ON24 just put out a press release announcing availability of their 2013 Webinar Benchmarks Report. The 15-page PDF is available for immediate download, without any registration required. Hurray and thank you for that easy access, ON24!
ON24 has been supporting webinars and webcasts for hundreds of clients over many years, and the report samples data from more than 2300 webcasts held in calendar 2012. It does not give statistics as to demographic information on the webcasts or hosting companies studied, such as country of origin, industry, or purpose (training, lead gen, corporate communications, etc). Honestly, the vendors running the technology seldom have any way of knowing or tracking these distinctions from webinar to webinar.
The report includes not only raw statistics, but recommended best practices for webinar hosts looking to improve the performance of their events. For instance, people register on Tuesdays more than twice as much as on Fridays. And you should always do a “day of event” promotion blast to get last-minute registrants.
Some of the statistics merely teased me and made me want more details. For instance, they show that 11am Pacific is the most common time for North American webinars, but they had no statistics comparing registration or attendance for events at different times. That would be the more useful piece of information. And they showed that 25% of event registrants can be expected to view an on-demand archive of a live webinar. But I want to know what percent of no-shows typically view the archive. That would give us more insight into live vs. on-demand popularity.
Nevertheless, this is great data to have available, and I heartily thank ON24 for making it free for all to see.
