Frank de Wit and Alexander Atzberger

team5pm, a data-driven social agency, has developed a systematic approach for creating videos that capture and maintain viewer attention. By combining entertainment industry expertise with sophisticated analytics, they’ve expanded from their initial startup to a 140-person operation with offices in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Warsaw, and Cape Town. Their technology platform, topictree, now guides brands in developing effective video content strategies and is available as a standalone tool.

From Entertainment to Analytics: The team5pm Story

Frank de Wit, co-founder and Managing Director of team5pm, brings an entertainment-first mindset to social media content creation. He notes that this mindset is “slightly” different from that of other social agencies with a track record or who have been “brought up” in the traditional advertising world.

Before establishing team5pm, Frank managed YouTube operations at EndemolShine (now Banijay), one of the world’s largest independent production companies, where he led 20-25 young creatives in developing digital formats and branded content. His co-founders came from RTL, the Netherlands’ biggest commercial broadcaster, where they managed social media channels for major TV formats.

This entertainment background shaped team5pm’s core philosophy: creating content audiences actively seek rather than content that interrupts them. “For us, it’s very strange that in the traditional advertising world, a lot of money and time has been spent creating content that has to be force-fed to people for them to want to watch it,” Frank notes. “We create content that people actually want to see.”

Major brands have responded positively to this approach. “We bring together strategy, creativity, production, distribution, and research under one roof,” Frank explains, adding that their background has prepared them for hundreds of thousands of views.

Data-Driven Content Creation

team5pm distinguishes itself through comprehensive data analysis in content strategy, with Frank noting that their currency is “watch time.” 

“We don’t want impressions or views,” he points out. “We want hours and hours of watch time for our content. And that’s how we measure the effectiveness of our assets.”

The company developed sophisticated data analysis capabilities, starting with YouTube’s analytics. “We always analyzed all the videos per second and how people got to this video, whether they clicked on the thumbnail or not, whether they clicked away, and if so, when and how to change that later,” Frank explains. We always use data to improve our content and to know what people want to see.”

This analytical approach extends beyond video metrics. “We combined search data on what people search for,” Frank notes. “If that’s an influencer, it could be a TV format, but also ‘how to create this dish, insulate my wall, or paint my bathroom tiles.’”

The methodology proved successful across multiple platforms, including TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram. “We find YouTube and TikTok very interesting because they focus on entertainment and are big search engines,” Frank explains. “YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. Over 20% of people who open their TikTok app open the search bar within 30 seconds.”

The Development of topictree

topictree, team5pm’s technology platform, emerged from a client challenge five years ago. A major paint brand noticed their website traffic shifting to YouTube and sought an understanding of this trend.

“We got a question from a client that said, ‘Hey, you’re a YouTube agency, right?'” Frank recalls. “‘Maybe you can help me because I see that a lot of the traffic that I used to get on my landing pages on my website is now going to YouTube, and I don’t want that because I wanted to have it on my website.'”

The team5pm team discovered Google increasingly ranked YouTube videos above traditional landing pages for how-to searches. These top-ranking videos often came from small creators rather than established brands. 

“They were not competing against another paint brand,” Frank explains. “They were competing against a local painter close to Amsterdam, the creator of which had a little paint shop and, by coincidence, launched a video eight years ago.”

This discovery prompted extensive research into video ranking factors. “We developed a way of attaching search keywords to viewing behavior,” Frank explains. “We researched the whole ‘Paint’ domain for keywords. And if a keyword is being put in, what video is ranking, and how long is that video? What tags does it have? Does it have subtitles? Does it star a person?”

How topictree Works

topictree has matured into a comprehensive platform used by agencies and brands worldwide. Alexander Atzberger, International Partnerships Lead at topictree, outlines the platform’s main components:

“topictree has two main functionalities,” Alexander explains. “One tool helps you in the research part, enabling your clients and agencies to understand what content to create. And then the Rank Tracker is where you create the video, track the performance, and make adjustments.”

The platform uses a structured approach to content planning. “Think of a triangle,” Alexander explains. “Let’s say Walmart has multiple categories. One would be ‘kitchen appliances’ and ‘pet foods.’ Under the ‘kitchen’ and ‘plant’ categories, we have the ‘air fryer’ as a topic, and of course, all the categories are consistent with multiple topics there.”

This methodology helps brands identify opportunities. “What we always love to see is a situation with high search intent,” Alexander notes. Many people are looking for air fryers, but the rankings of the videos currently on YouTube and TikTok do not yet reflect the content they quite want.”

Real-Time Performance Tracking with Rank Tracker

Launched six months ago, Rank Tracker monitors video performance across platforms daily to address the challenges of manual performance monitoring; it’s the first tool to track TikTok rankings, Frank notes. “If you know a TikTok rank tracker, let us know. But we haven’t found it yet.”

Rank Tracker provides comprehensive performance insights through several features:

Share of Views Analysis

The platform measures metrics like “share of views,” showing the percentage of total views a brand captures for specific keywords. “If you have a 60% share of views within ‘air fryer,’ that indicates that you have the best video content so far on air fryers,” Alexander explains. “And the cool thing is TopicTree tracks it daily, so you can see any new first movers coming in. You can track competition fast and make adjustments.”

Competitive Intelligence

Frank reveals that this feature is “very helpful” when analyzing competition. You don’t have to search for yourself in the apps; you can just stay in TopicTree, and there are links to all the videos of your competition,” he adds.

Organic vs. Paid Performance

The platform emphasizes organic performance for sustainable traffic growth. “If you see your competition has a sudden spike in views that also really quickly indicates, you immediately suspect they boosted their video content with ads,” Alexander notes. “Our platform is only focused on organic traffic. We want to create lasting traffic that ranks over time.”

The platform updates consistently. “On Topic Finder, it’s ingested every month, but you have to imagine it’s Google, TikTok, and YouTube. So it’s three times a month and then on Rank Tracker daily, Alexander explains.

Strategic Applications

Rank Tracker enables data-driven content strategy decisions. “You can change your strategy a bit to get live feedback,” Alexander notes. 

The tool identifies patterns in successful content: “Maybe the question format or the person in the video is not right. Are the subtitles perhaps missing?”

The tool proves valuable for demonstrating ROI to management. As Frank explains, “If an old-fashioned CMO asks, ‘What are you doing on TikTok the whole day, and why do I have to spend my money there?’ Well, because you can now have a share of voice of 50% within ‘kitchen appliances.’ That’s why.”

The Potential of Social Commerce

As social media platforms advance, team5pm sees social commerce as a significant opportunity. “I think the U.S. is already a little bit further, but social commerce will have a huge impact on the creator economy,” Frank predicts. “I think the next KPI for creators is selling power. Can you sell or not?”

The company plans to integrate commerce metrics into topictree’s analytics, though Frank acknowledges the technical challenges. It’s difficult because you probably need integrations with other [platforms], but the more social commerce evolves, the more the platforms will take care of this. Then we’ll see something exciting happen.”

For brands and agencies enhancing their video marketing, Frank emphasizes balancing data with creativity: “You can have the right data, and you can analyze it till you’re 80, but if you don’t do [something] with it and don’t make something creative that people want to see then you won’t have an effective asset in the end. With data alone, we’re not getting anywhere. Stay creative, especially in these times.”