Slow videos are a big problem: Why your video speed matters

When it comes to any online service, speed matters. Even milliseconds of buffering can have a catastrophic effect on business.

Take Amazon for example, which discovered that a one second slowdown on its webpage would cost $1.6 billion in sales. Additionally, Google has calculated that a 400 millisecond slow down in search speed could cost 8 million searches every day—and lose millions more dollars in advertising. So, website speed matters. But what about video speed?

Just like websites, video speed matters too. According to a study conducted by IneoQuest Technologies, “40% of streamers who experience stall-outs will never watch the failed video again.” What’s even more alarming is that only one buffering event is enough to reduce the amount of video users watch by 39%.

The problem

These buffering incidents are all too common.

After analyzing hundreds of millions of video streams, Swarmify has found that 24% of all playbacks result in a stall-out of 1 second or more. That’s nearly 1 in every 4 playbacks!

In fact, interrupted playback is so common that there is a term for customers angered by buffering: “buffer rage.” Studies have shown that over half (51%) of consumers have experienced the phenomenon of buffer rage, or uncontrollable anger induced by stalling and buffering videos.

Research indicates that this buffering is hurting your business. Another IneoQuest study performed on 1,000 customers found that 40% of viewers will only tolerate a maximum of 10 seconds of buffering before quitting. These viewers could have been customers interested in your product.

YouTube videos are also prone to buffering because of the immense amount of traffic and server requests they get every second. For embedded videos, they must load all the intrusive annotations and related videos tabs which slows down playback. Upon launch, YouTube also loads tracking analytics to gather information on users, causing video speed to suffer.

The solution

Slow videos are a problem, but how do you fix it?

SmartVideo, a lightweight video platform that accelerates video speed, is an elegant solution. In a series of comparison tests, Swarmify’s video playback system started a video nearly 12 times faster than the standard YouTube embed system. The milliseconds saved using Swarmify’s SmartVideo widget could retain hundreds of customers and earn thousands of dollars for your company.

In addition, SmartVideo acceleration technology reduces the video stall-out rate from 24% to 3%, that’s 8 times less buffering for viewers! With Swarmify’s SmartVideo technology, you won't have to worry about frustrated customers, interrupted playback experiences, and slow loading times.

A quick example:

Say that your promotional video on YouTube’s standard embed player takes around 800 milliseconds to load upon start, whereas with Swarmify’s SmartVideo technology, it takes around 100 milliseconds. Those 700 extra milliseconds to load on YouTube’s player present a significant loss for your business. Applying Amazon’s metric that an additional 100 millisecond delay leads to a 1% decrease in sales from users, your company will have lost 7% of its potential sales using YouTube’s standard embed feature. Suppose you currently make around $30,000 dollars each month with standard embed features — switching to SmartVideo playback would earn you an additional $2,250 each month.

Clearly, the speed of your videos matter. SmartVideo ensures that your videos are buffer-free, your customers are happy, and your business is making money.

But video speed is not the only problem

Keep in mind that slow video speed is not the only issue with YouTube’s embed feature: there are annotations, links, and related videos that funnel traffic away from your website, stealing potential customers.

Factoring in all of the distracting YouTube features that loses customers means that switching to SmartVideo is even more beneficial for business.

Videos are important

Videos can help tell a story, educate, and cultivate deeper relationships with your audience. But in the end, the goal of embedding videos on your website is to help make a sale. Regardless of the business, whether it be selling shoes or renting out properties, videos are an effective tool for engaging your audience and eventually landing a sale. So why would you bother with playback services like YouTube specifically designed to redirect traffic from your website to their own?

So not YouTube, but why Swarmify?

SmartVideo's clean design not only accelerates the streaming speed on launch and during playback, but it also eliminates the messy annotations, advertisements, and related videos that steal customer attention from the sale of your product. It secures customer focus on your brand, your product, and your website, helping you land a sale. And, if you already have YouTube videos on your site, we make it dead simple to switch.