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Online Content Consumption Shows No Signs of Slowing Down

content marketingContent marketing is so hot right now that every brand is trying to figure out how to become an online publisher. Unfortunately, most are still struggling because they’re trying to fit traditional push marketing techniques into the pull marketing environment of the web. Since consumers’ demand for online content continues to grow so quickly, even brands that are publishing inferior content are reaping benefits simply because they’re “in the game.”

Research from JZ Analytics puts some numbers to online content consumption among American internet users. In a November 2011 study for Broadcom, JZ Analytics found that one out of 2 people who responded to the poll indicated that they consume at least 12 hours of digital content per week, and nearly 9 out of 10 survey respondents consumed 11 hours or more of online content per week. Americans are consuming online content (including online content and email) both at home and at work.

Here is the breakdown of the time per week survey respondents spend consuming online content:

  • 40+ hours per week = 15.1%
  • 31-40 hours per week = 16.0%
  • 21-30 hours per week = 23.0%
  • 11-20 hours per week = 32.7%
  • 10 or fewer hours per week = 12.2%
  • Not sure = 1.1%

Online video continues to be one of the fastest growing forms of online content in terms of consumption rates with web-based streaming services from user-created content sites like YouTube being the most popular forum of online video for American internet users. 58.1% of respondents to the survey indicating that they watch content on these sites, while 38.3% claim to watch streaming video content embedded in other sites (such as blogs and Facebook — note that some of that content is likely to have originally been published on YouTube and similar sites). Web-based streaming video content of television programs and movies offered on sites like Hulu, Vudu, and Netflix were viewed by 36.0% of survey respondents, and 19.3% viewed video downloads such as iTunes TV shows and movies.

Just 26.6% of American internet users who participated in this study indicated that they do not watch online video content of any kind. However, this number will continue to decrease for the foreseeable future, so it’s not surprising that brands are focusing on video in content more than ever and that eMarketer cites online video as the fastest growing online ad format in the United States. What is surprising is that some brands aren’t creating online video or any other kind of branded online content yet.

Image: Ramasamy Chidambaram

Brand Video Content Converts Better than Other Content

video cameraNearly three out of four brand marketers (71%) who use video as a form of marketing content agree that brand video content converts better than other content, such as text and image content, sales, and downloads.

That comes from the Video Content Marketing: Identifying Metrics and Measuring Impact study conducted by Demand Metric for Vidyard. Of the 235 B2B marketers who responded to the study survey, 86% are actively measuring the effectiveness of their video marketing efforts, and more than two out of three are producing more than 100 content marketing videos per year.

A key finding from the study reveals those brands that distribute their videos through multiple channels are getting the best results. The report explains that 63% of B2B respondents are hosting their brand video content on their own sites as well as on at least one external site such as YouTube or Vimeo. Nearly half (43%) distribute their brand videos only through third party sites, and just 11% host their videos only on their own websites. ROI is reportedly higher for respondents with a multi-channel distribution strategy.

Just nine months ago, I discussed a different brand video content study here on the Corporate Eye blog that showed how much the use of video content marketing has grown in recent years. At the time, the 2013 Online Video Marketing Survey and Business Video Trends Report had just been released by ReelSEO, the Web Marketing Council, and Flimp Media. Of the 600 marketers surveyed as part of the study, 93% of those marketers were using brand video content (up from 81% in 2012) with 82% reporting that video content had a positive effect on their businesses.

Compare those statistics to brand video content data from 2011 and earlier, and there is no doubt that video content has become a critical part of brand marketing strategies. For example, research from Content Wise and the Custom Content Council, which I wrote about here on the Corporate Eye blog in April 2012, found that only 52% of marketers who responded to the study were creating branded video. Back in 2009, only 37% were creating branded video.

Key Takeaways for Brand Marketers

Today, branded video is an integral part of a content marketing strategy, and this new study from Demand Metric and Vidyard sheds light on the importance of diversifying your distribution channels to maximize ROI. As with all content marketing, consumers like to consume content in different ways and in different places. Brand marketers must provide a variety of opportunities for consumers to self-select how they want to interact with the brand’s content. Don’t try to force consumers to watch your branded videos on your website or on YouTube. Give them options to find and consume your video content, and they’re more likely to watch it and share it.

Image: Pawe? Zawistowski

4 out of 5 Brands Renew Campaigns with Twitter Advertising

check boxIf you’ve been wondering whether your brand should pursue Twitter advertising, then new statistics released by eMarketer should be of great interest to you. Following are some of those statistics related to Twitter advertising, brands, and consumers that you should read:

  • Number of Twitter advertisers: 600 advertisers are currently supported by Twitter which is up from 150 at the end of 2010.
  • Advertiser renewals: 80% of advertisers renew with Twitter
  • Ad engagements: 80% of engagement is by people who click on a tweet. 20% is by people who retweet, @mention, or @reply to the original tweet.
  • Brand Following: 40% of Twitter users follow at least one brand.
  • Engagement for Promoted Tweets: 3%-5% engagement or up to 7%-10% when Promoted Tweets are combined with Trends.
  • Cost per Follower: Less than $10.00 is the average cost per follower for Promoted Accounts.

There are not a lot of advertisers supported by Twitter yet, but this number is sure to grow in the future. We’re only at the beginning of the Twitter advertising story. Just last month, Twitter launched an enhanced version of the Promoted Tweets program that gives advertisers more ways to get in front of consumers. While only 20 brands were included in that initial launch, it’s probably safe to assume that the program will be successful and will continue to grow and add new brands as will the entire Twitter advertising platform.

To date, Twitter brand advertising has been fairly unobtrusive to Twitter users. However, this is still very much an unproven advertising medium. There is much to learn, test, and analyze before Twitter advertising becomes the next must-use ad tactic. As long as brand ads on Twitter stay relevant and meaningful rather than obtrusive and useless, Twitter users are likely to be accepting of them and possibly even welcome them.

It will be up to brands to do the research and listening necessary to know what types of ads and content on Twitter their target audience and followers are happiest to receive. When you risk interrupting and annoying people with your messages (or Promoted Tweets), you need to be certain that you understand that audience and always deliver the type of content they want and need. One annoying message they might ignore, but more than that and the likelihood that they’ll click that Unfollow button and terminate their relationship with you skyrockets.

Don’t risk followers and relationships with your Twitter or other social media advertising. Supplement and enhance content, conversations, and communities. Don’t interrupt and distract from that content, conversations, and communities or your chances for success will be very limited.

 Image: stock.xchng

Biggest Threat to Online Video Advertising Success is User Behavior

mouse click computerAccording to research from Ebuzzing (now Teads), the biggest threat to online video advertising is not click fraud but rather “click away” user behavior. In other words, users are annoyed by online video ads and click away from them when they load in their video players.

The research revealed that 36% of video ads are not viewable worldwide. Furthermore, 50% of video ads purchased directly from video publishers are not viewable, and 66% of video ads bought programmatically are not viewable. Based on that data, it’s fairly accurate to say that two out of three online video ads that you’ve placed to market your brand were not viewable to all consumers.

In fact, that figure could be even bigger. Ebuzzing counted an online video ad impression when the video ad was viewable in a person’s video player for at least two seconds. That’s not much time. How effective were the ads that were only viewed for two seconds? It’s unlikely that they converted many people into buyers. That would mean that online video ad viewability is even worse.

Ebuzzing created an infographic (shown at the end of this article) that includes the data from its research as well as data from other research initiatives. In the infographic, Ebuzzing notes that improving viewability of online video ads by 45% can increase sales by 75%. Therefore, viewability is critical in order for brand marketers to maximize the returns on their online video advertising investments. Ebuzzing identified four primary reasons why online video ads are not viewable, which you should work to reduce to the extent possible:

  1. Online fraud and bots
  2. Ad blockers
  3. Video plays before it is seen by the user
  4. User gets annoyed and leaves the page

To improve your online video ad viewability and maximize ROI, test ad formats exhaustively and follow the IAB’s online advertising traffic fraud best practices. Certainly, traffic and click fraud are huge problems, but much of your ability to control these types of fraud are out of the typical brand marketer’s control. However, you do need to prioritize those things which you can have some control over. These include creating ads that don’t frustrate users by displaying poorly, being too long, being irrelevant, being too intrusive, and so on.

Furthermore, don’t forget that the problems related to online video advertising viewability and user behavior are exacerbated in the mobile environment. Given the fact that more people are watching online video using their mobile devices every day, the relationship between viewability and user behavior becomes even more complicated and more important.

online video advertising infographic

Image: Mustafa Kilic

The Degradation of Digital Data for Brand Marketers

digital dataDigital data isn’t really degrading. The truth is that it’s never been very good, and as much as brand marketers like to talk about the importance of big data and analytics, both are far from perfect in the digital space.

The Evolution of Digital Advertising report from comScore clarifies why digital data, particularly demographic data, is so flawed. Ironically, comScore uses data to make its points, but nevertheless, the points are quite valid and bear some consideration from brand marketers.

The problem with digital data for brand marketers is broken down into five key areas:

1. Misleading Click Data

Click-through data is rarely reliable. Not only is it filled with click-fraud, but comScore’s research found that exposure to display ads doesn’t just impact online sales. It also lifts in-store sales. In fact, comScore reports actual lift in offline sales is five times higher than the lift in e-commerce sales. Ultimately, relying on click data to measure the performance of a digital ad campaign is often not enough.

2. Inaccurate Demographic Data

Demographic data is often identified based on previous sites visited (using cookies, discussed in #4 below), content consumption, and registration data. However, comScore reports that this demographic data becomes outdated quickly and isn’t 100% realistic. According to the research, more than 60% of computers have multiple users. How can brand marketers be certain that their ads are being shown to the right users based on previous behaviors and content consumption when multiple people are using the same computer?

3. Misleading Impression Data

Impression data is misleading because it doesn’t account for some critical things. For example, 100% realistic impression data is impossible because some people leave the page where the ad appears before one second. Furthermore, some people will visit the page, but they won’t see the ad because the browser window isn’t set to full-screen. The ad might not be visible unless they scroll around the page (or the site uses a responsive design that resizes it to the smaller screen size). Furthermore, traffic fraud artificially inflates impression counts when no one actually saw the ad at all. The advertising industry has been combating traffic fraud for years, but it still happens every day—a lot.

4. False Cookie Deletion Data

As mentioned above, cookies are used to serve ads to the target audience, but many people, websites, and ad servers delete cookies.  That causes higher than planned frequency because ad servers deliver additional, “new” impressions to people who deleted the cookies from their browsers.

5. Disregarded Platform Data

In the United States, more than half of internet time is spent on mobile devices, and that number continues to rise very rapidly. Similar results are being found in other countries around the world. According to comScore’s research, more screens equals more time spent on each device overall, but tracking ad campaigns across devices is far from accurate. Furthermore, processes for collecting and analyzing data are quite different from one device to another. For example, while 60% of computers are used by multiple people, it’s safe to assume that most smartphones are used by a single person. Understanding these nuances as you track performance between devices is equally important as learning how to track across devices.

What do you think are the biggest problems with digital data for brand marketers? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: Janet Ramsden

Original Brand Content Reigns Supreme

blogs vs traditional mediaNearly every social media marketer today is using original content to promote brands. According to the 2014 Social Media Marketing Report from Social Media Examiner, 94% of social media marketers are using original text content in their brand marketing initiatives.

In fact, 58% of social media marketers who responded to the survey ranked it as the most important form of original content, and 81% of survey respondents reported that they plan to increase their investments in original written content in 2014 with blogs showing a significant resurgence in popularity.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that social media marketers are increasing investments in original brand content, but seeing the data shows you just how important prioritizing original written content, as well as other forms of original content, should be in your marketing plan. Take a look at the statistics related to original content collected through Social Media Examiner’s survey of social media marketing professionals:

Percentage of Social Media Marketers Using Specific Types of Content in Social Media Marketing Activities:

  • Original written content = 94%
  • Curation of other people’s content = 73%
  • Original visual content (e.g., infographics, memes) = 60%
  • Original videos = 60%
  • Original audio content = 22%

The Most Important Types of Content According to Social Media Marketers:

  1. Original written content = 58%
  2. Original visual content = 19%
  3. Original videos = 12%
  4. Curation of other people’s content = 10%
  5. Original audio content = 2%

Percentage Social Media Marketers Planning to Increase Investments in Specific Types of Content:

  • Original video content = 81%
  • Original videos = 73%
  • Original visual content = 70%
  • Curated content from other people = 46%
  • Original audio content = 33%

Back in 2011, I wrote an article for the Corporate Eye blog that explained the four ways that content builds brands. It’s interesting to see how those four things are exactly what research continues to prove in 2014. Original branded content can effectively increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your brand’s website, boost sales, and more. It should be at the top of your 2014 marketing plan’s priority list!

Online content consumption shows no signs of slowing down, so build your content marketing team and start publishing original brand content (or publish more original content if you’ve already got a team and content strategy in place). Every day you wait is a lost opportunity that competitors of all sizes and around the world are happy to seize.

Image: Rogers Cadenhead licensed CC BY-SA 2.0