Youtube brings products to YouTube for action ads

YouTube says the number of advertisers using TrueView for action, the ads designed for performance advertisers with calls-to-action, increased by more than 260% last year. Now it’s bringing product selection to these ads.

Shoppable TrueView for action. In a new test, ecomm-erce advertisers can show products in their TrueView for action ads. When the users click on the expansion arrow in a TrueView for action banner, a selection of products appears below the video.

This test essentially merges the TrueView for action banner with the product listings of TrueView for shoppinng ads. You’ll need to have your Google Merchant Center account linked to your Google Ads account.

Why we care. Last year, Google extended Shopping campaigns to the YouTube home feed and search results. With e-commerce booming and Facebook/Instagram and Amazon leading the charge in challenging Google and YouTube for retail ad dollars, we can expect to see even more happening in shoppable media and digital commerce marketing.

Video action campaigns. The new Video action campaign subtype, also announced Thursday, will show video ads across the YouTube home feed, watch pages and Google video partners inventory. New inventory sources will be added to the campaign type automatically.

This fits the mold of Google’s other automated campaign types that use machine learning to serve ads across multiple inventory sources.