Russ Somers, VP Marketing, Invodo Inc.
Video has become a go-to tool for retailers and brands. The good news is that the benefits for experience, engagement, and conversion can be measured and quantified. But even with advanced analytics, how do you know if your video results are exceptional, average, or in need of improvement? You can’t – unless you have a benchmark for comparison. That’s why we’ve released the first-ever E-Commerce Video Benchmarks Report.
Retailers Can Expect Engagement
Advertisement
Data from YouTube and other sources can show a concerning lack of engagement, with an often-quoted statistic from Visible Measures that one third of viewers abandon a YouTube video within the first thirty seconds. However, data from across Invodo’s network of close to 100 major brand and retail sites tells a different story. In that context, 65% of video viewers watch to at least 80% completion. (We measure to 80% because many retail videos end with some type of a brand splash after the video has made its point). Why the difference? Simple. Shoppers on a retail site are considering a purchase, which is inherently a different level of commitment and consideration than a surfer watching cat videos (or even branded videos) on YouTube.
Shoppers Value Videos — And Will Tell You Why
The average consumer rating for a video in the study was 4.13 out of 5 stars. This ties to previous research that shows similar approval rates. Shoppers are increasingly leaving comments on the videos as well — the percentage of visitors who left a comment increased 68% over last year. This, we speculate, means that visitors are increasingly comfortable interacting directly with the video player on a retail or brand site.
Video Drives Purchase
It’s commonly accepted now that video drives conversion and that viewers are more likely to buy than non-viewers. However, the conversion rate impact varies widely across published case studies, from a few basis points to percentages in the thousands. That may be because video quality varies widely and some videos are helpful to shoppers, while other videos are…well, not quite as helpful. However, it could also be due to lack of measurement standards.
In the report we’ve standardized the metric as ‘Video Influence’ and reported on exactly what the average is across close to 100 major brand and retail sites. The report details the methodology and the exact average, as well as setting a baseline to allow measurement of trends going forward. That’s perhaps what’s most exciting to us at Invodo. This report, while it provides a great deal of useful benchmarking data, is only the beginning, and it will allow us to track results and trends as the industry evolves. If you’d like to get those benchmarks, download the report here.
Russ Somers is the Director of Marketing at Invodo, the business video experts. Russ leads Invodo’s marketing team, managing product marketing and lead generation as well as driving the company’s marketing communications, social media and PR initiatives.
