YouTube TrueView Ads To Become Shoppable

Following the announcement of its Buy button, Google will make YouTube ads shoppable as well, Business Insider reported yesterday.

Unlike the Buy button, however, TrueView For Shopping will link to the brand’s website, rather than allowing consumers to make purchases directly from videos. The new feature will allow advertisers to list products alongside or within their video ads, playing off Cards, which the video powerhouse introduced last month.

With Cards, TrueView advertisers create pop-up annotations and include additional information about merchandise, fundraisers, playlists and associated websites. TrueView For Shopping will be powered by the same technology behind Google Shopping, which adds product links automatically.

Beta testers include Wayfair and Sephora, both of whom saw positive results. Wayfair, a furniture-based e-commerce site, tripled its revenue per impression, while Sephora experienced more than 54 percent lift in ad recall and an average viewing time of nearly two minutes.

The pricing structure will follow Cards, which means that YouTube will charge for either a click or a full view. When TrueView ads were launched five years ago, advertisers were only charged if viewers watched at least 30 seconds of their video.

TrueView For Shopping, which is optimized for both desktop and mobile, will roll out in the next few months.