YouTube making ads on connected TVs more shoppable

YouTube announced on Monday that it’s expanding video action campaigns (one of Google’s interactive ad types for video) to connected televisions (CTV) to make YouTube ads more shoppable. The company says this new move will help advertisers drive more online sales and grow their businesses.

For context, when viewers see a video action campaign on their TV, they are invited through a URL at the bottom of their screen to continue shopping on the brand’s website from their desktop or mobile device. All of this is done without interrupting users’ viewing sessions.

“With a quarter of logged-in YouTube CTV viewers watching primarily on TVs, the living room is becoming an essential place for brands to drive incremental conversions with new audiences. In early experiments for video action campaigns on TV screens, over 90 percent of conversions coming from CTV would not have been reachable on mobile and desktop devices,” said Romana Pawar, the director of product management for YouTube ads, in a blog post.

Pawar notes that more people are choosing to view YouTube on the big screen, as more than 120 million people streamed YouTube or YouTube TV on their TVs last year in December in the U.S. Further, Pawar outlined that businesses with the goal of driving online sales should use video action campaigns in order to find new customers in a single campaign by combining inventory from across YouTube and Google video partners.

“For the first time, performance advertisers can take advantage of YouTube on CTV to drive and measure conversions,” Pawar outlined in the blog post. “Video action campaigns on TV screens are now globally available through Google Ads.”

Google first announced its plans to make its connected TV ads more shoppable earlier this year in May. Consumers, particularly younger users, like to watch videos and engage while they shop. As a result, YouTube and other platforms like Facebook and Instagram have invested in live shopping and video-based shopping features.

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