Why app marketers need comprehensive streaming data

Streaming has revolutionized the way consumers experience content, ushering in an era where on-demand content is seen as standard and no longer an extra. With distribution channels across television, games, movies consolidating into broadband-enabled streaming, the demand for insights about how audiences behave when they stream has never been greater.

The need is reaching an urgent level for TV app marketers: 80% of U.S households have at least one streaming subscription, and the global streaming market is slated to reach about $932 billion in value by 2028, according to a Fortune Business Insights report published in December.

In order for TV app marketers to grab—and hold on to—a slice of the pie, it’s essential not only to identify consumer habits and preferences, but also to consider actions to take based on that information. In the battle for audience growth, engagement and retention, marketers need access to trends across the wider user ecosystem, including subscription-based video on demand (SVOD) and advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) apps.

To date, TV app marketers have lacked access to data beyond what is afforded to them from their own user information--or to true industry-wide data that goes beyond analysis of paid subscriptions. That’s changing, thanks to the Samsung Ads Streaming Index, our new white paper drawing insights from the largest data set of its kind, based on billions of streaming decisions gathered from our smart TV footprint. The Streaming Index provides valuable insights into audience growth, content/user experience, and retention, that TV app marketers can leverage to optimize their efforts.

The future of streaming looks bright

New audiences are powering the growth of TV apps with intent to subscribe more.

New users represent a third of the audience on the average TV app. While growth in 2021 (+11%) was significantly less-feverish compared with 2020 (+37%), that can be tied to the lessening impact of COVID-19 as consumers became less confined to their homes during lockdown.
  Having said that, time spent streaming per day has remained basically flat, with a less than 2% decrease between 2020 and 2021.

But despite continuing, if less dramatic, audience growth, the TV app market is maturing. Marketers must update their toolkits to focus more on loyalty and retention. Data-driven marketing techniques allow marketers to identify light users and samplers, then create a sustained communication pattern that drives loyalty.

Content and user experience rule
Fresh content, useful recommendations, frequent updates and content availability post-live- broadcast are key factors in audience retention:

Ease of use is the top-ranked motivator for retention (50%).
  48% of respondents say frequently updated content is a retention driver.
  44% of respondents value streaming services that do a good job of personalized content recommendations.

While the technology decisions that drive ease-of-use, and the production decision that create content release schedules, are happening far upstream of the marketer, it’s still important to keep in mind that the streaming ecosystem is, in general, an addressable environment. This presents an ever-present opportunity for app marketers to focus on relationship-building by matching content preferences to their users. This can deeply inform the user experience, reminding them of updated content matched to their tastes.

Customizing the way audiences are engaged based on what they want to see and how they want to see it is a powerful approach—especially since the consumer market continues becoming increasingly diverse in terms of values, lifestyle and interests.

Action is necessary
Audiences are not just numbers in a data pool. As a TV app marketer, you are responsible for discovering the humanity behind the numbers, spotting patterns of behavior and taking action by responding accordingly:

Home in on new-versus-returning visitors and identify ways to engage them with respect to their place in the content discovery journey. Benchmarks and communication tactics should be set with respect to usership tiers.
  Create data-informed target groups through the lens of KPIs. Churn is not an event, it’s an extension of an incomplete user experience. At which point in the UX did churn occur, and what actions did the audience perform prior to lapse? Answering these questions can inform tactics across acquisition, retention and win-back campaigns.
  When it comes to conversion and retention tactics, the key phrase is “track and adjust.” Which target segments are showing the strongest signs of conversion and lift? Are you seeing an increase or decrease in new users, in comparison with retained users? These insights will provide clear direction in terms of how and when to adjust media weight.

TV app streaming is exhibiting the type of growth trajectory that marketers can be excited about. In 2020 and throughout 2021 we witnessed a streaming audience that saw television content less as a way to kill time and more as a companion for personal needs, from entertainment to learning and instructions.

New and returning streamers are telling you everything you need to know through their habits. All you’ve got to do is listen, comprehend and respond accordingly.

To learn more, download the full Streaming Index whitepaper here.