ON24 study shows strong growth in webcasts, especially video
January 23, 2007
By Marie Griffin

It's common knowledge that the number of webcasts produced by b-to-b media companies is growing, but by how many? How is attendance faring as the number of webcasts proliferates? What impact is the growing popularity of online video having on Web events?

To help answer questions such as these, ON24, one of the leading providers of webcast solutions to b-to-b media companies, this week is releasing its first benchmarking study, "ON24 Insider on Publishing: Key Webcasting Findings for the Publishing Industry." Although the data come only from companies using the ON24 network, the study is distinguished by its large sample size-35 b-to-b media companies that collectively produced more than 1,200 individual Web events in 2006. The names of the companies were not released.

Peter Spande, VP-online media at CMP Technology's business technology group, said the ON24 study will help him evaluate the performance of his company's webcasts and "make webcasting a more effective marketing and sales lead generation tool for our customers."

Eric Shanfelt, senior VP-e-media at Penton Media, said, "With this new report, we now have key industry benchmarks to evaluate our own webcast programs and help our customers attract, retain and engage attendees." Both CMP and Penton are customers of ON24.

ON24 compared data from webinars planned, scheduled and held between January and June 2006 against data from the first six months of 2005. All of the Web events lasted one hour or less. The same 35 b-to-b media companies were used for both time frames.

The study found the number of Web events on the ON24 network rose 32%, from 946 in the first half of 2005 to 1,261 in the first half of 2006, with the number of webcasts per media company increasing 33%, from 27 to 36.

Although the average number of registrants per webcast rose 8% to 568 in the 2006 period, the average number of attendees remained flat at 321. Consequently, the conversion rate-or the percentage of registrants who attended the webcast-slipped from 61.4% to 56.6%. This finding is backed up by comments from b-to-b publishers, many of whom told Media Business that it takes more marketing to get the same number of attendees due to increasing competition.

Live webcasts picked up almost 10 market share points against on-demand webcasts and represented 85% of the Web events on the ON24 network in 2006. The number of live webcasts increased 48%, while the number of on-demand webcasts declined 18%. B-to-b publishers generally say sponsors are driving this trend.

Video webcasts grew much faster than audio-only webcasts during the period, with video webcasts up 44% and audio webcasts up 32%. The video base was much smaller, however. ON24 tracked 167 video webcasts in the first half of 2006, up from 116 in the year-earlier period. The percentage of Web events using video was 12% in 2005 and 13% in 2006.

The average conversion rate for audio webcasts fell from 63.0% to 58.8% between 2005 and 2006. The conversion rate for video webcasts remained flat at 57.7%.

From BtoBOnline.com