Audience measurement for any platform
If your online video business relies on generating revenue via advertising, then ask yourself these questions:
- What are the best video sites to reach my desired audience?
- Who is watching video on my site? How engaged are they?
- How do I compare with key competitors in terms of unique viewers, growth, and video viewing time spent per consumer?
- Do I reach the same audiences as my competitors, or is there a niche audience that is unique to me?
If you don’t know the answers to any or all of these questions, fret not because help is on the way. The stars are beginning to align for the ad-supported revenue model for online video, and there is a constellation of technologies that can measure online audience behavior just as TV audiences are measured.
New online measurement options from the world of TV
Both comScore and Nielsen can now help you track not only your web site visitors but, more specifically, the audience of your video content. Their syndicated online video measurement services combine panel and census technologies, and provide end-to-end accounting of audience size, demographic composition, engagement, and competitive activity. Both can also provide detailed demographic and behavioral data about audience members who have opted to register on the site, as well as off-site behavior via tracking cookies.
In a recent article about Nielsen’s cross-platform audience measurement initiative, Nat Worden of Dow Jones writes, “…as online video usage on sites like Hulu and TV.com is exploding with the rise of digital media…advertisers and TV network owners have voiced frustration over the industry’s inability to measure audiences effectively across media platforms.”
Ironically, the Internet lends itself to more accurate and insightful audience measurement than traditional television. And unlike traditional television, online video can provide advertisers with direct consumer engagement/interaction opportunities as well.
Considerations in selecting a measurement vendor
The right reporting and analytics partner can give you the data you need to apply to your revenue goals:
- Attract higher ad rates and increase ad-based revenue by showing ads to the highest-performing segments of your audience.
- Package your audience for maximum profitability — even audiences as small as 500 unique visitors.
- Provide media planners with detailed, easy-to-read audience profiles over which you retain complete control.
There are core capabilities you should look for that increase your likelihood of reaching these goals:
- Objectivity: You’ll want a system that is technology- and platform- agnostic so that all online video are measured in the same way.
- Accuracy: Every tagged stream should be identified and measured for total measurement and reporting precision.
- Granularity: To get reports all the way down to the level of a specific video, including program type and name, every tagged stream should be measured.
- Flexibility: Look for technology that easily adapts to changes in the industry, applications, platforms, protocols, or streaming technologies.
- Specific reports:
- Viewers: Projected number of U.S. home/work users who viewed the stream
- Streams: Number of videos viewed
- Demographics: Who is viewing the content
- Day-parting: Which periods of the day your video streams are getting the most play
- Cached content, peer-to-peer programs, and digital rights-managed (DRM) video streams, if appropriate for your business.
How measurement and reporting tools work
Most tools for measuring online video audiences work the same way: The video publisher tags their video players or streams with a short piece of code, which triggers the viewer’s browser to ping the audience measurement server with the relevant details- such as the video’s content and origin-when the stream is viewed.
thePlatform’s Player Development Kit (PDK) includes a plug-in component that can report media views to comScore Video Metrix. The plug-in configuration uses a combination of settings from within the player canvas and from custom fields on the content owner and media items. The PDK also supports Nielsen VideoCensus (link opens in a .pdf) via GlanceGuide’s plug-in. To learn more, contact your account manager at thePlatform.
Jordan Friedman is Senior Manager of Business Development at thePlatform.
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