Let's play a quick game. The scoring is simple and you get one point for every time you've ever been bombarded by a way-too-loud autoplay video after landing on a website. I'll throw in an extra bonus point for every time it happened while you were on a crowded bus or laying in bed with your partner. What's your score? Mine is 254,867. Give or take a few points...

Video Content is Important

Video is high-impact content that generates results. And I mean real results: Users spend an average of 88% more time on a website when it has video and retain 95% of the message when they see it in video form (compared to just 10% when reading it in text). As marketers, we all know it works.

Plus, as connectivity improves and visitors are able to access content more easily, video consumption will increase as well, reaching 80% of total consumer internet traffic by 2019.

How to do Video Wrong

But as great as video is, it's easy to mess up the execution. The Internet is all about choice; giving someone a choice on whether or not they want to view a video establishes your respect for them and improves the entire user experience of your website. Consider the following autoplay scenarios:

1. A user has a very slow connection and the video starts, freezes, and restarts, before it has been cached enough to play completely.

2. A user has multiple tabs open and is browsing on another tab when the video loads and autoplays on an inactive tab in the background.

3. A user is not expecting autoplay video and the sudden playback of sound is very annoying.

Autoplay video has become so abused by aggressive marketers that we are now starting to see the first official push-back.

Chrome Eliminates Autoplay

Starting in January 2018, Google Chrome will block autoplay video. As the single largest browser in the world (59% marketshare as of publication) this is likely to have a huge impact on marketers who rely on this practice.

Beginning with Chrome 64, autoplay will only be allowed when the video in question is muted or when a "user has indicated an interest in the media."

Guess which autoplay videos will get blocked the most after this update? Probably the ones made by marketing teams. So what does this mean for marketers?

Video Marketing Best Practices

It's really pretty simply: Disable autoplay and make your play button obvious and prominent. [please read the final section below]

Devil's Advocate

Different audiences will respond differently to different video strategies. Some B2B marketers claim that autoplay video generates a significant lift for them when utilized properly. As always, my professional advice is to A/B test landing pages when relying on video content to drive conversions.