Why Video ROI Is Falling (And How to Stay on the Right Side)

For a decade, the video marketing pitch was simple: make more video, get more results. The data backed it up — year after year, the share of marketers reporting good ROI from video climbed steadily, peaking at a record 93% in 2025.

Then in 2026, it fell to 82%.

That’s not a rounding error. It’s the sharpest single-year drop since tracking began, and it happened in a year when 91% of businesses were using video and 92% planned to spend the same or more on it. More people making more video — and a meaningful slice of them getting less back.

Understanding why matters, because the answer isn’t “stop making video.” It’s that the bar has moved, and a lot of production is now being made below it.

What actually changed

The most credible explanation is the least comfortable one: more teams producing video means more teams producing mediocre video.

When video was a differentiator, simply showing up with a decent film put you ahead. Now that it’s the default format — 76% of teams publish at least one video a month — showing up isn’t the advantage. The feed is saturated, attention is contested, and audiences have become fluent enough to skip anything that feels like filler within two seconds.

There’s a second factor: production has been decoupled from strategy. Almost 40% of companies spent under £5,000 on video last year, and 59% now make it entirely in-house. That’s not inherently bad — but it often means video gets briefed as an output (“we need a reel this week”) rather than as an answer to a commercial question (“what’s stopping people booking, and what would unstick them?”).

The polish myth — and the part people get wrong

Here’s where it gets counterintuitive, and where a lot of agencies would rather not look closely.

Wistia’s research found audiences willingly watch — and often prefer — low-budget content, including plain talking-head videos, when the information is genuinely useful. Separately, studies of destination marketing found that content answering specific traveller questions (“what’s the best time to visit”, “is it worth it with kids”) consistently outperforms polished brand campaigns on both engagement and search discoverability.

The lazy reading of that is “production value doesn’t matter, just film it on a phone.”

The accurate reading is different: production value doesn’t rescue a weak idea. A beautifully shot film with nothing to say still has nothing to say. But a strong, well-briefed idea does get amplified by craft — and that amplification is exactly where the remaining ROI is concentrated.

Academic work on tourism video backs this up. Research published in 2025 found that the content characteristics driving travel intent were informational, entertaining, emotional and — crucially — authentic content. Authenticity was singled out as the under-researched differentiator: whether what’s on screen actually matches the real experience. That’s not a budget question. It’s a briefing and direction question.

So the split isn’t cheap vs. expensive. It’s purposeful vs. decorative.

Where video still delivers

Strip out the noise and video’s fundamentals remain strong:

Video isn’t optional — it’s just no longer automatic.

Four ways to stay on the right side of the average

The uncomfortable conclusion

That drop from 93% to 82% isn’t a warning about video. It’s a warning about unbriefed video — content produced because the calendar demanded it, not because a commercial problem needed solving.

The organisations still reporting strong returns are doing the same things they did when ROI was at 93%: fewer, better-considered pieces; a clear job for each one; real craft applied to a real idea; and honest measurement afterwards.

That’s harder than filling a content calendar. It’s also the only part of video marketing that still reliably pays.

At Media House we produce broadcast-quality video for destinations, attractions and ambitious brands — starting from the commercial question, not the shot list. If your video output looks busy but your numbers don’t reflect it, get in touch and we’ll tell you plainly where the gap is.

Ready to put this into practice?

At Media House we turn strategy like this into measurable growth. Let’s talk about how it applies to your brand.

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