Your latest video got 5,000 views. Your team is celebrating. You’re proud of the numbers. You post about the “success” on LinkedIn.
Then someone in accounting asks the question that ruins everything: “How much revenue did those 5,000 views generate?”
You freeze. You have no idea. You can tell them how many likes it got. You can show them the watch time. You can even break down the demographics. But you cannot connect a single view to a single dollar.
And that’s when you realize: you’ve been measuring video success the same way everyone else does—by tracking numbers that look impressive but don’t actually tell you if your videos are making you money.
In today’s Video Lion, I’m showing you the simple system for tracking video ROI that doesn’t require expensive software or a data science degree.
Come with me!
The Vanity Metric Trap
Views, likes, shares—these feel like success. They’re easy to understand. They make great screenshots for reports. And… they’re completely useless for determining if your video investment is paying off.
A video with 10,000 views that generates zero leads is a failure. A video with 500 views that generates five qualified sales calls is a massive win. But most businesses celebrate the first one and ignore the second because they’re tracking the wrong things.
Vanity metrics make you feel good. Business metrics make you money. Those are not the same thing.
The Only Formula That Matters
Video ROI isn’t complicated. It’s this: Did the money you made from the video exceed the money you spent creating and promoting it?
Everything else is just detail work to figure out that answer.
If you spent $2,000 on a video and it generated $8,000 in revenue, you have a 300% ROI. That’s a winner. Make more videos like that one.
If you spent $2,000 and can’t identify any revenue it generated, you have an unknown ROI. That’s a problem you need to fix immediately.
Attribution: The Missing Link
The reason most businesses can’t measure video ROI is attribution—connecting a sale back to the video that influenced it.
Someone watches your video on LinkedIn. Three weeks later, they visit your website. A week after that, they fill out a contact form. Two weeks later, they become a customer. Did the video cause that sale? Probably contributed. How much? That’s harder to say.
This is why you need tracking mechanisms built into your video strategy from the beginning, not added as an afterthought.
What to Track Instead
Forget views. Track these metrics that actually connect to revenue:
Click-through rate on your call-to-action. If your video asks people to visit your website or schedule a call, what percentage actually do it? This tells you if your video is leading to action.
Form completions from video traffic. Use UTM parameters which are short pieces of text that you add to the end of a URL to track where your website traffic comes from. They help you see exactly which campaign, platform, or post brought visitors to your site, inside analytics tools like Google Analytics.
You can also use unique landing pages so you know which leads came from video viewers. This is the direct connection between video and pipeline.
Another metric is Sales cycle influence. Simply ask new customers how they found you. Track how many mention your video content. This qualitative data often reveals video’s impact better than analytics alone.
Then, there is Cost per Lead from Video. Divide your total video investment by the number of qualified leads it generated. Compare this to your cost per lead from other channels. Is video more or less efficient?
Lastly, Customer lifetime value of video-sourced leads. Do customers who discover you through video spend more or less than customers from other sources? This tells you if video attracts better-quality prospects.
The Three-Step ROI Tracking System
Here’s the complete system you can implement today:
You don’t need expensive software to start measuring video ROI. You need a simple system consistently applied.
Use unique URLs for every video’s call-to-action. VideoName.com/linkedin or YourSite.com/video-offer. When someone uses that URL, you know they came from that specific video.
Add a question to your lead forms: “How did you hear about us?” Include “Company video” as an option. Not everyone will answer honestly, but enough will to give you directional data.
Create a simple spreadsheet. List your videos, their production costs, promotion costs, leads generated, and revenue attributed. Update it monthly. The patterns will become obvious quickly.
The Conversation Closer
The most powerful tracking method costs nothing: talk to your sales team and your customers.
When a prospect reaches out, ask them what prompted the call. When you close a deal, ask how they first heard about you. When someone mentions your video, write it down.
This qualitative feedback often reveals video’s impact in ways analytics never will. And it gives you specific examples to justify continued video investment.
The Reality Check
Not every video needs to generate direct revenue. Brand awareness videos, educational content, and customer support videos have value even if they don’t immediately convert viewers into buyers.
But you should be able to articulate that value in business terms. Support videos that reduce customer service calls save money.
Educational content that positions you as an expert creates trust that leads to future sales.
If you can’t explain how a video contributes to business outcomes—even indirectly—you probably shouldn’t be making it.
Stop measuring video success by engagement metrics that make you feel good but tell you nothing about business impact.
Start tracking the numbers that actually matter: leads generated, deals influenced, and revenue created.
Because at the end of the day, your CFO doesn’t care how many views your video got. They care whether it made the company money. And you should too.
That’s it for today. Before you go, don’t forget to give us a like or leave a comment, and, if you haven’t done it yet, subscribe to our channel to stay informed about everything related to video for business.
See you in the next Video Lion!