Webinar Benchmarks Report

Transcription

1 ON24 BENCHMARKS ON24 BENCHMARKS REPORT REPORT ON24 Webinar Benchmarks Report 2015 EMEA EDITION ON24 Webinar Benchmarks Report 2015 edition 1

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 03 METHODOLOGY PRE-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS 05 DRIVING REGISTRATION PROMOTIONAL TOOLS SCHEDULING WEBINARS WEBINAR BENCHMARKS 10 REGISTRATION DATA ATTENDANCE DATA VIEWING DURATION INTERACTIVE TOOLS POST-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS 15 ON-DEMAND VIEWING INTEGRATION INTO VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS CONCLUSION 19 2

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Webinars have never had a more important role for companies than they do today. Webinars are how we connect to our customers, partners and prospects and how we communicate with and train our employees. Perhaps the most important role for webinars today is for marketers. As buyers increasingly self-educate across the entire buying cycle, marketers are now responsible for driving prospects from a first engagement almost to the point of sale. Webinars have become the primary source of information that buyers turn to at key stages of the purchase decision. A few years ago, webinars were primarily used for top-of-funnel lead generation tactics only; now, webinars are being used to nurture prospects through each stage of the buyer s journey, taking a much bigger role in the marketing and sales process. This report highlights key data in the lifecycle of delivering a webinar, including webinar promotions, webinar delivery, audience behavior and webinar syndication. 3

4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY [CONTINUED] METHODOLOGY The findings in this report were compiled by ON24, the world s leading webinar marketing platform. In 2014, ON24 supported over 40,000 webcasts globally, and this report is based on a random subset of those events. Variables were measured from webcasts that included the following criteria: Webinars held between January December of 2014 Conducted from a cross section of 500+ organizations 9,375 webinars were measured in the analysis EMEA benchmarks were taken from a subset of 768 webinars Company size ranges from large enterprise to SMB This study measured statistics across the entire lifecycle of a webinar, including webinar promotion and registration metrics, webinar interactivity metrics, audience viewing habits and both live and on-demand attendance and conversion metrics. Unless noted otherwise, webinar event types are defined as: Live webinars: audio or video-based events that are streamed on a specific day and time. On-demand webinars: audio or video-based events that are streamed upon request anywhere, anytime. These also include live webcasts that have been archived for additional viewing. Audio webinars: events that are streamed with audio plus slides. Video webinars: events that are primarily streamed with video or include integrated video clips. Unless noted otherwise, audience information is defined as: Registrants: people who registered to view an event. Attendees: people who registered to view an event and attended that event. 4

5 PRE-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS One of the top challenges in delivering successful webinars remains the ability to drive registration. This year s benchmark continues the trend towards longer promotional cycles, implying additional drops and extended social promotion. Longer promotional cycles enable marketers to increase the number of drops while avoiding spamming their mail lists. PROMOTIONAL CYCLE Global Results 26 % 19 % 31 % 24 % DAYS DAYS DAYS DAY OF 5

6 PRE-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] BEST DAYS TO SEND PROMOTIONAL S The heart of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, are the top days for sending promotional s, with the three days in a statistical tie (23%) for highest registrations by days of the week. Trending over the last few years shows Tuesday through Thursday consistently outperforming other days of the week but with Monday consistently performing better than Friday, Saturday and Sunday. BEST DAYS PROMO S EMEA Results MON TUE WED THU FRI S/S 17 % 23 % 23 % 23 % 11 % 4 % BEST DAYS PROMO S - PREVIOUS YEAR 6

7 PRE-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] BEST DAYS FOR WEBINAR ATTENDANCE Much like the best days for webinar promotions, the sweet spot for running webinars is the middle of the week, with Thursday (34%) having the highest attendance, followed by Wednesday (22%) and Tuesday (20%). There is a huge drop off on the other days, with the next highest performing day, Monday, at 11%. These results reflect the fact that Tuesday through Thursday are the primary days that webinars are run; however, this is largely due to time-tested trial and error. BEST DAYS WEBINAR ATTENDANCE EMEA Results MON TUE WED THU FRI S/S 11 % 20 % 22 % 34 % 10 % 3 % BEST DAYS WEBINAR ATTENDANCE - PREVIOUS YEAR 7

8 PRE-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] BEST TIMES TO RUN WEBINARS The key to choosing the best time to run your live webinar is finding a time that supports the broadest possible geography. EMEA presents a particular challenge when it comes to finding the right time to deliver a webinar, as there are numerous countries in the region, in multiple time zones. This year, we found that the five most popular time zones were statistically very close together (10% 12%). It is interesting to note that the top five performing times in EMEA included both afternoon and morning times, with hosts attempting to avoid lunch and commuting times for as large an audience as possible. Optimise webinar time to include as many of your targeted regions as possible. The results shown are the top five performing times by percentage of total attendees. BEST TIME EMEA Results 9AM GMT 10AM GMT 12PM GMT 2PM GMT 3PM GMT 10 % 10 % 11 % 11 % 12 % 8

9 REGISTER THE WEEK OF WEBINAR WEBINAR BENCHMARKS 200+ LIVE ATTENDEES LIV REGISTRANT TO ATTENDEE CONVERSION Perhaps the most stable benchmark over the last few years has been registrant-to-attendee conversion, which has held steady at 42%. This result is slightly influenced by partner and training events that typically have a higher attendance percentage and thus drive the conversion number slightly higher. For marketers, a registrant-to-attendee conversion performing anywhere between 35% and 45% should be considered a strong result. 56 % 3 REGISTANT TO LIVE ATTENDEE Global Result AVERAGE ATTENDEE RATE RATE Global Results EMEA RESULTS GLOBAL RESULTS 5 + EVENTS W/ ATTENDEES EVENTS W/ ATTENDEES 7 % 43 % 16.5 % 258 ATTENDEES 523 ATTENDEES AVERAGE ATTENDEES ATTENDEES ON-DEMAND VIEWERS - REG LIVE VIEWED L 43 % 9 3

10 % 31 % 24 % ON24 YS DAYS DAY OF VIEWING TIME - LIVE WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] OLLING AVERAGE ATTENDEE RATE As the popularity of webinars grows, so do average attendee rates. We measured average attendance in multiple ways by shifting the minimum number of total attendees. Measuring events that have a minimum of five INTERACTIVITY attendees may include small meetings or presentations that could skew the definition of what some companies consider a webinar. In every case, SURVEYS GROUP CHAT COLLABORATION however, the average attendee rates continue to rise. 4 % 6 % OVER ONE RE WEBINAR We also looked at the average attendance percentage by a sliding scale of minimum attendee numbers. The biggest growth in attendee size came when we measured events that had a 1,000+ minimum attendance number, which 12 % 2 % 4 % grew from 1% in last year s report to 9% in this year s report. This signifies that webinars that draw over 1,000 attendees are no longer limited to events held by large enterprise brands. ENGAGEMENT METRICS NUMBER ATTENDING Global Results DOWNLOADED CONTENT 200+ LIVE ATTENDEES SUBMITTED QUESTIONS RESPONDED TO POLLS 300+ LIVE ATTENDEES 17 % 7 % 31 % NUMBER A NUMBER ATTENDING 56 % 36 % ES 500+ LIVE ATTENDEES LIVE ATTENDEES % 20 % 9 % PREVIOUS YEAR 1% ON24 Webinar Benchmarks BEST TIME Report 2015 edition 10

11 WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] AVERAGE VIEWING TIME At a time when most marketers are talking about the need for snackable bitesized content to appeal to the limited attention spans of their target audiences, webinars continue to defy the trend. Over the past five years, webinar viewing time, for an average one-hour webinar, has steadily risen and has stabilised over the past two years at 56 minutes for the global study. VIEWING TIME - LIVE Global Results EMEA Results

12 BEST DAYS WEBINAR ATTENDANCE - PREVIOUS YEAR ON24 MON TUE WED THU FRI S/S 10 % 27 % 27 % 27 % 7 % 1 % AL CYCLE WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] 31 % 24 % 1-7 DAYS DAY OF AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT BENCHMARKS Another reason for the steady increase in average webinar viewing times (listed on the preceding page) is the increasing level of audience interactivity and engagement in the webinar experience. For this study, we first looked at the average usage of the many interactivity tools available on the webinar platform. Not surprisingly, Q&A is the most used interactivity tool at 88%. It has become almost expected that there will be a Q&A period at the end of every presentation. However, there has also been significant growth in the use of other interactivity tools, including 34% of webinars integrating social media applications, such as VIEWING TIME - LIVE Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and 12% of webinars using surveys as a way to directly engage audience members INTERACTIVITY EMEA Results Q&A 38 SOCIAL INTERACTIVITY 88 % 34 % SURVEYS GROUP CHAT COLLABORATION 12 % 2 % 4 % ENGAGEMENT METRICS 12

13 WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] We also measured audience participation in the webinar experience, choosing three metrics that marketers can use to score leads by gauging audience interest. These benchmarks represent the percentage of audience members that participated in the listed activity. These numbers will continue to rise as webinar hosts learn to more effectively encourage the participation of their audience members. Global Results DOWNLOADED CONTENT SUBMITTED QUESTIONS RESPONDED TO POLLS 17 % 7 % 31 % 13

14 WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] INTEGRATION OF VIDEO This is the second year that we measured the integration of video into webinars. This benchmark is defined by the following types of video: Video streaming Webcams Integrated video clips Continuing the trend from last year, EMEA has a significantly higher rate of adoption for integrated video than the global trend (27% for EMEA vs. 16.5% globally). This highlights that companies in EMEA are clearly trying to increase the level of engagement and visual appeal of their webinars. Adoption of video has likely increased due to the evolution of video technology, reduced costs and the ability to reliably push video without bandwidth constraints. VIDEO INTEGRATION EMEA RESULTS GLOBAL RESULTS 27 % 16.5 % 14

15 6 % 36 % ON24 GISTER OVER ONEREGISTER OVER ONE K BEFORE WEBINAR WEEK BEFORE WEBINAR 17 % 177 %% 731 % % 31 % POST-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS NUMBER ATTENDING NUMBER ATTENDING 0+ ENDEES 300+ LIVE ATTENDEES 500+ LIVE ATTENDEES 500+ LIVE ATTENDEES LIVE ATTENDEES LIVE ATTENDEES ON DEMAND VIEWING Perhaps the most important trend in webinars is the steady increase in on-demand viewing. This is driven by a number of factors, including: % 36 % 20 % 20 % 9 % 9 % AM GMT There are only so many webinars that people have the time to view live Most webinars are held at the same days and at the same times (see Pre-Webinar Benchmarks) Mobile access has enabled viewers to watch webinars at the time and place of their choosing This report measures on-demand benchmarks in two key ways: 9AM GMT 10AM GMT Total on-demand viewers BEST TIME 10AM GMT 12PM GMT People who viewed both live and on demand BEST TIME 12PM GMT 2PM GMT 2PM GMT 3PM GMT 3PM GMT 0 % In this report 20.6% of total webinar attendees viewed on demand and 8.3% viewed both live and on demand. This repeat viewing can be the result of people having to drop off the live airing and wanting to catch up on what they missed. % It could % 1011 also reflect that % people % go back and re-view % specific % 12 parts of % % the presentation. 12 % EMEA Results VIEWED LIVE VIEWED LIVE & ON DEMAND IEWED ND ON LIVE DEMAND ON ON-DEMAND ON-DEMAND REG. POST LIVE REG. POST LIVE ON-DEMAND ON-DEMAND REG. POST LIVE REG. POST LIV ON DEMAND VIEWERS % 38.5 % 3.6 % % 3.6 % % % POST LIVE REGISTRATION POST LIVE REGISTRATION 18K 15

16 POST-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] POST LIVE REGISTRANTS In EMEA, 21.5% of total attendees viewed webinars on demand, after the live event was over. The steady rise in on demand viewing shows that audiences are increasingly viewing webinar content at the time of their choosing. Further, this report shows that on-demand registrations continue many weeks after the initial live airing, particularly as companies find new ways to promote their on-demand content. POST LIVE REGISTRATION EMEA Results 18K 16K 12K 8K REGISTRATIONS 4K 0 WK 1 WK 3 WK 5 WK 7 WK 9 WK 11 WK 12 POST LIVE REGISTRATION TREND 16

17 POST-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] ON DEMAND VIEWING TIME While average viewing times for live webinars in EMEA have held steady over the past few years at around 50 minutes, the average viewing time for ondemand webinars is 44 minutes, significantly higher than the global average. EMEA RESULTS ON-DEMAND VIEWING GLOBAL RESULTS ON-DEMAND VIEWING

18 POST-WEBINAR BENCHMARKS [CONTINUED] WEBINARS INTEGRATED INTO VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS For the second straight year, we calculated the percentage of webinars that were integrated into virtual environments. Examples of virtual environments include virtual learning environments, virtual executive briefing centers, client portals, virtual partner centers, virtual trade shows and virtual user conferences. These environments often feature multiple webinar presentations, presented both live and on demand, directly from the virtual portal. This year, 13.6% of the webinars studied were at some point integrated into a virtual environment. VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS EMEA Results 13.6 % 18

19 CONCLUSION The benchmarks from this year s report highlight the increasingly important role that webinars play for marketers today. The prewebinar benchmarks indicate that marketers are expanding their promotional cycles to increase total registration. We also see how audience sizes are growing and that attendees are becoming increasingly engaged in a more interactive webinar experience. Finally, the increased growth of on-demand registration and viewing shows how the lifespan of webinar content is extending far beyond the initial live date. This benchmark data can be used as a set of guidelines to create, promote and deliver successful events. 19

20 ABOUT ON24, INC. ON24 is the leading webinar marketing platform for demand generation, lead qualification and customer engagement. Its award-winning, patented, cloudbased platform enables companies of all sizes to deliver engaging live and ondemand webinars. Providing industry-leading analytics that can be integrated with all leading marketing automation and CRM platforms, ON24 enables marketers to optimise demand generation, enhance lead qualification and accelerate sales pipeline opportunities. Additional applications for the ON24 product portfolio include virtual training, talent development and town hall meetings. More than 1,000 enterprises rely on ON24, including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Credit Suisse and SAP. For more information on the benefits of the ON24 platform, contact us at or visit ON24.com ON24, Inc. For more information on the benefits of the ON24 platform, contact us at or visit