Documentation Articles

Video analytics can be one of your most powerful tools, but it requires thinking about what you need to know and how often.  Taking the steps outlined below can help you use IVA Reports to get good actionable data.  

1. Set Up Your Analytics  Of course you want to track your trailer play activity, but in relationship to what?  To your overall site traffic?  Featured titles to all titles? Theatrical releases to DVD releases?  Step one is to decide what it is you want to know and to create a spreadsheet or document that outlines the variables you want to track.  Determine the frequency with which you want to follow the activity.  Step two is to equip your reporting function to track any variables that are not already in the IVA reports by using tags.  Tags are a powerful tool that let you track trailer plays on your campaigns and contests; evaluate ad frequencies or player characteristics; track plays by iPad vs iPhone;  break out social media activity.  Here are the instructions for setting up video links that contain the tags you need for your analytics:

Reporting Tags: IVA has created a simple method to add reporting granularity to usage reports by adding a tag at the end of video requests. This tag (which can be up to 20 characters in length) will be included in your reporting data.

To use reporting tags:

• from a flash player, simply add sub={Your Tag} to the Player URL.
• from mobile urls, add sub={Your Tag} to the Video URL (player.asp).
• from IPTV urls, add sub={Your Tag} to the Video URL (player.asp).
• from windows media player/silverlight player urls, add sub={Your Tag} to the Video URL (player.asp).

Reporting Tags can be used on any video platform and any video format.

2. Benchmark Your Starting Point . Once you have your spreadsheet, pick your starting date and run the reports you need, and/or enter the data you are tracking in your spreadsheet.  Benchmarking simply means comparing your progress to the starting numbers.
3. Monitor Your Data Regularly  You have your spreadsheet, your tags, and your benchmarks.  Now you need to check in often enough to have the data you are tracking be actionable. If you make changes to your site or to an app, you will be able to monitor not only the changes to the traffic but also to trailer views.  If you change your player location, or add a feature, you’ll be able to see the impact on trailer activity. If you have a website and a mobile offering,, you can track plays on one vs. plays on the other. You’ll start getting a sense of the impact of seasonality, of holidays, of the weather and other factors on your views.   You decide what’s right for your company and your projects.
4. Compare Your Data.  If you are regularly monitoring your site traffic, you can now compare views to traffic and begin to see the correlations.  If you sell tickets, or offer rentals, or invite comments from fans, or link to social media, you’ll be able to see the interaction of trailers with all these other activities on your site.  IVA has included two charts that track plays across our network on the most popular titles opening each week along with the top 40 titles for which we have trailers.  You are invited to compare your title activity to our network plays. For some companies, trailer data will be integrated into an already sophisticated analytics report.  For others, analytics will be new.  Whatever your situation, the more frequently you review data and compare numbers, the more actionable your information will be.
5. Annotate Your Data.  Sometimes the story behind trailer views will be obvious and clear to anyone looking at the numbers: you featured a title, or ran a contest, or introduced a new format.  Other times, it will be less clear, and you’ll have to dig a bit, or even speculate about what’s behind the numbers. Perhaps there was a snowstorm, or it was Superbowl weekend.  Either way, you should make notes for each report.  Six months, or a year from now, or when the sequel to the current big hit comes out, you’ll be glad you did.
6. Use the Data to Set Goals.   If you are looking to increase traffic, or sales, or to test a new idea, or monitor a promotion, you can use your trailer views to set your goals, and then to monitor activity against those goals.
7. Save Your Data.  Get in the habit of looking at the reports regularly and store them with other important company data so that you can reference them down the line when they are no longer available through IVA.