There are many reasons to use a streaming video analytics solution if you want to run a successful streaming service.
Video analytics refers to a series of purpose-built business intelligence software tools that provide streaming services with insights into their platform’s performance and their audience’s behavior — an absolute must in a crowded market where providers are constantly fighting each other for the viewer’s attention.
Yet, some services are still unaware of what these tools can bring to the table, relying instead on gut feeling and run-of-the-mill analytics tools to improve their platform and better cater to their audience.
Here are 5 reasons to use streaming video analytics to run your online video business.
1. Gain real-time visibility and actionable insights
It is often said that data is the modern world’s oil. But leveraging such a valuable resource requires a tool with which your teams can work.
With reliable streaming video analytics, your employees can track app and video performance and your users’ actions to come up with actionable insights. Real-time monitoring is not only important for live streamers, but also for over-the-top (OTT) companies that need to understand how their streaming quality holds during peak viewing hours.
Imagine it’s Sunday evening and the bulk of your users log in to watch a new movie as they like to do before a new week starts. If they start experiencing streaming problems, they will simply switch to another OTT platform — and that is how easily you can lose a customer.
Thanks to real-time video insights, you can get a precise picture of all the fundamentals of your platform at all times. This level of visibility allows your organization to transcend individual opinions and operate through data-based decisions that save money and increase efficiencies.
There is no need for finger-pointing or arguing about disparate data sources. All teams from all your different departments have one single source of truth and can make informed decisions based on facts that everyone agrees with.
2. Monitor end-user behavior and learn from it
Understanding how your users interact with your app, what content they watch, and when and how they watch it is the first step toward building a streaming experience that fits exactly what they are looking for.
With streaming video analytics, you can have full visibility into your users’ journey — from the moment they log in to your app and start browsing to what titles they end up watching. You can see at what times and days of the week they tend to log in, from what regions, and with what devices. You can pinpoint what content they like and whether or not they prefer to watch it throughout multiple sessions or in one sitting.
That knowledge allows you to tailor your platform’s architecture and content strategy to your viewers’ needs, optimizing investment while maximizing engagement. You can segment your audience into various groups according to their expectations and service them accordingly.
3. Track and address any issues affecting the end user
Streaming video analytics tools are plugged into your online video platform and keep track of your app and video player’s performance from end to end — all from your end user’s point of view.
By identifying any issues impacting the end user’s experience, you can mitigate problems as they happen. You not only know exactly what’s making a customer’s video not work whenever they ask for support, but you can also put a stop to any emerging issues before they become a problem for your larger user base.
You can even go one step further, proactively contacting those customers experiencing problems such as high buffering. You can choose to be proactive, addressing their user experience issues before they complain or churn.
The result: a stronger, more flexible streaming platform that keeps users happy and engaged. Plus, you save money by speeding up resolution and cutting down customer care call times.
4. Identify shortcomings within your infrastructure and operations
Sometimes, individual errors can point to larger structural problems within your content delivery infrastructure and operations. Those are the kind of in-depth, higher-level learnings that make a streaming video analytics platform pay for itself.
With a clear map of your ecosystem’s shortcomings, you can plan and allocate resources in an efficient manner. Video analytics insights allow you to go beyond the day-to-day to implement comprehensive changes that reduce costs while improving platform performance and, in turn, the user experience. You can then track the impact of these changes in real time to make sure changes are being made for the better.
Whether it is by identifying bottlenecks within the content delivery chain or organizational structure, or by providing you with the arguments to negotiate smarter service-level agreements with infrastructure providers, video analytics insights can go a long way.
5. Determine user satisfaction and reduce churn
All in all, knowing what’s working and what’s not with your platform from an end-user standpoint is key to putting a number to your viewers’ level of satisfaction — a vital step in your efforts to increase user engagement and reduce churn.
And that’s the ultimate goal of a streaming video analytics platform focusing on quality of experience. Your viewers are the reason you created your streaming service in the first place, and you are committed to ensuring they keep finding reasons to go back to it.
Streaming video analytics tools allow you to assign a satisfaction score to each user based on their consumption patterns and the quality of their experience. Equipped with that, you can identify those users at risk of churn and act proactively, offering them new content or packages to encourage them to stay within your ecosystem.
Interested in learning more? Discover the 12 ways streaming video analytics can boost your video business.