24i’s top five tips for using personalization to boost content engagement

Whether you want to tackle churn, grow your ad revenue or increase the range of content your viewers are watching, personalization works. The customers who use our advanced personalization solution, 24iQ, to drive content recommendations are testament to that. 

On average, users who interact with the sections of their apps that include recommendations watch for longer and watch a larger range of individual content items than those who only interact with parts of the app that aren’t data-driven. 

In fact, one of our customers saw the average number of content plays per user session rise by 133% when users were interacting with recommended content! 

Five engagement-boosting strategies you should adopt right now

So, what can streaming services do to improve the effectiveness of their personalization efforts? Here are five engagement-boosting strategies taken from our recent e-guide: 

1. Max-out your metadata 

When you’re house-hunting they say it’s all about “location, location, location”. In personalization and content discovery, your mantra should be “metadata, metadata, metadata!” The better shape your metadata is in, the better content-to-content recommendations you’ll be able to provide. Don’t be afraid to use machine learning (ML) to improve your keyword game. You may need expert help to review your existing metadata and define an appropriate and manageable set of keywords for your specific content. But then ML can help fill in the gaps and improve metadata quality in a cost-effective and timely way. 

2. Feed the desire to binge

Do you encourage users to binge-watch TV series by auto-playing the next episode? Are you missing the same trick in situations where there isn’t an obvious sequel?  Maybe you won’t want to use auto-play in these scenarios, but offering one or two highly-relevant content suggestions tailored to your user’s viewing history at the end of a one-off show or movie, or after the very final episode of a bingeable series, is a great way to keep viewers engaged for longer.

3. Personalize email to your advantage

Well-timed personalized emails containing “hand-picked content for you” are a fantastic way to encourage repeat visits to your apps. They give users a concrete reason to return that’s more effective than a blanket email about your hot new show that’s sent regardless of whether they’ve shown any interest in similar content before. One of our customers saw a 121% uplift in visits to their app within 3 days after adding personalization to their emails in A/B testing.  For users who regularly visit your apps from their mobile devices, a personalized content recommendation via push notification can also be highly effective. 

4. Match your message to your goals

There are plenty of different options for how you present data-driven recommendations, from “Recommended For You” to “Trending” and “More Like This.” The subliminal messaging of each is slightly different and requires different data models behind them. The first step is to identify your goals - reduce churn, increase video views, grow the range of content watched, promote your exclusive content etc. - and then work with data scientists to test and confirm which models and messages will deliver the best results for each of those specific goals. 

5. Layer algorithms on top of your editorial picks

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can replace your editorial team with algorithms. You need both. But you can make them work smarter together. For every editorially-selected section of your service (including the all-important “hero banner”) add a layer of intelligence to determine what order the content should be shown in to each individual user. 

What’s next? Test, refine, learn, innovate!

Recommendations can’t be a simple “set it and forget it” process. Even the five highly effective strategies outlined above need constant work. Regular A/B testing will reveal what works for your specific content library, user base and market. It’s one of the reasons we offer professional services as a layer on top of our 24iQ persponlization platform - so we can work continually to make incremental gains every month and adapt as content and UX changes.

If you’d like to learn more, download the full e-guide here, or listen to our expert interviews on how the BBC and Sky tackle this essential part of streaming engagement. 

This article originally appeared as a guest blog on Videonet. 

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