Category: Affiliate Marketing Tips

Views may provide the most obvious and eye-catching stat for publishers and creators on platforms like TikTok. However, video makers are looking at different in-depth metrics to understand how to succeed on TikTok, including average completion rate, the growth rate of views and the percentage of views coming from people who do not follow their accounts.

“To me, it’s all about the platform specialization. So with Omar and team, saying, ‘Hey, we need you to be algorithm astrophysicists here. We need you to see what’s happening on that platform,’” said Kaitee Daley, vp of media at ESPN.

A major reason that publishers are looking beyond the view count on TikTok is the platform’s hallowed “For You” page and underlying algorithm, which presents people with videos from accounts they don’t follow and is considered to be a primary reason for not only individual videos’ success on the platform but also the platform’s ability to hold the attention of 1 billion people each month.

“For TikTok specifically, we monitor pretty much every video’s For You percentage… That is a key metric for growth on the channel,” said Wesley Bonner, head of social and audience development at BDG, in an interview in September.

While TikTok does break out video views by section — such as the number coming from the For You page and the number coming from the app’s search engine — publishers are looking even beyond that count. “One thing I’m paying more attention to is the acceleration of views. Is this something that’s trending?” said one media executive. 

Although publishers may have particular metrics they monitor closely, the one that they seem to be paying special attention to is a video’s average completion rate, or what percentage of a video’s duration the typical viewer watched. “We want a 90% average percentage watched, not 40 seconds average watch time,” Raja said. 

The distinction between percentage watched (or completion rate) and watch time is important. TikTok videos today can range in duration to be up to three minutes long. That could encourage a publisher or creator to post extended videos in order to increase their watch time. Video makers adopted this strategy on YouTube during the mid-to-late 2010s when that video platform prioritized watch time and publishers and creators lengthened their videos to appease the algorithm (as well as to carry more mid-roll ads).

But TikTok has yet to show that its audience is especially seeking out longer videos or that the platform is looking to specifically push longer videos on viewers. “I haven’t seen it work exceedingly well for anyone,” Daley said of longer videos on TikTok.

What has worked well for publishers and creators is catching TikTok audiences’ attentions as quickly as possible and holding on to them for as long as they can and no longer.

“Even in the beginning of this year, I had videos that were 50 seconds, and now I’m making them 30 seconds,” said Raja. “It’s not because at 30 seconds a video’s going to be good; I just want to make the video as interesting as possible.”

The AOP’s proposed new way of doing things tries to negate this from ever happening again. In theory, the publishers would all use emails that follow the same format when dealing with issues over fair attribution — e.g. attribution@thepublisher.co.uk, for example. 

Here’s how the process would work in practice: if publisher X noticed that publisher Y quoted or referenced an exclusive article without linking back to it, then the former would email the latter via the specific attribution email to let them know it happened. From there, publisher Y would make a call on whether it needed to add the appropriate link. If it does, the update is made, with the hyperlink anchor text being the title of the cited publication (e.g. publisher X). All links to original content should be follow links, not no-follow so that search engines pay attention to the page and subsequently boost its ranking. No-follow links get no love. 

“Every publisher wants its original reporting to get the visibility in search results, especially the top stories, that they deserve,” said Carly Steven, head of SEO at The Sun. “Unfortunately we don’t feel like that’s always the case. Despite Google’s best efforts to try and reward original content, there are inconsistencies in the way publishers have been linking to and identifying the original source of stories.”

As much as this is about giving credit where it’s due, there’s also a commercial incentive. Linking is key for SEO. Google uses links from prominent sites as a gauge for what it calls ‘authoritativeness’ — a key factor in determining ranking.

Sure, the success of a publisher’s SEO strategy isn’t entirely defined by how many times it is properly cited by other publications. Google ranks sites based on a myriad of factors including speed, responsiveness, and visual stability, for example. That said, the protocol aims to help Google’s algorithm understand who the original  source of a story is.

“The initiative is eminently sensible and should be embraced by every quality news and content provider out there,” said Douglas McCabe, CEO of Enders Analysis. “The internet has demolished incentives for originating content. Exclusive is illusive — for as long as it takes someone to re-write and publish. Copyright is the real key, but no one seriously believes online norms can be reversed after more than 20 years.”

Think about it: the commercial impact may be less than hoped for by these publishers, but there are principles and standards at stake for them. Setting new standards is part of a larger narrative about reputable media outlets differentiating themselves from other content production, continued McCabe. Indeed, the value of trusted journalism to society has never been more clearly demonstrated than over the last 18 months, numerous publishers have said over this period. During that time, search engines and social media have blown further apart newspapers’ bundles of stories — even as those same platforms struggle with self-censorship. 

“We as an industry have had a massive debate over this period around the growing importance of trust in content, not only because of the spread of misinformation but also because journalists should be more encouraged to recognize they have a responsibility through their articles to present alternative opinions so that more people feel empowered and informed to make their own judgments and opinions,” said Richard Reeves, managing director at the AOP.

So far the protocol is backed by those publishers that make up the AOP’s audience development steering group, as well as a commitment from other U.K. publishers including the The Sun, Global and Bauer. 

With backing from its audience development steering group and commitment from several leading UK publishers already, AOP will now focus on driving more publishers and trade bodies to support the roll out of the protocol.