YouTube is adding a new eCommerce ad unit, and a new way to maximize your video campaigns, in order to help marketers capitalize on the rise of online video.

First off, YouTube is adding new eCommerce products listings beneath video ads, in order to help guide viewers to specific products from your catalog.

As explained by YouTube:

“To help businesses establish a stronger eCommerce presence, we’re experimenting with a new way to make your actionable video ads more shoppable – complementing your ad with browsable product imagery to inspire the next purchase.”

As you can see in the example above, the option will display products from your catalog below the video ad while it plays.

The process is largely automated – eligible advertisers will be able to sync their Google Merchant Center feed to their video ads. Merchants will also, eventually, be able to expand the call-to-action button on each product displayed, putting more emphasis on specific listings.

With eCommerce on the rise during the lockdowns, many predict that those trends will hold, exacerbating the steady trend towards online shopping. That could lead to a range of new opportunities – and with Facebook also adding shops to Facebook and Instagram, and in-stream buying options in its messaging apps, it’s very likely that more consumers will become increasingly habitual online shoppers.

Catering to this makes sense, and YouTube is working to align with the trend here.

In addition to this, YouTube’s also launching new ‘Video Action Campaigns’ which will provide “a simple and cost-effective way to drive more conversions across YouTube”.

Video Action Campaigns will automatically distribute video ads “that drive action” to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partners, all within a single campaign.

“To make it even simpler, we’ll include any future inventory that becomes available, like the What to Watch Next feed. This way you can save time to focus on strategic initiatives like crafting the right creative and messaging for your audiences.”

The option will reduce your targeting options, while making it easier to maximize reach for your best performing video ad efforts.

How effective that will be is impossible to say, but you’re essentially putting trust in YouTube’s systems to display your content to increasingly viable audiences, in order to maximize response. 

Adding to this, Google also says that it’s also adding YouTube to its Google Ads attribution reports, which will provide more insight into how you should be allocating your ad budget to maximize performance across the various options. 

This will enable more transparency over your Google ads campaigns, while the new ad tools add more options to consider in your digital marketing outreach.

You can read more about the latest Google/YouTube ads additions here.