Analysis: the rise of online video
With the recent news that UK internet users make over a billion visits to video sites each month – a whopping 323 million hours last month alone – James Murray, Digital Insights Manager at Experian Marketing Services, explains how brands can benefit from the rise of online video.
Online video hit two major milestones recently – both of them containing billions. YouTube announced that it received over a billion unique users every month worldwide, whilst according to Experian Hitwise data users make over a billion visits a month to online video websites in the UK alone, up by 16% year on year accounting for 5% of all UK Internet usage. It’s a rapid change with visits to video sites up 70% since 2011.
YouTube is the UK’s third most visited website after Google and Facebook and currently accounts for 70% of all visits to video websites including VOD sites like BBC iPlayer. With more content being created specifically for online audiences such as Netflix’s House of Cards, and new players like Spotify entering the video space, it’s clear to see that this is a trend that will continue to soar.
Total Visits to video sites
- Feb 2011 – 623,073,701
- Feb 2012 – 867,780,040
- Feb 2013 – 1,064,393,094
What we find really interesting about online video is that it’s one of the few industries that people are actually increasing the amount of time they spend on each visit when they go to a website – perhaps something to do with the vast amounts of rich content being put out there.
The general trend noticed across other industries is that whilst people are making more visits online they are spending far less time per visit. This is representative of the fast-paced skimming culture that has evolved over the last year or so. If people can’t find what they want they will move on to the next website to find something to satisfy their demands.
Across all Internet visits average visit time is down by 20% year-on-year, and yet for online video you can see that the average visit time has increased from 15 minutes 23 seconds to 18 minutes 15 seconds.
In total the UK spent 323 million hours watching online video content in February 2013, 100 million more hours than were spent watching in February 2012. This represents a year-on-year growth of 45% showing that not only are we making more visits to video websites; we’re also spending longer watching video content.
The question is how to benefit from this growth in video consumption? Although the primary source of video is still entertainment, more brands are taking advantage of video and using it to drive traffic to their web pages. The data shows that e-commerce sites are among the biggest beneficiaries online, with 16% of all visits leaving video sites going directly to transactional websites.
As online video continues to evolve as a marketing channel, it is starting to have a greater impact on online traffic in the retail, travel and finance industries. Brands need to ensure they are reaping the benefit of incorporating video as a core part of their digital strategy, driving awareness traffic to their sites and helping to generate further sales.