The measurement of how viewers interact with video content, including plays, watch time, engagement, and drop-off points.
Video analytics is the collection and analysis of data about how people watch your videos. It goes beyond simple view counts to measure engagement patterns — when viewers pause, rewind, skip ahead, or stop watching entirely. It is the difference between knowing how many people entered a store and understanding which aisles they walked down, what they picked up, and where they turned around.
Video analytics can be collected in two ways: client-side and server-side. Client-side analytics use JavaScript in the player to track user interactions — play, pause, seek, quality changes, and time-based events. This provides rich behavioral data but depends on the script loading correctly and can be blocked by ad blockers or privacy tools.
Server-side analytics are derived from CDN logs and delivery data. Every time a video segment is requested from the CDN, it creates a log entry. By analyzing these logs, you can determine view counts, watch duration, geographic distribution, and device types without any client-side code. This approach is more reliable and privacy-friendly since it requires no cookies or tracking scripts.
Key metrics include play rate (what percentage of page visitors click play), average watch time, engagement rate (percentage of the video watched), and drop-off points (where viewers stop watching). For businesses, these metrics connect directly to content effectiveness and conversion optimization.
Without analytics, video is a black box. You know you published it, but you have no idea whether anyone watched it, how much they watched, or whether it influenced their next action. Video analytics turns content from a cost center into a measurable channel.
For marketing teams, engagement data reveals which videos drive conversions and which need reworking. For training teams, completion rates show whether employees are actually watching required content. For product teams, drop-off analysis shows where tutorial videos lose people — pointing to confusing product UX.
host.video provides server-side analytics derived from CDN logs — no cookies, no client-side scripts, no ad-blocker interference. You get accurate view counts, watch duration, geographic data, and engagement patterns without compromising viewer privacy.