4 Ways to Leverage Video Performance to Fuel Your Lead Generation Strategy

After months of planning and preparation, your video marketing efforts are finally coming together. The brand video you’ve worked so hard to create is getting tons of views on your company’s website or YouTube channel. You can’t wait to welcome a fresh batch of leads through the digital doors of your business.

Unfortunately, even with your high viewer count, those digital doors are seeing minimal traffic come through. Views continue to accumulate on your brand video, but an insignificant number of leads are coming out of it. All the hard work you put into your video has resulted in a healthy amount of brand awareness, but it’s done next to nothing to generate qualified leads.

First, don’t feel like you’re alone here. This is a common problem marketers face when it comes to video lead generation. While general signs of engagement are valuable, they don’t help us understand specifically how video content can help generate leads.

“While general signs of engagement are valuable, they don’t help us understand specifically how video content can help generate leads.”

Successful lead generation through video requires tracking a variety of video performance metrics — not just views. Equipped with this data, you’ll be able to find ways to engage high-value viewers and direct them to your site.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when measuring video performance to help boost your lead generation strategy.

1. Don’t try to track every video KPI

If the primary goal of your video is lead generation, you need to be very deliberate with the key performance indicators (KPIs) you follow. KPIs such as view count and social sharing are good for measuring reach, but they don’t offer much insight into lead generation potential.

Select a few metrics that will give you insight into videos with the most lead generation capability. Below are a few KPIs that fit the bill:

• Conversion rate (the percentage of viewers who execute a desired action based on your video) tells you how effective your video is in generating leads based on the content.
• Engagement (the percentage of a video a viewer watches) helps determine the quality of a view. The more of a video your viewer watches, the more potential they have as a lead. Wistia can help you measure this metric on a more granular level with engagement graphs and video heatmaps.
• Play rate (the percentage of page visitors who clicked “Play” and started watching a video) is useful for knowing if your video is positioned well for viewers on your site and whether thumbnails and descriptions are enticing. A strategically placed video can increase lead generation potential.

Each of these KPIs tells a different part of the story when it comes to lead generation. It’s important to look at performance through each distinct KPI lens to get a more holistic picture of how effective your videos can be at bringing in leads.

2. Double down on high-engagement factors

Now that you’ve identified your essential KPIs, use them as benchmarks to help understand how your audience is consuming your videos.

Start by looking for similarities among videos with high engagement, play rates, and conversion rates. Are a lot of them impressive product demo videos with well-highlighted features? Maybe there’s a bunch of funny brand ads with plenty of pop culture references in the mix?

Pay special attention to the overall messaging in your top video content as well. Focus on the types of words used in the video. Identify recurring narratives and themes; this will help you understand how to develop the right messaging for future videos.

Beyond the actual content of top-performing videos, look at how they’re structured in terms of video type (e.g., testimonial, product demo, interview), running time, and Call to Action (CTA) placement. The goal is to extract as much information about video structure, so you know what your audience gravitates toward.

“If you want to delve even deeper into the performance of your videos, run an A/B test.”

If you want to delve even deeper into the performance of your videos, run an A/B test. This will give you side-by-side insights into how your audience is receiving and interacting with two videos from your company.

Wistia’s A/B testing functionality gives you automatic insight into the engagement, play rate, and conversion rate of two videos, whether they’re similar or different. We’ll display both of your selected videos at a 50/50 split to your audience and track different aspects of performance like thumbnails, CTAs, and video length.

Once you’ve identified the factors that your lead-generating videos share, you’ll have a blueprint for creating more top-performing content that attracts potential customers.

3. Retarget ads based on video audience behaviors

A potential customer watches a video on your site but then exits the page. Now what? Using the information you’ve acquired from measuring video performance, you can set up retargeting ads to direct them back to your brand.

All you need to do is link your video performance data (such as conversions or engagement) with an ad retargeting provider. Wistia’s integration partners include Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube, so your ads will always reach the widest audience possible.

Once you’ve successfully connected selected events with an ad retargeting provider of your choice, you can create custom segments based on those events. We even offer suggested segments to advertise to, which can help you get a better idea of what audience might be worth targeting.

“Video retargeting ads can help you move leads down your marketing funnel with greater success.”

A retargeted Facebook ad for a viewer who watched 25% or less of your video will require different messaging than ads designed for viewers who’ve watched 100% of your video. The 25% or less segment might need to be educated more on the value of your product or service, so steer them toward helpful content resources like blog posts or eBooks on your website. The 100% segment is already highly engaged, and nudging them toward a purchase may be more effective.

These ads can help you move leads down your marketing funnel with greater success. Viewers of your videos will start seeing ads for your product or service appear on different channels, which will guide them toward your website for more information.

4. Use on-site videos to your advantage

A lot of companies use YouTube to host content because it’s the biggest platform out there. While using YouTube can help raise brand awareness, it will also dampen your lead generation efforts because you’re sending traffic to another platform. Why would you want to do that? You’ve worked so hard to create all your brand videos, and your business should reap all the juicy lead-related rewards.

Make it as easy as possible for leads to learn more about your product or service by placing your videos on your website.

Start by hosting all your brand-owned videos on appropriate web pages. For example, a product video should appear on a page that discusses its features. Why is that important? Consider this: Viewers who complete product videos are 15–20% more likely to convert than passive visitors.

“While using YouTube can help raise brand awareness, it will also dampen your lead generation efforts because you’re sending traffic to another platform.”

That said, you should still be using other platforms to drive viewers to your website. If you’re promoting your video in an email, create a compelling thumbnail that is clickable and lands on your site instead of playing right in the email itself. The same goes for social media posts; use teasers to get people to come to your site. Your objective is always to get as many viewers on your site as possible.

If your on-site content is a sundae, the cherry on top is using website-hosted channels (with Wistia Channels). This allows viewers to access all your videos in one easy-to-consume playlist on your site. Unlike YouTube, there are no cute cat videos on the side to distract viewers or ads from other brands that might sway them. Wistia Channels is a one-stop shop for your audience to get to know your brand and find out what makes your product or service so special.

Ready to get more leads with your videos?

If you want to get the most out of your video lead generation efforts, you need to collect information about your viewers as efficiently as possible. Our Turnstile email collector is an easy and effective way for businesses to capture email leads through video. Check out our Turnstile guide for all the information you need.