YouTube introduces shopping ads
YouTube has announced that it will be rolling out "shopping" ads over the next few months in a move to boost its e-commerce credentials. This is not YouTube's first move into this area, they introduced Cards earlier this year which provided a way to share product information directly within video across all screens, and then they launched TrueView for shopping, this﻿ allows advertisers to automatically turn their Google merchant data into product cards. Google has said that this function will run with an auction model, targeting ads relevant to the user and the video that they are watching, advertisers will only pay when a viewer clicks through to their website.    

YouTube might be about to look more like Home Shopping Network or QVC.

The Google-owned video site’s new “Shopping” ads, to be rolled out over the next few months, will let advertisers buy click-to-buy ad overlays within partner videos, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced at an Advertising Week event in New York.

Companies have long had the ability to insert clickable ads over their own YouTube videos. But the new feature will help marketers expand their e-commerce reach to “product-focused content on YouTube,” like unboxings — a highly popular category on the service — as well as product reviews and how-to videos, YouTube director of video ads product management Diya Jolly wrote in a blog post about the new feature.

As a result, advertisers can go “beyond your own videos to transform any relevant video into your digital storefront,” Jolly wrote. And, as with Google’s Shopping ads, advertisers will pay only when a user clicks on the ad.

Individual creators who opt in to Shoppable ads will be able to potentially reap additional revenue for product-oriented videos, Jolly added, in addition to standard preroll ads on the site.

The launch of the shopping-enabled ads on YouTube comes after the service earlier this year launched Cards, which provide a way to share product information directly within videos across all screens, and TrueView for shopping, which lets advertisers connect a Google Merchant Center feed to a TrueView campaign to dynamically insert product cards within in-stream ads.

Meanwhile, YouTube also launched TrueView for app promotion for its in-display ad format; that’s aimed at users when they’re exploring content on YouTube. And it is enabling app-promotion ads in the dedicated YouTube Gaming app, and in the next few months will offer the ability to bid by cost-per-install.

In addition, Google has introduced a new ad-targeting product, Customer Match, which can deliver ads across Google Search, YouTube and Gmail. That can let an advertiser reach prospective customers across YouTube and Gmail based on interests and characteristics of its existing customer base, according to Google.