Testing variables for video autoplay

Question

I'm trying to test to see if having an auto play video helps more interaction with the video. Right now, I have a video on my website with a playlist of videos underneath it. Currently, the video needs to be clicked on to play the video and a lightbox pops up and they watch the video. I am not getting much interaction with the video player so I wanted to test a silent autoplay. I'm not sure that my lightbox player shows the number of video play-through, but I can see a heatmap and clickmap and it's pretty cold. I can set up a "b" page with autoplay and then set up an A/B test. However, I am at a loss on how to judge what works better. I can look at the heatmap, but what if people are just clicking on it to shut it off? What if I'm getting more views, but people aren't actually interacting with it, they are just leaving it playing while they view the page? I can test conversions to see if they buy the product, but how will I know if changing that one autoplay video is causing more people to buy the product? I have a A/B tester plug in for my site, but I'm fairly new to A/B testing.

Answer 1

First and foremost, you need to figure out what the goal of the test would be?

The big question is: What result would you need to see for your team to implement autoplay (b) as a successful winner?

• If b resulted in 100% more clicks, would you implement it? No - that could be clicks to pause.

• If b resulted in 100% more views, would you implement it? No - those people might give your company any more money (conversions).

• If b resulted in 100% bounce rate would you implement it? No - that would suck.

• If b resulted in 5% more "add to cart" clicks would you implement it? Maybe!

Answer that question, and then you'll figure out what you need to measure - whether that's clicks, video-plays, interaction, page-views, or conversion down the funnel. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to the video player itself (though that does make for more reliable results).

Generally, pages that have a video will also have some call to action as a result of watching the video ("sign up", "enter your email", "click this button"). This could be a good start, but it greatly depends on your business, your website, and your goals.