The clock is ticking for the beginning of the retail holiday season. This year, consumers remain ready to shop.

According to an August 2021 survey by Censuswide, US respondents stated that they planned to spend around 64% of their total holiday season budget online. This represents a huge opportunity (and challenge) for sellers. If you’re interested in increasing your sales, you should step up your game!

Surely, you plan to invest more on your marketing budget than usual this season. And who isn’t? Cost per impression and click are bound to increase. It’s important to consider the best options to reach your audiences, and get serious about formats that help to maximize the reach and impact of your message. One tool that has proven useful for us and our clients is TrueView for Shopping.

Why TrueView?

More than 92 percent of internet users from the United States used YouTube to watch videos online in the past year. In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, this trend remains extremely relevant.

One valuable lesson for advertisers is that it has been proven that users recall YouTube ads more often than other social networks overall. A survey made by Statista Global Consumer Survey in mid-2021, shows the following results:

Top 10 places where YouTube viewers in the U.S. have seen adverts

Source: Social networks, YouTube in the United States 2021 by Statista

In short, people exposed to ads on YouTube are more likely to remember those ads especially compared to other channels like Search Engines, Banners, or OOH advertising.

Now we have to ask ourselves, how can we maximize this impact? Thanks to TrueView for Shopping, YouTube viewers can now click through to see a brand’s products, allowing them to easily shop for the items that are already right in front of them. From this point, companies will be able to unlock the power of YouTube by adding an e-commerce layer to the content. It is a win-win combination.

How does it work?

TrueView displays clickable product cards that allow visitors to go directly to an advertiser’s website and shop. Product cards are optimized to use dynamic re-marketing technology, or advertisers can set filters to show relevant products from the visitor’s shopping cart. These functionalities work even if a user skips an ad.

Google’s machine-learning technology and audience-matching algorithms allow advertisers to dynamically display their products to the most relevant audiences.

Get Started!

Here’s a handy guide that will walk you through setting up your first TrueView shopping campaign ↓

1. Link Your Google Merchant Center Account to Google Ads
2. Create a product feed and choose which of your products you want to showcase in your videos
3. Prioritize products according to your business objectives; remember to focus your strategy on moving users forward through your funnel
4. Make sure that you are tracking the activity across your website

Consider these important points as you get started using TrueView:

• These are video campaigns first and shopping campaigns second. Keep in mind that TrueView displays these ads before YouTube users are necessarily looking to buy something. Be sure to monitor the engagement of your ads so you can optimize in order to build awareness AND drive sales. If you’re not sure where to start with this kind of experimentation, we’re happy to help!
• YouTube is one of the most popular platforms for posting review videos. We suggest using a strategy focused on whitelisting reviewers’ channels and TrueView for Shopping. This will allow you to connect the dots between the moment a person watches a video about your product, and the moment they decide to make a purchase. 

If you want to start the holiday season with an optimized digital sales process, contact our team at info@makingscience.com. We’re here to help!

Note: This format is only available in America within Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States.