Delivering Optimal Viewing Experiences
Maximizing the performance of the videos on its site was critical to building brand loyalty and establishing credibility with SKLZ's retail partners. SKLZ employs Limelight Networks’ content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure, which is tightly integrated with Limelight Video Platform. By leveraging these integrated services, SKLZ's videos are delivered with no buffer or delay to any viewer location — even during intense traffic spikes. It can also employ just one company to host, upload, manage, publish, deliver and analyze its videos.
The integrated video platform and CDN provides SKLZ with several benefits. To simplify workload and content management, the retailer can manage Limelight Video Platform and Limelight CDN services within the same interface. SKLZ can also more quickly transfer large volumes of videos by leveraging a dedicated line between its physical location and a Limelight point of presence on the edge of its network.
SKLZ can improve player responsiveness and viewer experience by caching the player, playlists and all metadata information at the edge of the network, close to each end user. What’s more, Limelight Internet Health Monitor provides real-time information to Limelight Video Platform, enabling SKLZ to maximize viewer experience in near real time as network conditions change.
Another key component of Limelight Video Platform is its ability to capture analytics, which allows SKLZ to track and analyze viewer engagement with each video. SKLZ is analyzing how many viewers are watching both the instructional and product introduction videos, giving it insight on what types of instructional content viewers are interested in and what products they want to learn more about. SKLZ is also tracking how long viewers are watching the videos to determine if they’re finding the content engaging and relevant. These analytics are essential to helping SKLZ determine what type of instructional videos it wants to publish in the future and which types of products are most appealing to athletes.
“Since adding videos to our site, sales and traffic have consistently increased month-over-month,” noted Curry. “We can confidently share our videos with consumers and retailers alike. We've received many compliments from consumers, retailers, distributors and especially our overseas partners about the simplicity of the design. Our innovative training and skill development tools coupled with the impressiveness of our videos establishes a high level of credibility in the marketplace. By simply sharing a video link, we can show retailer partners that we're sophisticated marketers and show consumers that we're committed to delivering products and accompanying video content that will improve their games.”