By The Measurement Maven · June 21, 2025
Introduction
You launched your new brand video. You’re glued to the analytics dashboard, tracking views, click-through rates, and shares. The numbers are okay, maybe even good, but your sales team reports that it’s having no impact on their conversations. You chalk it up as another marketing initiative that didn’t quite move the needle. The common practice is to measure the success of a video with the same quantitative “vanity metrics” we use for a banner ad. My contrarian argument is that your video didn’t fail. Your measurement of it did. By focusing on clicks, you completely missed the real, game-changing metric: connection.
The Current State of Things
The prevailing wisdom in digital marketing is “if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.” We have become obsessed with quantifiable, top-of-funnel metrics. For video, this means we track views, play rate, social shares, and click-throughs to a landing page. These are the numbers we put in our monthly reports to the C-suite to “prove” that the video is working. This data-driven approach is seen as the only way to justify marketing spend.
The Immediate Risk
The most immediate risk is abandoning a powerful, effective video because you are looking at the wrong dashboard. A financial services firm created a powerful video featuring the story of a family navigating a difficult financial transition. The video didn’t get a huge number of views or social shares. Based on these vanity metrics, the marketing director deemed it a failure and pulled it from their homepage.
The Problem Is You’re Tracking Actions, Not Emotions
A click is an action. A view is an action. But a story’s primary purpose is not to generate an immediate action; it is to generate an emotion. Trust, empathy, loyalty, inspiration—these are the bedrock of brand preference and long-term customer relationships. Standard analytics platforms are not designed to measure these things. A person can watch your video, feel a deep sense of connection to your brand’s mission, and decide you are the company they want to work with in the future, all without clicking a single thing. According to your dashboard, that interaction was worthless. In reality, it was everything.
The Problem Deepens When You Hear the Real Story
Two months after the financial firm pulled their “failed” video, a new client worth a significant amount in lifetime value signed on. During the onboarding process, he mentioned the video. “I saw that story about the family on your website a while back,” he said. “It really stuck with me. It was the reason I decided to call you when the time was right.” The marketing director had killed a video that was quietly and effectively nurturing high-value clients because the metric he was watching—clicks—had nothing to do with the video’s actual impact—connection.
The Far-Reaching Implications Are a Devaluation of Brand Building
When an entire industry prioritizes short-term, transactional metrics over long-term brand building, it creates a myopic and unsustainable marketing culture. It forces all marketing activities, including storytelling, into the narrow box of direct-response advertising. This leads to a neglect of the crucial, long-term work of building an emotional connection with an audience. Companies become so obsessed with proving short-term ROI that they fail to make the very investments that guarantee their long-term survival and pricing power.
The Surprising Solution Is to Measure the Story, Not the Video
The solution is to expand your definition of measurement. A strategic partner like Appture Digital understands that the success of a story is measured in different ways. They have the tools and talent to help you look beyond the clicks. This means implementing qualitative measurement alongside the quantitative.
1. Sales Team Feedback: Systematically survey your sales team. Ask them: “Are prospects mentioning the video? Is it changing the tone of your conversations?”
2. On-Page Surveys: Use a simple, one-question survey tool on the video page: “How did this video make you feel about our brand?”
3. Long-Term Tracking: Look at the long-term brand metrics. Is your brand recall improving? Are you able to command a higher price? Is your sales cycle shortening? These are the true indicators of a successful story.
But My Boss Wants to See Hard Numbers and a Clear ROI
The desire for hard numbers is valid. The key is to present a more sophisticated and holistic view of ROI. You can still report the clicks and views. But you must supplement that data with the qualitative story. Present the case study of the client who was converted by the video. Share the quotes from the sales team. Argue that the goal of a story-driven video is to create a more valuable lead, not just a higher volume of leads. The ROI isn’t just in the number of clicks, but in the increased close rate and customer lifetime value that result from a stronger brand connection.
Final Thoughts
Stop judging your most powerful storytelling assets with the dumbest possible metrics. A click can be bought. A connection must be earned. By expanding your view of measurement to include both quantitative data and qualitative evidence of emotional connection, you can finally begin to understand the true, and often immense, value of a well-told story. Are you measuring what is easy, or are you measuring what matters?
