I’ve been talking about tracking video using analytics tools and attempting to debunk some popularly held myths about the subject (see my prior two posts).

Here is Myth #3: You can’t track video ROI any better than you can a TV commercial, so why bother?

Fact: By using a simple technique, it becomes much more measurable than a TV commercial.

TV viewers wouldn’t stand for it—but online viewers probably expect it. You simply need to tell your on-line audience what url to go to for “more”–whatever more is in your case.

The reason I bring this up is because, while it’s true you can place live links into video (or at least underneath video) where you control it, you can’t see this carried over into viral video, since all the coding gets stripped away when someone downloads and re-posts virally. In order to gain some additional ROI measurement out of even viral video, make sure you put a campaign URL into the video itself—maybe it’s an offer?—and then set up your analytics tools to measure traffic to that unique landing page. Then, track it just like any on-line campaign. It may require some customization, but if you’re advanced enough for viral video measurement, you’re likely to have some idea how to customize your analytics tools.

Conclusion:
Online video is a new frontier and enormously popular. There’s clearly more of a “fun” factor in video than there is in even the most inventive web site. For some reason, even in an age of hyper-interactivity, users still find it almost irresistible to sit and watch something entertaining and informative. We’re moving towards an online paradigm that blends interactive and passive interaction with content (instant Netflix, anyone?). Therefore it becomes extremely important for marketers to understand how they can leverage video content for online marketing purposes.

In a word: measure. And yes, it can be done–even when you don’t control where the video is playing.