Online Video in 2015: Stats, Facts, and Figures

It’s a new year — for you, for your business, for the world, and for the state of online video. But before we forge ahead, we thought we’d round up some of the most compelling online video statistics and studies that we published on the Animoto blog in 2015. The stats run the gamut from how consumers are using video and what they expect to see from businesses on the video front, to how and why businesses can no longer afford to leave video out of their marketing plans.

Video is the future of internet traffic

In a blog post called Why It’s Time to Step Up Your Video Marketing Game, we shared the following prediction from Cisco’s Visual Networking Index: **“__**Online video will account for 80 percent of consumer internet video traffic in 2019, up from 64 percent in 2014.”__

This is no surprise, when you consider findings from eMarketer that we shared in our blog post, 5 Stats That Prove Your Business Should Be on YouTube. eMarketer’s findings indicate that each generation of consumers craves video more than the last. Here’s the percentage of each generation that are using YouTube:

• 43% of baby boomers
• 58% of Gen Xers
• 72% of millennials (Gen Y)
• 81.9% of teens (14-17)

Consumers want and expect video

In May and June of 2015, we released two infographics featuring stats from our own Online and Social Video Marketing Study. The results confirmed two things loud and clear: consumers prefer to be marketed to with video and businesses that aren’t using video yet are missing out.

The following stats are a sampling of what can be found in our 2015 Video Marketing Cheat Sheet:

• 4 times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
• 1 in 4 consumers actually lose interest in a company if it doesn’t have video.
• Customers are nearly 50% more likely to read email newsletters that include links to video.
• 4 in 5 consumers say a video showing how a product or service works is important.

And here are some additional statistics around millennial behavior that we featured in a second infographic, Millennials Love Video (And Why You Should Too):

• 80 percent of millennials consider video content when researching a purchase decision.
• 7 out of 10 millennials are likely to watch a company video when shopping online.
• 76 percent of millennials follow brands on YouTube.
• 60 percent of millennials prefer to watch a company video over reading a company newsletter.

Why businesses must embrace video in 2016

If it wasn’t already clear from the above statistics, here’s more to support the fact that your business needs to jump on the video bandwagon this year. In our blog post, The Case For Adding Video To Every Product Page, we shared the following compelling stats around including video on product pages:

• Sites featuring video on the majority of product pages saw a 68% larger average order value (AOV) than sites with video on only a few product pages.
• 88% of survey respondents reported increased conversions after adding video to product pages.

Additionally, a Mixpo report showed that more advertisers in 2015 planned to run video ads on Facebook than any other network.

And here’s some good news: If you embrace video now, you’ll still be ahead of the competition. eMarketer reported that as of Spring 2015, only 9% of small businesses were on YouTube, and, while Facebook reported in a recent earnings call that 1.5 million small- and medium-sized businesses posted videos on Facebook in September 2015, that’s still only a fraction of the 40 million small businesses with Pages on Facebook.

How do you plan to use video in 2016? Let us know in the comments below, or reach out to us on Facebook or Twitter.

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