Your videos are engaging. You went all out on video SEO. Your view counts are soaring.
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But is your video marketing strategy actually working?
Undeniably, video is the future of digital marketing. With video expected to make up 80% of internet traffic by 2021, and YouTubealready being the second-largest search engine out there, it’s vital that digital marketers tap into its potential.
How much of that potential you are actually tapping into, though, is not easy to tell. The true success of video marketing campaigns often isn’t reflected by subscriber numbers and view counts.
This is where video analytics comes in.
Video analytics can give you actionable insights into how viewers engage with your video content. These tools show you exactly what demographics are watching your video, their location, and how long you manage to hold their attention. Other useful metrics are Total Video Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Link Click-Through Rate (Link CTR). CTR tells you how many people click your video in search results, and Link CTR shows you how many follow the links you include in interactive elements and descriptions.
These are invaluable metrics when it comes to evaluating the success of your video campaigns. In turn, such an evaluation will aid you in creating more engaging content - to capture a larger audience among YouTube’s 1.9 billion users, and boost your ROI.
The 10 Best Video Analytics Tools
To help you, here are the 10 best video analytics tools currently out there - and everything you need to know about them.
1: Native Tools of Distribution Channels
Most video hosting sites and other distribution channels do have some built-in analytics capabilities.
YouTube and Facebook automatically offer some analytics metrics. On Vimeo, access to analytics tools depends on your plan tier. Even LinkedIn offers some pretty advanced analytics on native videos - down to viewer characteristics like jobs.
But.
Distribution channels focus on getting your video to a wide audience. However, while high viewer counts are an excellent start, viewer data isn’t related to leads or accounts.
What you actually need to know is who viewed your video, and crucially, what actions they took. Did they follow your links? Purchase your product?
What’s more, native tools also don’t integrate well (or at all) with marketing automation platforms (MAP) or customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Overall, these native tools are a great place to start. However, for useful insights and actionable data, turn to dedicated video analytics tools.
2: SocialBlade
SocialBlade is an advanced analytics tool that collects stats on videos - and other content - on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter. Detailed statistics make it easy to calculate your engagement rate and track growth.
This tool is particularly useful for keeping an eye on competitors - beyond just view counts and follower numbers.
SocialBlade can track performance over longer periods, and automatically produces snappy reports on key metrics.
lt’s available as an iOS and Android app, and as an extension for Chrome and Firefox. The best bit? SocialBlade is totally free.
3: Vidyard
Vidyard is a video hosting, optimization, and analytics platform. Using this tool, you can measure view counts over time, analyze viewers’ aggregated attention spans, conduct A/B testing, and even track individual viewers’ characteristics.
For maximum efficiency, you can then push this data to your CRM. Vidyard integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, Marketo, and Mailchimp. There are further integrations to maximize productivity, such as Gmail and Zoom.
In terms of pricing, Vidyard’s analytics capabilities start at the Teams plan, at $300/mo. Its Business plan includes full CTA customization and CRM/MAP integration. At $1250/mo, it targets larger teams and agencies. Demos are available for both.
4: BuzzSumo: YouTube Analyzer
BuzzSumo is one of the top content marketing brands. The platform provides users with invaluable research and monitoring tools when it comes to finding content ideas, spotting hot topics, and gauging content popularity.
Recently, BuzzSumo has heavily expanded into video marketing, launching YouTube Analyzer.
Besides its features for keyword and content research, it’ll also help you identify channels and influencers to collaborate with for maximum reach and impact.
More importantly, YouTube Analyzer provides a wealth of information on YouTube videos, directly on the page. It’ll identify sharers, and every page embedding or linking to it.
Finally, you can also analyze ad strategies - all this for any video, not just your own.
Video analytics functionalities have also been added to BuzzSumo’s Facebook Analyzer.
Both YouTube and Facebook Analyzer are included in BuzzSumo’s Large ($239/mo) and the custom-priced ($499+) Enterprise plan. There’s a 7-day free trial to check them out.
5: Clicky
Clicky is a real-time website analytics platform. Its applications are varied, but video analysis is one of the most useful.
This tool will give you statistics on videos directly on the page. It includes advanced features such as a “heatmap” of where users interact with your page, along with detailed profiles and extensive options for filtering and segmenting.
By using Clicky to embed videos from YouTube and other platforms, you can get detailed information on general and individual visitor behavior, complementing its other analytics features.
One of Clicky’s biggest plus points is that it is comparatively cheap. Its Pro Plus plan is available for $14.99/mo, with Pro Platinum starting at $19.99/mo.
6: Vidooly
Vidooly is a high-end, feature-packed video analytics and marketing platform. It provides some of the most complete information for any aspect of video marketing. It can be used as a content research and strategy tool, to evaluate the performance of your video campaigns, and to calculate ROI.
From analyzing your viewership by location and demographics to predicting which kinds of audiences are likely to engage with your brand, Vidooly has you covered. A key feature is tracking users across platforms and devices to analyze viewing habits and follow their digital journey.
You can run the same analyses on your competitors’ content. This will give you invaluable insights into overlapping target audiences, success strategies, and optimization potential.
Finally, Vidooly tracks your content across platforms, giving you additional view insights, warding off potential crises, and boosting brand safety. It will even make sure your video ads don’t appear on inappropriate content.
Subscriptions start at $9/month for Vidooly’s Creator Dashboard, with basic YouTube and Facebook analytics, audience metrics, and market research tools. More functionalities become available at the Leaderboard ($499/mo) and Brand Intelligence ($999/mo) tiers. Demos can be requested.
7: ViralStat
If you’re looking for cross-platform social video analytics, check out ViralStat. This all-in-one solution tracks your videos across YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
Using this tool, you can analyze the performance of individual videos, channels, social profiles, campaigns, and even whole industries. It’s excellent for market research and competitor analysis.
ViralStat also helps you discover influencers, as well as trending or emerging content creators for valuable partnerships.
Finally, ViralStat can auto-optimize YouTube ads for the right audience and brand-safe content.
Pricing-wise, ViralStat’s Basic plan offers a 7-day free trial and a $23/mo subscription fee. It doesn’t have discovery or ad features and limited tracking slots. These features - and more slots - become available at the Professional ($79/mo), Corporate ($239/mo), and Enterprise ($639/mo) tiers.
8: Vidalytics
Vidalytics is a marketing-optimized video hosting, streaming, and analytics platform. It specifically targets online course creators, direct response marketers, funnel builders, and e-commerce store owners.
A key feature is tracking conversions from video, especially since you can put CTA buttons in your videos. Vidalytics detects exactly when viewers actually convert, as well as where they skip, pause, rewind, or leave.
The tool also allows you to identify and segment viewers. Vidalytics can push this information to a variety of CRMs using Zapier.
The platform offers a 14-day free trial. Following that, plans vary in available bandwidth rather than features: Starter ($25/mo) gives you 50 GB, Pro ($67/mo) offers 200 GB, and Vid Master ($129/mo) includes 400 GB (plus premium support).
9: Cincopa
Cincopa is a video host that allows you to sync viewing data, capture new contacts, score leads, and embed video in email campaigns and landing pages. It allows for A/B testing.
In terms of analytics, this tool shows you individual viewer’s interactions (where they pause, skip, rewind, leave, convert). It also generates a heatmap of overall viewer interaction, and identifies the most engaged viewers.
Cincopa offers deep integrations for CRMs, MAPs, and sales platforms. It can identify and score viewers, then push data for later use.
In terms of pricing, Cincopa is on the higher end. It does offer a 30-day free trial, which converts into an extremely limited free plan (3 videos). In the paid plans, analytics are only included in the Agency plan ($350/mo). Many other video marketing features and CRM integration are also already available with the Business plan ($99/mo).
10: Wistia
Finally, Wistia is a video hosting and marketing platform. It offers integrations for CRMs and MAPs such as HubSpot and Mailchimp.
Video and interaction statistics, viewer identification, interaction heatmaps (both for individuals and your overall audience) are all included. Furthermore, Wistia collects social media statistics, connects to Google Analytics, and offers A/B Testing.
Standard features (including A/B testing and analytics) are free for 3 videos. After that, Wistia’s Pro plan is $99/mo for custom branding and includes 10 free videos. Beyond that, it’s custom pricing.
