Whether it’s watching a product review or learning how to bake a soufflé, we look to video in countless moments throughout to the day to help us get things done. We call these micro-moments – when we reflexively turn to our devices to learn more, make a decision, or purchase a product. To connect the dots between the moment a person watches a video and the moment they decide to make a purchase, today we’re introducing a new feature called TrueView for shopping that makes it easy for viewers to get more information on your products and click to buy.

TrueView for shopping allows you to showcase product details and images – along with the ability to click to purchase from a brand or retail site – all within your video ad. It’s available for TrueView in-stream video ads on YouTube. And since we know that 50% of views on YouTube come from mobile devices, we’ve made sure that it works seamlessly across mobile phones, desktops, and tablets.

Built on the cards platform we announced last month, TrueView for shopping enables advertisers to scale the manual process of connecting individual products with individual videos. Thanks to the first-ever integration of the Google Merchant Center into video ads, advertisers need only connect their campaign with a Merchant Center feed to dynamically add products to their in-stream videos, customized for each user through contextual and audience signals like geography and demographic info.

Brands that have participated in our early tests of TrueView for shopping have seen strong results for driving interest and sales. Online home goods retailer Wayfair, for instance, saw a 3X revenue increase per impression served when compared to previous campaigns. And beauty retailer Sephora took advantage of this new ad format to drive +80% lift in consideration and +54% lift in ad recall, and an average view time of nearly two minutes.

We’re excited to bring TrueView for shopping into our buying front end in the coming months. If you’d like to get started with TrueView for shopping today, please contact your Google account manager.

Posted by
Avi Fein, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Pete Lidwell, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Jean-Yves Delort, Technical Lead, YouTube Ads