A merchant, who is launching an affiliate program, has emailed me the following question:
How effective would very well produced videos be as creatives? We were thinking of possibly having some videos made and wanted to know how well these tend to pull in traffic and sales vs banners and text links.
Great question, especially with the following growth reports and forecasts recently published regarding online video:
- 2010 video spending will reach $1.5 billion, up 48% from last year [eMarketer]
- Online video advertising and related media spend is forecast at $2.7 billion in 2010, and double-digit growth is projected through 2012 [AccuStream Research]
- Advertising in video streams will also continue to grow, up more than 60% in 2011 to $5.6 billion, with 2 out of every 5 streaming video ad dollars being spent by local advertisers [Borrell Associates]
The short answer to this merchant’s question is: Yes, well-produced online videos are extremely effective as creatives, and I highly recommend for every merchant to tap into the online video advertising (be it directly, or by offering their affiliates the video creatives to promote).
I know you want to see the exact comparative data on performance. And I do have it for you:
- Video creatives get a CTR and conversion rate higher than any other creative format. “This is primarily driven by the fact that video creatives include Sight, Sound & Motion, whereas most banner ads for instance only have sight, and maybe motion, a text link only has sight” and so on. It isn’t unusual for video CTR to be “10-50x greater than a typical banner and conversion rates up to 10x greater.” [John Ferber of Video Affiliate Network]
- “Consumers who view videos on websites are 64% more likely to buy something from the site, and they also tend to spend more time (up to two minutes) on webpages per visit. Additionally, 96% of shoppers who make online purchases have watched online video before. For advertisers, online video is also able to influence shoppers’ buying decisions. According to comScore, 63% of total U.S. internet users are reached by video advertising. These consumers account for 83% of online sales, making them highly valuable targets.” [stats as quoted by RICG]
- “Video advertising increases engagement, doubling Dwell Time (the amount of time users engage with an ad) and increases Dwell Rate (the number of ad impressions leading to users engaging with an ad), by 20%.” [Eyeblaster data quoted by WebProNews]
I hope you will find this data of help, and if I haven’t mentioned something that should be mentioned here, please do post about it below (in the “Comments” area).
Very good advice and insight regarding the importance of video to help close sales.
I am glad you mentioned “well produced” videos. After creating the videos it is important to make sure they play well on different computers and with average connection speed. As a consumer, there is nothing more discouraging than a video that takes forever to load or pauses endless times while ‘buffering’.
As an affiliate, nothing makes me find a different creative or even different merchant faster than poor video by a merchant I am trying to promote(nothing except leaks that is).
Thanks for sharing the data, I am sure many will find it enlightening, I know I did.
I appreciate for your input on the quality (and optimization of) videos, Melanie. I fully echo your words.
Glad you’ve found the information of help too. Thank you.
Great I will go and do a test with this in September. One client of Reedge is a lead generation company and sends a box with folders.
I will ask them to make a video of someone receiving the box and opening it (like an unboxing video). We will then use that on the leadgen. form and test is on 50% of the visitors.
Thanx for the post, it sparked a nice test idea.