View the wide version of the infographic.

Now that we have a wealth of video tracking data at our fingertips, we thought we’d put the old “shorter is better” theory to the test.

The Initial Test

We worked with one of our customers who has been testing two variations of the same video. The red line in the graph above represents the engagement of their 30-second video. The blue line is the engagement graph for a 90-second video. It’s expected that these two videos would have different engagement graphs, but what’s odd is that the first 30 seconds of both videos are identical!

Even though viewers were exposed to the same exact content, the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video.

A Wider Look

Our initial test got us thinking. Does this hold true on a larger scale? We decided to look at completion percentages across the thousands of videos we host.

We were right! Shorter videos are more engaging than longer videos, but there are some other unexpected trends. The average 30-second video was viewed 85% of the way through, while the average 2-minute video was viewed on average 50% of the way through. That is a very fast viewership drop-off. But what’s surprising is that the average viewing percentage stays quite consistent for 2-minute videos to 10-minute videos. That means the time spent watching is increasing almost proportionally with the video length during this period. Take a look:

What does this mean?

The data is quite clear, shorter videos are more engaging than longer videos. For videos 2 minutes and under, you should strive to make your content as short and punchy as possible to guarantee the highest engagement. If your video is 30 seconds or under, it’s very likely that most people will watch it all the way through.

If your message is more complex, be comfortable taking the time to explain it, but understand that half of your audience won’t make it to the end of the video. With this in mind, you would be well served to front-load your video with the most important parts of your message.

Understanding the relationship between video length and viewer engagement can help you ensure that your audience is getting the most out of your videos.

The Early Finisher was excited enough to click play but lost interest almost immediately. Most of the time this means that they didn’t get what they were expecting, and expectations for the video are predominately set by the thumbnail. An easy fix is to change your still frame to something that provides a better explanation of what’s in the video. Another common issue that creates an early finisher is the “slow start”. Viewers expect instant gratification when watching video, especially when they’re watching commercial videos. Keeping a title screen up for even just 5 seconds can easily cause 20% of your audience to leave.

The Skipper, just like his Gilligan’s Island counterpart, is an under-appreciated player. This guy or gal skips throughout the video looking for an answer to a question or just for something that interests them. They’re trying to find something interesting and sometimes they will (like the example below). The skipper is far more common on long videos. We’ve found that the best solution is to break up your videos into logical bite-sized pieces. For example, instead of having one long demo reel, our friends at Lilipip (an animation studio) showcase a number of shorter videos in one playlist. Helping people find what they want quickly is the key to keeping a skipper happy.

The Sherlock is a deeply engaged and inquisitive viewer. They are clearly trying to get something out of your video. This also means that they are highly interested in what you are providing. There’s no fix for this because having a Sherlock is great! What you should do is focus on the areas the Sherlock is most interested in and decide if their interest is unique or an indication of larger interest. Do whatever you can to talk to your Sherlocks. We put the Olark chat widget onto our website (you can see it on the lower-right of this page) so that we can make sure that we engage with our most interested viewers.