Video Optimization: Where Do We Go From Here?
Think about how many videos you were met with before landing on this article. How many did you “skip?” How many did you watch? How many were actually relevant to you?
As the presence of video continues to grow in the digital space, marketers face a variety of challenges and questions — one of the most significant being: How do we prove the value of video?
These questions brought together our most recent roundtable, hosted by BNY Mellon. Read on to hear what our experts had to say about video optimization and the common challenges they face when it comes to the subject.
Quality Meets Quantity
There is certainly no shortage of video content in the digital space nowadays. While the inventory is full, the quality of the product seems to be lacking. The digital video market is both top and bottom heavy. There is a small offering of high-quality, premium content at the top, and a large volume of low-quality content at the bottom. The challenge lies in finding a middle ground.
Video may be “premium content” in itself, but it’s important to consider whether we are actually creating value for the advertiser, publisher, and user. Publishing a video just to publish a video should not be the norm. Tech companies who bring about new, smarter, and better ways to deliver video, such as Interlude, are certainly a step in the right direction.
Finding the Right Metrics
For this panel of digital marketers, the terms “CPM” and “GRP” are constant points of contention. Putting a digital video against so-called “old-fashioned financial metrics” presents a challenge in proving its value. The good thing about publishers working with platforms like Facebook, as our panelists pointed out, is that it is helping push the industry to look at other metrics. It is imperative that we begin to embrace the notion of paying for what really matters to the marketer by using metrics that make sense.
Taking on TV
Last year digital spending passed television sales for the first time, but as was described by our panel: “We are still the tail, not the dog.” While budgets may be shifting, TV will remain a constant. We are competing for eyeballs and TV has a bigger budget to create better content. Right now, TV remains a large part of everyday human behavior — it is someone’s escape after a long day or a way for the family to gather together (not to mention, it is autoplay). As this behavior changes slowly, the budgets will shift — the keyword here being “slowly.”
Digital does, however, have access to more data. The ability to have insight into the audience through personalization and targeting provides an upper hand. The key is using that data to our advantage as opposed to having it work against us.
As one panelist quipped, “Another year of video, no solutions.” Yes, there are plenty of challenges facing digital marketers, but finding ways to create higher-quality, scalable content, evaluating and presenting new metrics, and utilizing accessible data will keep video moving forward.
What do you think? Share your thoughts on video optimization.
Original Article