Zach EttenThe large quantity of user and advertiser generated how-to videos available on YouTube has helped it become one of the most-surfed learning resource centers on the web. How often have you found yourself watching a tutorial on how to recreate the season’s hottest make-up styles or perusing tips for cooking the perfect omelet?
Instructional videos make these tasks easier to accomplish, but now, AdWords is streamlining the process even further and providing major benefits for brands.
YouTube TrueView for shopping provides a new way for advertisers to promote their products via online videos. Before, viewers had to watch the video and then make the conscious step to seek out the showcased product elsewhere on the web in order to make a purchase.
With TrueView for shopping, AdWords and YouTube are helping to connect those dots. The new systems allows viewers to purchase the video’s featured products with just a few simple clicks.
A YouTube “ad card” showing products based on the played video
By presenting people with the option to purchase while they’re watching the video, advertisers can capitalize on the viewer’s sudden impulses and desires.
By presenting people with the option to purchase while they’re watching the video, advertisers can capitalize on the viewer’s sudden impulses and desires. It’s also well known that approximately 50 percent of all views on YouTube come from mobile, so TrueView for shopping is available across phones, desktops, tablets and other mobile devices.
The Goals and Benefits of TrueView for Shopping
Several retailers with an online presence have begun using TrueView for Shopping as a way to drive interest to their catalog of products. By creating direct response messaging and integrating their products directly into branded content, they’ve seen growth in traffic, revenue and average video view times.
Overall Goals:
- Increase audience engagement and promote interactivity surrounding branded, advertiser-generated content on YouTube.
- Drive revenue, conversions and sales through the dynamic integration of select products via the Google Merchant Center feed.
Tactical Approach:
- Online retailers can use “how-to” video content to engage viewers on the YouTube platform.
- Retailers can use previous Ecommerce experience, demographic details and targeted products for their video content by using the new TrueView for shopping platform on YouTube.
How does TrueView for shopping work?
Last month, Google announced a new cards platform that will introduce interactive features for those viewing videos online. For the first time ever, the Google Merchant Center allows advertisers to connect products to their in-stream videos.
With the help of demographic details and geographic targeting, AdWords can ensure that the most relevant products are presented to the viewer at the time that the video is played, thus resulting in increased click-through rates and conversions. Brands will easily connect their campaigns to their Merchant Center feeds, and select the products that they wish to present to different segments of viewers.
TrueView creates a user-focused shopping experience, and a true direct response layer to their existing advertising campaigns.
TrueView creates a user-focused shopping experience, and a true direct response layer to their existing advertising campaigns. After watching videos, viewers can click through to a number of products, which have been dynamically added using the Google Merchant Center feed.
This card technology can utilize the same kinds of data captured through dynamic remarketing campaigns, or advertisers can select their own filters to ensure that only the most relevant products are presented to different potential customers.
Beauty retailers like Sephora have seen significant increases in traffic and interest as a result of the new function.
The new ad format helped drive an 80 percent lift in consideration and a 54 percent lift in ad recall, plus increased average video view times of nearly two minutes. Because viewers were already searching the web for beauty tutorials, TrueView presented a distinct opportunity to drive sales and branding for the retailer.
A Sephora video with Kat Von D showcasing relevant products during streaming
The new ad format helped drive an 80 percent lift in consideration and a 54 percent lift in ad recall, plus increased average video view times of nearly two minutes.
Wayfair, a multi-department food and home goods retailer, saw three times their typical revenue performance versus similar campaigns as a result of using the new TrueView ad format.
Currently featuring more than 7-million products from than 7,000 suppliers, Wayfair saw a distinct opportunity to drive interest by producing how-to content and linking those videos with products of interest. This new technology helps to drive interest, engagement and revenue, resulting in stronger brand recognition and better sales overall.
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