YouTube said Monday that it is expanding its video action campaigns to connected television platforms in order to make its ads on those platforms more shoppable.
Video action campaigns combine inventory from across Google and YouTube video partners, with CTV joining the mix Monday.
Director of product management for YouTube ads Romana Pawar said in a blog post Monday that more than 120 million people streamed YouTube or YouTube TV on their TV screens in December 2020.
She wrote, “To help consumers more easily learn about the products and services they’re interested in, we’re making YouTube ads on connected TVs more shoppable. Today, we’re expanding video action campaigns to CTVs to help advertisers drive more online sales or generate leads, and grow their business. With one-quarter of logged-in CTV viewers watching YouTube primarily on TVs, the living room is becoming an essential place for brands to drive incremental conversions with new audiences.”
Pawar said early tests of the option found that more than 90% of conversions coming from CTV would not have been reachable via mobile and desktop devices.
On the user experience side, when a viewer sees a video action campaign on their TV, a URL on the bottom of the screen will enable them to shop on the advertiser’s website via their desktop or mobile devices, without interrupting their viewing experience.
And on the advertiser side, the conversion lift beta was extended to TV screens to give brands actionable results in real-time on user actions such as purchases, sign-ups, website visits and other conversions.
Video action campaigns for TV screens are now globally available via Google Ads.