How Lumen5 maximizes ROI and drives customer value with Storyblocks

Lumen5, a leading video creation platform, empowers businesses and creators to produce engaging content effortlessly. Under the leadership of Kaegan Donnelly, Head of Product, Lumen5 continues to innovate to deliver exceptional value to their users. A key part of their strategy involves offering their users diverse and high-quality stock media options. 

Initially relying on Unsplash for stock media, Lumen5 sought a more cost-effective solution 
to scale their business and meet growing customer demands. In 2017, they partnered with Storyblocks as their stock media provider, integrating its API to enhance their platform with reliable and high-quality media. Later, Lumen5 expanded their offerings further by adding Shutterstock to their portfolio, complementing Storyblocks with additional media options.

By integrating with Storyblocks, Lumen5 can deliver speed and efficiency to their users, harnessing AI-powered recommendations and the Storyblocks API to help users create tens of thousands of videos per day on their platform.

How the API and AI recommendations work

Lumen5’s integration with Storyblocks exemplifies how AI and metadata can streamline workflows. Using Storyblocks’ reliable API and comprehensive metadata, Lumen5’s recommendation engine identifies and surfaces the most relevant stock media assets for users. This approach saves users time and enhances the overall video creation experience.

The Storyblocks API is very dependable and seamlessly integrates with our platform. The licensing has also been solid, providing a consistent and reliable experience for our users.

Kaegan Donnelly

Head of Product, Lumen5

Quality stock media recommendations

Stock media has become essential for modern video editing platforms. To stand out, Lumen5 focuses on delivering high-quality media recommendations that save users time. With millions of stock assets available, Lumen5’s AI constantly refines their recommendations to improve their replacement rate – a key metric that measures how often users accept the first suggested media.

“One of the big metrics we look at is the replacement rate. When we recommend media, we track how often users need to choose a different piece. Reducing the time spent on this process has been a major focus.” – Kaegan Donnelly

This ongoing improvement has led to a significant reduction in editing time: users now spend 30–40% less time editing their videos compared to a year ago.

Cost-effective scaling with Storyblocks

Lumen5 absorbs the cost of stock media assets used by their users, so cost efficiency is a critical factor in selecting partners. Storyblocks’ unlimited model offers a significant advantage over per-asset pricing, particularly at scale.

In some cases, a Shutterstock asset might be selected; in others, it might be a Storyblocks asset. It depends on relevance and quality. However, the majority of published videos across all of our users overwhelmingly feature Storyblocks assets. – Kaegan Donnelly

Driving freemium conversions and ROI

Storyblocks plays a key role in Lumen5’s freemium offering, ensuring that even users on free plans have access to high-quality, licensed media. This has led to an exceptional user experience that drives conversions. “Some of our users can’t even believe that the Storyblocks assets are free and licensed to them, especially on the free plan,” Donnelly explains. “They ask, ‘I can use this? Put this on YouTube? Make money off of this?’”

This positive first impression helps new users reach their “aha moment” faster, which has had a measurable impact on Lumen5’s acquisition metrics. “We look at how long it takes new users to reach that aha moment. The fewer edits they need to make, the more likely they are to be impressed by the first video we show them. Our success here has been most notable in our acquisition numbers,” says Donnelly.

The strong performance of Storyblocks assets allows Lumen5 to provide exceptional value across all tiers. Storyblocks has been a cornerstone of Lumen5’s stock media strategy, offering a compelling blend of cost-efficiency, reliability, and quality.

“We’ve seen positive ROI from our Storyblocks integration for sure. This is why we’ve been working together since 2017. Storyblocks provides so much value to us.” – Kaegan Donnelly

Conclusion

By combining Storyblocks’ reliable API, unlimited licensing model, and extensive media library with their AI-driven recommendation engine, Lumen5 has created a streamlined, value-packed experience for users. This partnership has not only delivered strong ROI but also reinforced Lumen5’s position as a growing leader in the video creation space.