OTT metrics and KPIs play a pivotal role in the success of Over-The-Top (OTT) apps by providing insights into user engagement and driving strategic decision-making. As the digital landscape evolves, OTT platforms have become increasingly popular, captivating audiences with a wide array of content options.
However, the abundance of choices also poses a challenge for app owners and developers to retain users and keep them actively engaged. This is where metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) step in, acting as guiding beacons to measure, analyze, and enhance user engagement.
And in this blog, we will walk you through the top OTT metrics and KPIs for optimizing user engagement in OTT apps.
OTT metrics and KPIs, or Over-The-Top metrics and key performance indicators, are essential tools used to measure and evaluate user engagement on OTT apps. OTT refers to the delivery of video, audio, and other media content over the internet, bypassing traditional broadcast and cable networks.
With the rise in popularity of OTT platforms, such as streaming services and video-on-demand apps, understanding and optimizing user engagement has become crucial for their success. OTT metrics encompass a wide range of data points that provide insights into user behavior, interactions, and preferences within the app.
By tracking these metrics, app owners and developers can assess how users are engaging with their content and platform, identify areas for improvement, and make informed decisions to enhance the user experience.
Now, let’s explore the top OTT metrics and KPIs that can significantly impact user engagement on OTT apps and improve their success.
Watch time is a crucial OTT metric that measures the total time users spend watching content on the app. By tracking watch time, app providers can identify popular content and curate similar options to improve user engagement on OTT apps.
The number of active users is a vital metric for understanding the app’s reach and popularity. Tracking active users helps identify user retention and growth patterns, allowing app owners to optimize marketing strategies and improve user engagement on OTT apps.
Churn rate refers to the percentage of users who stop using the app over a specific period. Monitoring churn rate helps identify pain points that drive users away and enables corrective actions to enhance user engagement and retention.
Session duration measures the average time users spend in a single session on the app. Longer session durations indicate higher engagement levels. By optimizing features and content to increase session duration, app providers can enhance user engagement.
The install to registration rate is a critical metric that measures the percentage of users who successfully create an account after installing your streaming app. It plays a pivotal role in understanding the effectiveness of your user onboarding process.
Monitoring this metric allows you to optimize and streamline the registration process, ensuring a seamless experience for new users.
Completion rates measure the percentage of users who finish a particular piece of content. High completion rates indicate engaging content. Analyzing completion rates helps app owners make data-driven decisions on content acquisition, production, and recommendations.
Conversion rates measure the percentage of users who complete desired actions, such as subscribing or making in-app purchases. By optimizing conversion funnels, app owners can improve conversion rates and drive user engagement through monetization channels.
This is another important user onboarding metric. How long does it take for a new user to register and log in to your app?
Time to register is a good indicator of the value a new user sees in your app. If it takes quite a long time to register, users may quit from registering or even uninstall your OTT app.
ARPU calculates the average revenue generated per user. By tracking ARPU, app providers can evaluate the success of their monetization strategies and identify opportunities to increase revenue and user engagement.
The rate at which playback failures occur during video streaming. Higher the error rate is the chance of your customers uninstalling your app and opting for your competitors.
Average video bitrate refers to the average amount of data transferred per unit of time. It reflects the rate at which the consumer is viewing and the bitrate shifts that may arise.
OTT platforms should be able to allocate a higher bitrate to the complex segments of media files and a lower bitrate to the simpler ones.
CAC is the total cost of acquiring a new customer including your sales and marketing costs divided by the number of customers acquired. This metric helps calibrate your investment and ensure you’re making the right decisions for your service’s growth.
Streaming giants like Disney+, for example, ran over 5,000 national TV spots, throwing billions into new ad spend just to acquire new customers and build their subscriber base.
CLV estimates the total value a user brings to the app throughout their customer lifecycle. Understanding CLV helps identify high-value users and implement strategies to maximize their lifetime value, thus driving user engagement and revenue.
The average number of monthly app launches for your app helps in gauging how often users come back to your app. According to research, 16 is the average app launched per user in a month.
The time that it takes for the video stream to start playing once you hit on the play button and the speed that it takes to start is a crucial metric to keep in mind if you want your OTT business to thrive.
The pursuit of driving user engagement for video streaming apps is an ongoing and multifaceted endeavor. Industry leaders such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime have demonstrated their commitment to this goal by relentlessly enhancing their OTT apps’ user engagement metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) through continuous analysis of user behavior and data. By leveraging these insights, they have forged a path towards creating immersive and captivating experiences for their audiences.
However, it is important to recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach in this dynamic landscape. As new technologies emerge and consumer preferences evolve, video streaming platforms must remain agile and adaptive, constantly striving to understand and cater to the ever-changing needs of their users.
By leveraging data-driven insights, embracing innovation, and fostering a user-centric mindset, these apps can forge stronger connections, drive greater engagement, and ultimately succeed in a highly competitive industry.
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Key metrics for measuring user engagement in OTT apps include the number of active users, session duration, content consumption rates, user retention, churn rate, and average revenue per user (ARPU).
To increase session duration in OTT apps, you can focus on offering compelling and binge-worthy content, personalized recommendations, seamless user interface, autoplay features, and interactive features such as quizzes or polls to keep users engaged and encourage longer viewing sessions.
To improve content consumption rates, consider strategies like offering a diverse and appealing content library, optimizing content discovery and recommendation algorithms, providing personalized content suggestions, implementing content notifications and reminders, and leveraging user feedback to enhance content relevance and quality.
Improving user retention in OTT apps involves delivering a seamless user experience, reducing friction in onboarding and sign-in processes, offering personalized content recommendations, implementing loyalty programs, sending targeted notifications, and continuously engaging users through new releases, exclusive content, and interactive features.
Churn rate refers to the percentage of users who discontinue their subscription or stop using the OTT app. To minimize churn, focus on providing high-quality content, addressing user feedback and complaints promptly, offering incentives for long-term subscriptions, and implementing proactive re-engagement strategies such as win-back campaigns or personalized offers.
Increasing ARPU in OTT apps involves implementing monetization strategies such as tiered subscription plans, offering premium or ad-free content, introducing in-app purchases or rentals, partnering with advertisers or sponsors for targeted ad placements, and leveraging data analytics to identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling to existing users.
Written by: Ishita Banik
Ishita is a Content Writer with Muvi Marketing Team. Apart from business writing, she is also an acclaimed author of three best seller romantic thriller novels. In 2020, she got featured in The Hindustan Times, a leading news portal as an inspirational Indian author.
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