Tracking cookies are browser components generally associated with a website or landing page. Cookies can be dropped into a viewer’s browser, tracking incredibly powerful insights into viewer behavior. A Browser cookie is the necessary ‘tracking code’ that creates the personalized experience you see on the web when you visit website. It enables websites to present you with information that is relevant to what other websites you have visited and content you may have consumed.
How do cookies impact online video?
Individual video viewer contact video engagement and tracking is impossible without cookies. Cookies remember contacts so they can avoid filling out forms twice, or login information can be remembered and autofilled. Without cookies in the mix, video marketing analytics are restricted basic video usage and play count analysis.
Situation #1 – Video marketing without tracking Cookies:
Lauren visits your site and fills out a form to watch a video. You now have Lauren’s contact information.
Lauren has to run to a meeting, but will definitely return to watch another video sometime soon. Lauren returns to your site to watch another video, but she again is prompted to fill out an additional form to view the video. She doesn’t want to so she leaves your site and never returns.
On top of the loss, you never knew she had returned to your site even though you captured her contact information — no tracking cookie was set. In the near future Lauren receives a nurture email that is not personalized and doesn’t take into account Lauren’s bad user experience. Lauren unsubscribes and moves on with her life.
Situation #2 – Video marketing with cookies enabled:
Lauren visits your website and fills out a form to watch a video. You have Lauren’s contact information now.
Lauren has to run to a meeting, but will definitely return to watch another video. Lauren returns to your site to watch another video, and she ends up watching six videos. Lauren learns more about your brand and offering, and has now watched twelve videos.
Since you identified Lauren by dropping a tracking cookie, you saw she returned to your site to watch video. You send Lauren an email suggesting her to watch an additional video based on the twelve videos she already watched. Lauren sees this email the next day and clicks through to watch the suggested video. Your sales team ends up calling her and closing the deal because you knew how engaged she was.
Browser cookies make it possible to create personalized experience on the web and through email. Cookies enable websites to create private content for those with login information. They enable marketers to learn more about their buyers, so they can deliver better content to the right person at the right time.
