Publishers use many tools and techniques to drive new audiences to their owned and operated sites, including content recommendation services like Outbrain, Taboola, and Zergnet among others. The challenge is keeping users engaged once they land on your page in order to maximize RPM. Video can be the most lucrative in terms of RPM, as CPMs for video can drive significant revenue.
Below is a four-step plan to maximize the retention of acquired audiences.
Step 1: Have links direct to pages with video
When utilizing any recommendation service to recirculate your content, be sure that the articles being surfaced include video.
If you're working with IRIS.TV, then you are already getting an increase in views per click as a result of video recommendations. By directing your inbound links to pages with an IRIS-enabled video player, you’re already a step ahead.
The image below shows an IRIS-enabled video player on an article page and Outbrain sponsored content to the right
Step 2: Target your links to pages with low bounce rate videos
Once you acquire traffic to your site, retaining the acquired audience on your page is crucial. The best way to achieve that is to promote video assets with the lowest bounce rates across articles that are generating the most page views.
When reviewing top-performing videos on the IRIS Vision™ leaderboard, select pages with videos that have high recommended views and low bounce rates. This indicates that these videos are leading to longer engagement of follow-on videos.
The image below is the IRIS Vision™ dashboard depicting assets filtered by bounce rate.
Step 3: Prioritize by category performance
Evaluate the performance of categories with respect to bounce rate to determine what categories lead to the longest engagement. To drive audience retention, you want to ensure your editorial team is focused on key verticals of content that drive value over time.
Review the supply and demand of top-performing categories. If necessary, create or acquire more videos in those high-performing categories.
Image: IRIS Vision™ Displays Top Categories Supply/Demand
Step 4: Re-invest in audience acquisition
IRIS.TV increases video ad inventory through its recommendations. Re-allocate a portion of that revenue from the increased pre-roll, back into audience acquisition, but target the links to pages with video on specific assets and categories.
A major international news and entertainment publisher grew their views and video revenue by 600% in under one year. By re-investing and optimizing with IRIS.TV video recommendations, the publisher saw which videos performed best and directed acquired users to those pages. In the longer term, the publisher was able to decrease audience acquisition spending by creating large loyal audiences.
Image: A news publisher increased views and video revenue by 600% in under a year using IRIS.TV.
Converting New Audiences to Loyal Users
Every publisher has a content strategy tailored to their unique audience. One general guideline all publishers can follow is to track video asset performance regularly to see how new audiences are consuming and interacting with your content in order to determine what will keep them coming back. Being nimble and easily able to pivot your editorial team's strategy is crucial to capturing the audiences that are being driven to your site from referral traffic sources. Getting the traffic is great, but knowing how to keep users watching is the key to growth.
Want to learn more about audience retention best practices? Contact us for a free consultation.
