Online Video Marketing – The Value of One Viewer

Often times, people determine the success of an online video by looking at the total number of viewers. While we advocate reviewing 7 metrics to determine the value of an online video, determining value based on viewers alone is interesting and enlightening.

First, a quick note: Assessing value based on the number of video views is an incomplete metric – not all video viewers are the same. Some people watch a video from beginning to end, and some watch for only 10 seconds before moving on. YouTube provides free video viewer attention tracking once a video reaches 2000 views (or so) – here’s a screen shot of two “Hot Spot” graphs side by side.

The two graphs above show two completely different video experiences. The video on the left seems to lose viewers at about 10 seconds, while the video on the right grabs and holds the entire audience throughout the length of the clip.

This information is amazing, but in and of itself there isn’t enough data here to draw any conclusions. Viewer attention is influenced by many factors – video headline, description, how the video was found, etc. For example, an improperly titled video will lose viewer attention within a few seconds (people click away when they discover the video doesn’t match the description).

Therefore, we’re going to save this topic for later and look at viewers in a very general sort of way.

What Is The Value of One Online Video Viewer?

The best way to determine the value of one online video viewer is to see what others are paying. According to Silicon Alley Insider, YouTube can sell video advertising for $10-$50 per 1000 viewers. That places the value of one video viewer between $0.01 and $0.05. Not very inspiring – at least not until you consider television advertising rates.

TV advertising is priced similarly to online video advertising ($10-$50 per 1,000 viewers), yet TV has very little in common with online video. TV audiences are captive – they can not choose which video advertisements they watch. Online video viewers have elected to watch your content – it’s not being forced upon them. To put it another way, your typical online video viewer is paying attention because they’ve requested to see your ad (by clicking on it). That’s a huge advantage over television advertising.

TV advertising has an average response rate of 0.1% . For every 1,000 TV advertising viewers, 1 person responds. In the online world, the industry average response rate for web content is 1-2%. For every 100 people, 1 or 2 people respond. If online video response rates offer similar performance to web content and are indeed 10 times higher than TV response rates, shouldn’t online advertising be 10 times more expensive than television? Using this analysis, online video viewers are worth $0.10 to $0.50 cents each.

The true value of one single online video viewer is likely somewhere between $0.01 and $0.50. Still, as far as our online video marketing product Running Stills is concerned, payback (based on this metric only) could occur with as little as 1,000 online video viewers – a readily attainable number. As we continue to evaluate Running Stills video marketing for small business using our 7 metrics, I hope you’ll see just how valuable it is.