Personalised Content: Data insights shaping customers’ OTT experience

Sarvanraja Nadar – Practice Head, OTT, Tata Elxsi

With a surge in demand for personalised experiences, analytics has become a cornerstone in enhancing user engagement and retention. By leveraging data insights, OTT providers can curate highly personalised recommendations.

Create personalised viewing experiences

OTT platforms collect extensive data sets encompassing demographic information, content consumption patterns and user engagement metrics. These insights facilitate user segmentation based on age, location, gender and viewing behaviour, enabling the delivery of a highly personalised experience. This hyperpersonalisation minimises search fatigue and ensures users spend more time watching rather than searching for content.

OTT platforms leverage AI-driven analytics to optimise user experience by analysing peak viewing times, preferred genres and trending content. Real-time data enables effective content discovery, ensuring that users engage with relevant programming, ultimately increasing retention rates. On an average, users spend 17 hours per week streaming online video content on OTT platforms.

AI-powered content recommendations

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) help in refining content recommendations. Unlike traditional AI and ML, algorithms go beyond basic filtering by considering contexts such as seasonality, trending topics and cultural preferences.

AI-driven analytics also enhance user engagement through targeted promotions. This approach ensures timely engagement and increases the likelihood of users tuning in for related content.

Contextual advertising is another area where AI is revolutionising OTT experiences. Similarly, regional customisation enables advertisers to tailor content based on a user’s location, ensuring localised promotions are more effective.

Optimising content libraries for diverse

Data analytics helps OTT platforms manage their content libraries more efficiently. Instead of offering a static menu, platforms use behavioural data to dynamically curate and promote content based on user preferences and regional trends. This ensures that users are exposed to content they are likely to enjoy, thereby increasing watch time and engagement. By leveraging these insights, OTT platforms can optimise content placement and ensure relevant content is easily accessible to the right audience.

Additionally, analytics plays a pivotal role in content monetisation strategies. By tracking which content performs well in different geographies, OTT providers can make informed decisions about licensing, acquisitions and original content production.

Addressing challenges in AI-driven content personalisation

Despite advantages, AI-powered content recommendation systems come with inherent challenges. High-performance computing resources are essential to process large-scale data, making it a costly investment for smaller OTT players.

Another challenge is ensuring accuracy in recommendations. While AI algorithms are improving, they sometimes fail to capture nuanced preferences, leading to irrelevant suggestions. Additionally, automated translation and subtitling for international content can sometimes be inaccurate, affecting user experience.

OTT platforms must balance personalisation with data security by anonymising personally identifiable information and providing users with the choice to opt out of data collection. Leading platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video allow users to erase viewing history or disable personalised recommendations, ensuring compliance with global data protection regulations.

Future of customer experience in OTT

The future of OTT platforms lies in delivering seamless and hyperpersonalised user experiences. With advancements in AI and analytics, customer engagement will continue to be a defining factor for the platform’s competitiveness. The ability to accurately segment users, predict preferences and offer highly tailored recommendations will determine an OTT platform’s success in an increasingly crowded market.

Moreover, with evolving content consumption trends and the growing demand for localised and interactive experiences, OTT platforms must invest in robust analytics frameworks. This will not only drive viewer retention but also create new monetisation opportunities through targeted advertising and content syndication. Notably, over 70 per cent of the OTT users engage in binge-watching behaviour, highlighting the importance of continuous content engagement strategies. Leading OTT platforms boast a retention rate of approximately 70 per cent over six months, reflecting a strong viewer loyalty and satisfaction.

In an era where content is king, data-driven decision-making is the key to unlocking superior customer experiences on OTT. The more sophisticated and refined an analytics engine is, the greater the ability to cater to diverse audience preferences, ensuring sustained growth and engagement in the digital entertainment industry.