With the global spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), there is a growing demand for video streaming of events such as exhibitions, ceremonies, forums, and seminars. There are various types of video streaming, but even in Japan, where webinars have not taken off, there has been a sudden surge in the shift to online events.
Traffic is high and growing rapidly on connected devices (CTV). This high traffic, in addition to the uncluttered, high quality experience, is driving up CPMs. Due to the premium nature of their content, Brightcove customers have even reported CPMs between $25-$70, surpassing the range observed by eMarketer of $19.84 to $28.33 from Q4 2017 to Q4 2018.
In the competitive and crowded market of streaming services, these high CPMs, along with a lower barrier to entry for viewers, make ad-supported models attractive for media companies. Even HBO, which has historically been known for its lack of ads, has announced that it will be including ads with its HBO Max offering in 2021, according to Reuters. Agencies like Mediacom are even launching divisions specializing in OTT with smart TVs and gaming consoles as their core focus.
For Brightcove, the ANZ region has been a leading indicator for what’s to come for digital advertising. The ANZ market is dominated by free to air Broadcasters and non paywalled content, which has forced leadership and innovation in the space. So we turned to our Australian colleagues, customers and partners to weigh in on some global OTT advertising challenges and opportunities, starting with IAB Australia CEO, Gai Le Roy,
“The Australian market has seen a huge surge in CTV investment over the last 12 months with the percentage of local media owners’ video revenue for big screen inventory increasing from 23% to 40%. The increase in trading has been driven by a combination of higher consumption and agencies embracing the opportunity of buying inventory in high quality environments often with first party data that can help replace reach that may have been eroded by shrinking linear TV audiences.”
There has been a major gap between the tracking, reporting and targeting available on desktop versus what’s available on CTV, with mobile falling somewhere in the middle. This has led to lower fill rates on CTV compared to other devices. While there are inherent measurement challenges in OTT environments, this inventory is subject to the same scrutiny as traditional online video advertising. It’s important for buyers and sellers to understand this and come to the table with the right expectations. One common example is that some advertisers have been reluctant to buy inventory that doesn’t include viewability or doesn’t let them drop a cookie.
“The value of being seen in an uncluttered, big-screen environment vastly outweighs the nearly non-existent value of having a viewability metric on a CTV, but buyers are still slow to change,” says Mark Stanton, VP, International Product Management at Brightcove.
New standards: In response, leaders in the space have begun investing in initiatives designed to alleviate the problem, like the IAB’s Open Measurement SDK. Smart TVs are also getting easier to work with. Teams around the industry are building universal HTML5 apps that work across Samsung, LG, Playstation, etc. to further encourage standardization. However, these efforts are lost if buyers do not get on board.
Buyers are loosening up: Although buyers don’t get the granular reporting they are accustomed to on the web, they are loosening their requirements as they see the opportunity in OTT. While there are still technical limitations, buyers have become more accepting that an ad on a TV is inherently viewable. Some DSPs have made updates to their algorithms to detect whether inventory is coming from a CTV and evaluate it differently from web and app. Other factors, such as Google phasing out cookies and restrictions on user tracking imposed by GDPR, will help drive action. The technologies used to track users that are unavailable in CTV environments will soon be unavailable on the web as well, forcing buyers to adapt.
Juliette Stead, Senior Vice President, APAC for video advertising platform Telaria weighed in saying, “BVOD (broadcast video on demand) is 100% viewable. Most buyers now appreciate that viewability vendors simply don’t have a consistent product solution for CTV. The need for viewability measurement across CTV has generally decreased among savvy buyers who recognise the power, value and long term benefit of television, and who are safe in the knowledge that curated, professionally produced content which is 100% viewable will provide an effective environment for their brand. BVOD generally, and CTV in particular, has seen a significant increase in demand from a broad range of advertiser categories over the past 24 months, and I expect to see a further increase in investment over coming years.”
Advancements in audience data: Media companies are providing more context for content beyond just name and genre; leading companies are even using AI indexing on content. Many broadcasters have been building out their audience data on CTV. However, agency CTV data is still limited.
“The industry is developing new ways of measuring audiences to both verify audience data as well as evolve co-viewing estimations. Locally three quarters of AVOD audiences are watching content with another person for at least half of their viewing sessions,” confirms Gai Le Roy, IAB Australia.
Limited agency data can be viewed as both a positive and a negative for media companies: It’s good in that if agencies want targeting, they need to buy using the media company’s data. But it’s bad in that if agencies are buying programmatically using their own data, CTV inventory will get overlooked. In comes third-party data.
Third-party measurement and data providers like Nielsen, OzTAM, and Moat are actively trying to solve this dilemma with solutions like co-viewing measurement and by leveraging manufacturer data from vendors like Roku. Things like global scale and how this data is transacted upon still need to be sorted out, but this effort represents progress nonetheless.
Peter Henning, Principal Consultant at Traffic Software, who has worked extensively with major broadcaster TVNZ expresses, “It will be interesting to see the innovation that OTT publishers and technology vendors can achieve with first party data ‘logged in and federated’ solutions, that are secure and scalable.”
According to Julliette Stead, “At Telaria, we work with a number of Australian and New Zealand broadcasters – Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment, Foxtel, Ten, SBS, TVNZ and Mediaworks. All have a data capture strategy in place, and we have integrated with publisher DMPs in order to best segment BVOD supply for targeting purposes across all devices, including CTV. In addition, we are able to ingest content metadata for show specific or category targeting. This allows broadcasters to create solutions to the many differing needs presented by brands for broad and targeted reach campaigns alike.”
“Innovation is happening on multiple complimentary fronts in OTT to increase the value proposition for advertisers. These innovations need to integrate with a server side ad insertion foundation to offer a viable product pathway for OTT publishers,” says Henning. “Consumers now expect a quality viewing experience and it is vital that the industry pivots in how we deliver marketing messages to provide interactive, contextually relevant experiences.”
At Brightcove, we’ve been using our unique position in the industry to help solve these tough challenges. Among other efforts, we’ve been investigating how to improve the data available from CTV Server-Side Ad Insertion – both the data about the user that’s available to the ad decisioning system and the data about the ads served (or not served) that’s available to the publisher. We’re keeping these considerations in mind in order to enhance our SSAI measurement and to optimize OTT apps with flexible monetization.
Trials have always been an effective customer acquisition tool for video subscription services. However, from social media lookalike campaigns to exclusive content or popular movie promotions, the reason many customers sign up for a trial can vary widely. Increasing conversions requires properly measuring the free trial conversion rate and employing today’s free trial best practices.
Free Trial Conversion is one of the most important metrics to monitor in a successful SVoD business. It’s a simple calculation of the total number of trials that are successfully converted to paid, divided by the number eligible to convert on any given day.
That said, in a subscription video business, there are other variables that can affect your conversion rate.
Since almost all video businesses batch their monthly billing rates into a daily billing run, failed billing attempts will impact your daily conversion numbers. Most companies employ different retry mechanisms and intervals for processing failed billing attempts (also called a dunning process). It is important to apply a consistent calculation when comparing conversion rates.
At Brightcove, we use the same methodology for calculating conversion rates across all of our customers, regardless of their dunning methodologies. This is important as it allows us to compare conversion rates of different customer cohorts within a single customer account and provide industry benchmarks to help you understand how your key metrics compare to similar services.
The way we calculate conversion rates is not too different from most calculations, with one small difference.
For example, if there are 100 trials that are eligible to convert on a given day and 70 of them pass billing, a standard calculation would be 70% conversion. However, at Brightcove, we also take failed billing transactions into account and standardize the conversion rate accordingly.
A number of those free trial customers may request a cancellation before their trial period ends and the rest would be eligible for conversion. Let’s say 20 (voluntary cancellation) of that original 100 request a cancellation and the other 80 go through billing. Of those 80, that same 70 successfully pass billing and convert to a paid user, and 10 fail billing and enter the dunning process.
When a trial conversion billing attempt fails, that subscription would then become eligible for a billing retry according to your dunning process billing rules. For example:
The remaining 10 will then become eligible to convert at a later date.
Now let’s assume 100 more sign up for a trial on day 2, and during the trial process, 10 decide to cancel. Billing runs, and 10 more fail billing. If the standard retry logic is to retry credit cards one day later, the 10 failed billing transactions would be eligible for retry. Of those, 5 pass and convert, and 5 fail and stay in the dunning process.
So on day 9, there would be 95 eligible conversions: the 80 that signed up on day two and passed billing, the 10 that voluntarily churned, and the 5 that passed dunning. The conversion rate would be 89.5% (85/95).
You can also take the daily conversion rate and average that over 30 total days to calculate a monthly conversion rate. By breaking it down to this level, you can ensure that you are smoothing out any outliers and getting to a consistent number.
Furthermore, breaking your base into different campaigns and customer cohorts gives you an accurate read on how well you are acquiring customers. This allows you to consistently analyze which campaigns successfully bring you paying customers that stay in the service for the longer term.
With the proper trial conversion metrics in place, you’ll be able to test and implement several best practices that our customers have had success with.
Keep Trials Short. Seven-day trials convert the best. It provides enough time for potential subscribers to watch a few programs and get a sense of the library. We’ve heard the argument that longer trials provide more time to evaluate the video service and lead to lower month-one churn rates, but this hasn’t been our experience.
Dial-in your Onboarding Program. Establishing a consistent onboarding program for trials is a good first step to converting as well as retaining these customers throughout the first few months. For example, an email promoting shows with a high Attention Index ensures an entertaining first few days for each audience member. Hidden Gems also work well to showcase the depth of the content library.
Target Your Stalled Trialists. Some people sign up, watch one video, and never engage again. To increase your conversion rate with this cohort, we recommend a slightly more aggressive outreach program. Identify these stalled trialists and in addition to the regular onboarding program, make sure they receive at least one more email. Promoting titles with a high, shared audience may be a good hook to get these trialists beyond the first video and into your library.
Advertise More Viewing Options. A recent analysis by the Brightcove Customer Success team found that trialists watching on 2 or more devices convert at rates 10-15% higher than those watching on only 1 device. In addition to promoting select titles from your catalog, an advertisement for the other apps and devices you have invested in should be appended to your trialist messaging. Getting a trialist to log in on a second device may tip them into becoming a paying subscriber.
You only have a few days to nudge a trialist into becoming a subscriber. Having your data set up to quickly work with your marketing or email tool to target each cohort is essential. Your data defines an optimal target and can even influence the creative by identifying the titles that convert well.
Brightcove Audience Insights is designed to make this easy. Your data is harmonized and exportable, either as a csv or through a direct integration with Hubspot, Sailthru, or Segment. Audience Insights identifies Stalled Trialists and the videos that are the best Trial Drivers. And our Customer Success team meets with our clients every 1-2 weeks to share best practices and act as an additional business analyst, identifying opportunities to optimize your video service.
Learn more in our PLAY episode, “Hidden Treasure: Getting the Most from Your Content Library”.
The increase on screens at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size seems out of character with the streaming world, but it may simply be an example of evolution. Where we once talked about the democracy of screens, that whatever screen at hand was the one we were most likely to choose to watch, viewers have evolved and now use mobile devices to source content and connected TVs to consume it.
Tablets and desktop computers are losing ground, meanwhile, with computers taking the biggest hit, a decline in video views of more than 10%.
If there’s any doubt streaming video has become mainstream across the world, how consumers are getting news related to the coronavirus outbreak should put an end to it.
Data from Brightcove shows streaming media/entertainment and streaming news numbers are riding a surging wave of viewing, almost certainly driven by the coronavirus crisis.
Whether it’s social distancing prompting consumers to camp out in front of screens to watch streamed entertainment, or a need for the latest news that has viewers checking in on developing stories more often, Y/Y streaming numbers have seen big gains.
In the first two weeks of March, for example, the amount of time spent viewing news video increased 14% from the previous year, while the actual number of videos viewed jumped more than 31%.
On March 13 alone, when U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, time viewing news online increased 47% from a year ago and the number of news videos views jumped nearly 66% – the highest total for a single day in Q1 for the past two years.
Broadcasters used to be the go-to source for developing news stories, but the COVID-19 crisis has shown that consumers increasingly turn to streaming news sources for the latest updates – as well as in-depth coverage of news that’s important to them. With streaming, news providers can update news on the fly, provide broader, deeper coverage, and pull in points of view from around the globe. And, they don’t need to worry about fitting reports into arbitrary time slots. They have the flexibility to tell a better story.
Time watched overall during Q4 increased by nearly a quarter, up 23% Y/Y, according to the Q4 2019 Global Video Index. Connected TVs saw time watched more than double globally, up 114% from a year ago, with smartphones rising 30% and tablets up 6%. Only computers saw a decline in time watched, about 2%.
Australia/New Zealand saw time watched on connected TVs increase 173% with North America seeing a significant increase in time watched on smartphones, more than 53%.
In Q4, smartphones were the name of the game for marketers trying to reach consumers online. More than 62% of all marketing video views were on mobile devices globally.
Asia-Pac saw an even higher percentage of marketing video on smartphones, 82%, up from 55% the previous year. ANZ increased to 55%, Europe was at 62%, Latin America 61% and North America 53%.
Computers saw the second largest share of retail and marketing video views in every region with tablets trailing and connected TVs even further back. While smartphones earned a bigger share of video views in every market, computers lost share. Asia-Pac saw computer’s share of video views drop by more than 50%, Japan/Korea saw computers fall behind smartphones for the first time, as did North America. MENA saw smartphone share grow to 49%, pulling even with computers during the quarter. In every other region smartphones surpassed computers.
Tablets slipped in every region and connected TVs saw limited growth. But connected TV share is likely to add pace over time as viewers continue to look to the big screen for content, more premium content makes its way onto CTVs and marketers follow.
Engagement (time spent), meanwhile, with retail and marketing video on smartphones is up in every market: Asia-Pac (+380%); ANZ (+41%); Europe (+78%); Japan/Korea (+12%); LatAm (+52%); MENA (+91%); and, North America (+71%).
As the Global Video Index showed, Q4 traditionally has been a quarter of growth for OTT with the holidays driving viewing time on new devices and company’s racing to get content and platforms into the public eye.
But Q1 this year could see significant change as the coronavirus begins to have an impact on how critical information and news is shared around the world.
The true measure of just how far streaming video has come will be even more apparent in Q2, as large portions of the world’s population begins to “shelter in place” to slow the spread of the virus. Will the amount of streaming video consumed increase? Of course it will.
The need for a strong, scalable, and nimble business continuity plan is clearly evident today. Situations arise where last-minute cancellations have a drastic impact on businesses.
But there is an alternative to cancellation: Innovative companies are leveraging video in their business continuity plans for both external and internal communications. This not only accommodates consumers’ immediate needs, it also fosters brand loyalty and builds new virtual communities as a result.
Here are some powerful examples of video use cases across industries that enhance external communications within a business continuity framework.
Adopting a video strategy means supplementing offline offerings with online content by live streaming conference tracks, publishing video on websites and social media and/or making recordings of events available on-demand soon after they happen. The Brightcove video platform can scale to live stream some of the biggest events in the world, including sports, political elections, and industry conferences.
With foot traffic declining, online eCommerce orders have seen unprecedented surges of up to 300% in a week, with some retailers unable to cope with demand. Retailers need to create immersive online experiences to display their products, like Hugo Boss’s live-streamed fashion show. The time is now for brands to evolve their eCommerce strategy to include video, as well as cart checkout and delivery options.
Lululemon in China opted to stream training classes directly to consumers who have little choice but to work out indoors because of gym closures. Online fitness brands like Alomoves and Peloton could experience a spike in subscriptions and video streaming traffic as more users choose to train at home.
In any breaking news scenario, communication is central to a government’s strategy. It is absolutely critical to connect with the public both offline and online and to deliver updates directly to devices. As government agencies roll out their digital transformation programs, expanding communication channels with citizens should be part of their core strategy. And any communication that includes a video element can be especially engaging and effective.
When conditions prompt school closures and disrupt lesson plans, video e-learning can make a difference. Most schools are not prepared to implement a remote study option, but the beauty of technology in 2020 is that educational institutions can quickly adopt video streaming as a continuity plan. The once highly manual process of uploading slideware with no live commentary can now be replaced with lecturers uploading and publishing their lessons in video format with just a few clicks, then streaming them across various devices and browsers.
The advances in streaming technologies make it easy for schools to serve remote students and minimize disruption to regular classes. Whether live-streamed or on-demand, video can be an effective contingency plan to make sure students can stay current with their coursework.
These organizations have mostly relied on the physical attendance of their members but now face a challenge. With worshippers avoiding crowded environments, faith-based groups are exploring new ways to share their message and promote their events, sermons, and services – all of which can be video streamed to worshippers in their homes or on their mobile devices.
During any unexpected situation, brands and organizations need a business continuity plan that includes engaging and informing their customers and employees through offline and online channels.
In this article, we will explain the procedure for live streaming to YouTube Live using Brightcove, step by step.
According to Yusuke Uyama of the Media Business Division of Japan Business Press, “JBpress” has dramatically increased the performance of its marketing support business for advertisers in the Corona Disaster by utilizing online events and webinars. In the past, the cost of real seminars and other operations was so large that it was difficult to devote internal resources to them, but since the spread of the new coronavirus, the company has put in place a system that enables it to respond to requests from client companies.
According to Mr. Uyama, online events and webinars have “three liberating advantages.
The first is ‘freedom from location. With real events, there is a high hurdle for people who live far away to participate, but with online events and webinars, there are no restrictions on where the audience can be located. When we recently held an online event on DX strategies for the public sector, we had viewers from various local governments. Participants loved how it relieved their burdens.”
Another benefit is “time freedom. If content can be recorded in advance, it can be filmed and delivered when it is convenient for the speaker, making it flexible for a variety of situations.
And finally, “Freedom from frequency”. Our online event “JBpress DX Week” was held on weekdays, but as a challenge, we rebroadcast it on Saturdays and Sundays. Using Brightcove Cloud Playout, we replayed the event on Saturday and Sunday with pre-recorded content that we had rearranged into the most appropriate delivery program and scheduled for delivery.
The point is not to preserve the archive, but to rebroadcast it. The point is not to keep the archives, but to replay them. This is a way to appeal to the busy weekday viewers while maintaining the rarity of the content.
In the two weeks of JBpress DX Week, we had 3,000 registrants, and 70% of them actually participated. We believe that both the sponsors and viewers were able to see the significance and benefits of holding the event online. By job title, more than 40% of the respondents were department managers and above. I think this indicates that people who are too busy to attend real events were able to participate because they could freely choose where and when to watch the event.”
We had been using the Brightcove platform for on-demand video delivery for some time, so it was a natural progression for us to adopt ‘Brightcove Cloud Playout. Initially, we outsourced the distribution setup for online events and webinars to an external distribution company, but this was costly and slow. With Brightcove Cloud Playout, we can now program and manage the order of the content we want to deliver in advance, just like organizing a TV show, making it easy to do it in-house. We have also accumulated know-how in distribution, which has made it a viable business. We now have a dedicated team that holds up to 10 seminars a month at times.
Brightcove’s video delivery system automatically selects and displays video of a quality that is appropriate for the viewer’s environment. This has eliminated most of the occasional complaints from viewers that they can’t see the video or that the video is too rough. The basic, but most important and most gratifying aspect is that we are able to deliver a consistent video experience to our viewers.
JBpress has not been involved in online events and webinars in earnest since the Corona Disaster. The quality and consistency of delivery is the reason why the online event and webinar business has grown to become a new pillar of our business.
The internal video media “K” Line With has just started full-scale operations. They are considering various developments for the future.
“We have finally been able to start global distribution, which we have been hoping for. First, we will continue to post project videos that other departments want to share, while also promoting understanding of the management plan by referring to the reactions to the content we are currently developing. In the future, I would like to create an owned media for external audiences that has content that can enhance the company’s value” (Murakami)
Kawasaki Kisen has taken the step of producing its own videos, as well as creating documents as before, as a tool for connecting employees. It seems that the day when a deeper understanding contributes to business performance is not far off.
Customer Contact: https://www.kline.co.jp/ja/index.html
In 2019, Google started sunsetting mobile app reporting using their Google Analytics SDK. This required companies wanting to collect usage data from their OTT mobile apps to switch to Google’s successor service: Google Analytics 4.
Google Analytics 4 is a powerful tool for tracking the OTT video playback events generated by your apps and site. Moreover, it allows you to track how popular the content is on your service at a much deeper level than a simple view count. You’ll also be able to see how many users are watching content in near real-time.
If you’re in a position to start collecting data from scratch, we recommend using Google’s new Google Analytics 4 property type for OTT data analytics (formerly known as App + Web). This makes it possible to track your website and app traffic in one combined view in Google Analytics. Google provides an excellent step-by-step guide for creating a Google Analytics 4 property on their support site. There are several setup options available, from starting a new site on a Google Analytics 4 property to adding a Google Analytics 4 property to a site that already has Analytics.
First, you’ll need to update your OTT apps to include the Firebase SDK, which you can do using Google’s quick start guides. If you’ve already added an app data stream to your Google Analytics 4 property, Analytics creates a linked Firebase project automatically.
Next, you must update your video player to send events to Google Analytics 4 when certain user playback events occur. Make sure to set a user ID so that all video playback events are tied to a specific user. This can either be an anonymous ID (e.g. if your site offers free OTT videos without requiring registration), or it can be a subscriber ID. Don’t use an email address for user ID, as it constitutes PII and is against Google’s Terms of Service. For all video playback events, set an Event Name of “video_playback” and include the following Params in the Event:
Send events to Google Analytics 4 when the following actions occur:
This sample code demonstrates the different kinds of playback events that could be sent from the video player to Google Analytics 4:
private lateinit var firebaseAnalytics: FirebaseAnalytics
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?){
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
// firebase developer documentation
// https: //firebase.google.com/docs/reference/android/com/google/firebase/analytics/package-summary
firebaseAnalytics = FirebaseAnalytics.getInstance(this)
// set user id
firebaseAnalytics.setUserId(“test_user_id”)
/ video playback events /
// video start
val videoStartBundle = Bundle()
videoStartBundle.putString(“video_event”,”start”)
videoStartBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoStartBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoStartBundle.putInt(“video_position”,0)
videoStartBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoStartBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,0.0)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoStartBundle)
// video pause
val videoPauseBundle = Bundle()
videoPauseBundle.putString(“video_event”,”pause”)
videoPauseBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoPauseBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoPauseBundle.putInt(“video_position”,654)
videoPauseBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoPauseBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,10.0)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoPauseBundle)
// video resume
val videoResumeBundle = Bundle()
videoResumeBundle.putString(“video_event”,”resume”)
videoResumeBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoResumeBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoResumeBundle.putInt(“video_position”,654)
videoResumeBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoResumeBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,10.0)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoResumeBundle)
// video rewind
val videoRewindBundle = Bundle()
videoRewindBundle.putString(“video_event”,”rewind”)
videoRewindBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoRewindBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoRewindBundle.putInt(“video_position”,327)
videoRewindBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoRewindBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,5.0)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoRewindBundle)
// video fast-forward
val videoFastForwardBundle = Bundle()
videoFastForwardBundle.putString(“video_event”,”fastforward”)
videoFastForwardBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoFastForwardBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoFastForwardBundle.putInt(“video_position”,4905)
videoFastForwardBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoFastForwardBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,75.0)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoFastForwardBundle)
// video stop
val videoStopBundle = Bundle()
videoStopBundle.putString(“video_event”,”stop”)
videoStopBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoStopBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoStopBundle.putInt(“video_position”,6000)
videoStopBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoStopBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,91.74)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoStopBundle)
// video skip
val videoSkipBundle = Bundle()
videoSkipBundle.putString(“video_event”,”skip”)
videoSkipBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoSkipBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoSkipBundle.putInt(“video_position”,6000)
videoSkipBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoSkipBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,91.74)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoSkipBundle)
// video progress
// send progress events at:
// – first 30 seconds reached
// – 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100% of video completion
val videoProgressBundle = Bundle()
videoProgressBundle.putString(“video_event”,”progress”)
videoProgressBundle.putString(“video_id”,”tt7984734″)
videoProgressBundle.putString(“video_title”,”The Lighthouse”)
videoProgressBundle.putInt(“video_position”,654)
videoProgressBundle.putInt(“video_duration”,6540)
videoProgressBundle.putDouble(“video_progress”,10.0)
firebaseAnalytics.logEvent(“video_playback”, videoProgressBundle)
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
}
}
Google Analytics 4 has a DebugView feature that makes testing very efficient. Once enabled, you will see an event stream delivered in near real-time in the Google Analytics 4 Console. You will also be able to see all custom event parameters and values, which are otherwise not possible to see in the Google Analytics 4 Console. We highly recommend using this feature to confirm that your events are firing at the correct times and with all of the correct values.
There’s a new paradigm to access your raw data in Google Analytics 4 versus Google Analytics. Google Analytics historically has offered a reporting API, whereas Google Analytics 4 offers a database: Google BigQuery.
There are a number of extra steps that you must follow to enable BigQuery for Google Analytics 4, the first of which is to upgrade to Firebase’s Blaze plan. This is a pay-as-you-go plan with a pleasant bonus: Google offers free usage quotas per month, so depending on the amount of traffic generated by your apps, you may end up paying little or nothing.
We recommend that you enable the link with BigQuery as soon as possible, as the data only starts being delivered from the date that you enable the configuration. Data is not populated in BigQuery retroactively.
Setting up BigQuery has a couple of key benefits:
Certain data (like custom parameters) cannot be viewed in their entirety in the Google Analytics 4 Console, whereas all data is made available in BigQuery. Access to the raw data is essential for advanced users and third-party audience analytics platforms like Brightcove Audience Insights, who rely on a complete dataset.
