how many times a video needed to be viewed to be considered successful.

Understanding Impact Requires Additional Measures

While consistency and accepted standards are a start, several additional metrics must also be considered. The social behavior that permeates around these videos is highly important, and indicates a level of engagement that goes above and beyond basic video viewing. "Favoriting," commenting, linking to, embedding, social network amplification and other action all constitute a level of user attention that must somehow be accounted for and given appropriate value.

In addition, a marketing executive would also want to know how users were discovering their video, as well as how quickly the view counts were growing. The velocity of consumption and adoption is an important indicator as well as factors beyond the standard impression and stream data. For example, are bloggers talking about the video? Are users micro-blogging about the video? Ultimately, the video could also end up in peer-to-peer applications or jump to traditional media. Not only is it important that each of these behaviors is tracked--but also that their relevance is somehow quantified and qualified in order to truly understand the impact of the campaign.

Beyond Video

This is a challenge that applies not only to viral video campaigns, but also to Web marketing in general. We are just beginning to wrap our heads around the underpinnings of a holistic view of new marketing in the social and "edge" spaces. This understanding will help to unlock the true definition of success for these campaigns, and ultimately drive a higher allocation of marketing spends to online by brands. Once the return on investment of this form of marketing can be measured and demonstrated using a similar methodology, online campaigns will not only be an easier sell--they will also illustrate just how efficient and effective these spends truly are.