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Visual Commerce
YOUTUBE FOR COMMERCEMaximizing Visual Commerce ROI with a
YouTube + Online Video Platform Hybrid Solution
by Grant Crowell
Sponsored by:
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Executive Summary 3
Introduction 4
The YouTube Problem 5
The Solution: A Hybrid Platform Strategy 7
YouTube + OVP = Video ROI 13
About 14
Sources 15
Table of Contents
2
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INTRODUCTIONExecutive SummaryIts easy for a retailer or brand to
get a few videos online by posting them to YouTube. Embedding the
YouTube player on your own website seems like the next logical
step. But ease of use comes with trade-offs. The YouTube approach
offers less flexibility in merchandising videos in a way that suits
your own brand image and needs. Google may direct users who find
your videos through web search to YouTube rather than to your own
site. And in many implementations visitors can leave your site by
clicking on the YouTube logo in the embedded player, costing you
traffic. These trade-offs are driven by the fact that YouTubes
business model and branding needs arent always aligned with
yours.
Adopting a hybrid YouTube + online video platform approach is
the key to ROI. It combines the strengths of YouTubes reach with
the site merchandising power, ability to manage scale, and player
analytics of a professional video platform. Integrating YouTube and
an online video platform in a fully connected customer journey will
provide retailers and brands with the best of both worlds.
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INTRODUCTIONIntroductionYouTube has evolved from a platform
mostly reserved for personal videos and entertainment/media, to a
viable advertising-driven business model, to the most widely used
video platform by businesses worldwide.
Total YouTube Views for retailers in 2013: 29MM up 44.8% from
the previous year 1
442 Top 500 retailers are active on YouTube2
89% of the top 100 retailers have video, 72% at the product page
level3
Businesses want users to be able to directly, and easily, go
from YouTube to a product page or landing page. They also want to
be able to track and measure the traffic performance from YouTube.
This especially matters to retailers, whose referral traffic
depends largely on end-of-funnel purchases and other
transactions.
If youre in a business looking to use video to drive sales and
ROI goals, chances are youve heard these assumptions about YouTube
from your colleagues:
Only-Tube: Why cant I just use YouTube to host videos on my
site?
No-Tube: YouTube cannibalizes my site traffic!
Tube-tied: YouTube is just for visibility, not for actual sales,
right?
This eBook will explain how retailers can most effectively bring
website traffic and convert customers by integrating YouTube into a
supporting role with a professional online video platform.
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INTRODUCTIONThe YouTube ProblemMost companies today still arent
sure how to use YouTube to deliver traffic and sales, while
avoiding pitfalls that can cost traffic and customers. Instead,
they make one or more of the following mistakes:
They dont realize YouTube-indexed videos often go to a YouTube
channel, and not directly to their own website
They dont realize they can get the videos indexed in a way that
delivers traffic directly to their product pages or other important
locations
They allow YouTubes embedded player to compromise their branding
and customer experience
They risk losing traffic by allowing viewers to click through to
YouTube from the embedded player
Not Designed for Commerce
A YouTube-only video strategy is not nearly enough for
retailers. While YouTube has the best reach, its not designed for
selling, or tracking sales in real-time transactions. It lacks the
site merchandising power and the analytics power that a
professional video commerce player has, which retailers and brands
ultimately need.
No E-Commerce Metrics
Retailers can learn a lot about how shoppers engage with their
videos from YouTubes metrics. However, YouTubes analytics cant
measure video influence on purchase behavior or provide A/B test
data to prove that the sales are incremental.
Additionally, YouTubes analytics cant tie conversions to
specific points or actions in a video. This can be critical for
understanding what makes a video truly effective in driving
purchase behavior. By understanding whats shown on the screen right
before visitors click Add to Cart, retailers can identify what
elements of the video drive purchase. That lets retailers create
videos that are engineered to drive sales.
Retailers need this type of actionable data to not only prove
video works for them, but to grow and optimize their video programs
for the best possible ROI.
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Can Cannibalize Your Traffic
Having content on YouTube is a necessity for most companies, but
putting YouTube players on your own website can be dangerous. Not
only do you cede your intellectual property to Google, you risk
that the player will be blocked by lots of corporate firewalls, and
introduce the threat of competitive content.
As if that wasnt enough to be concerned about, the YouTube logo
was purposely made to show up prominently in the video player,
which the viewer can click and go back to the YouTube website.
Plus, YouTubes overall branding and playback experience will
automatically carry over to your site. Changing any of this
requires an investment in development either with YouTube itself or
with someone familiar with YouTubes APIs.
If you only post content to YouTube, then you are driving SEO
traffic to YouTube, and not to your site.
Serious E-Commerce & Marketing Limitations
Latency / Bandwidth
Cannibalization (takes traffic away from your site)
Limited analytics
Limited control over the site experience
Multiple competitors invading your YouTube channel and watch
pages
No video switching (i.e., cant switch out an older video for a
newer one at the same URL)
No A/B testing (without paid advertising)
No automated product publishing
No custom URLs
Video-Only, Not Visual Commerce
Although this eBook is about video, major brands are quickly
adding additional types of visual content: guided walk-throughs,
spin photography, 3D elements, and blended interactive experiences.
YouTube is likely to remain video-only for the forseeable future.
In fairness, the same can be said of most online video platforms.
However, some providers are beginning to offer a fuller range of
visual experiences through a single platform.
6
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INTRODUCTIONThe Solution: A Hybrid Platform StrategyRetailers
should use both YouTube and a professional online video platform.
YouTube should be an important part of your video commerce
strategy, but also be geared for a top-of-funnel marketing strategy
towards bringing people to your site.
Online Video Platform For Commerce, Explained
An online video platform or OVP, is a provider that offers a
software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform dedicated to manage, display,
and measure the impact of video content. Providers offers hosting,
encoding, customizable players, and detailed statistics to help you
maximize the effectiveness of your video.
There are many OVPs, from enterprise-class to
small-business-focused. However, many are designed for broadcasters
and publishers. Youll want to focus your efforts on the online
video platforms that are built for the needs of online merchants,
which typically include features such as conversion tracking, video
influence measurement, SEO features, and automated product page
publishing.
There are online video platforms targeted for starter video
programs to the enterprise level, manual to fully-automated, SEO to
engagement to direct transaction, single product to hundreds of
thousands. The more established platforms offer full-service
solutions that include: strategic planning, video production,
metadata collection, API development, syndicated content, multiple
distribution channels, multichannel engagement and e-commerce
analytics, audience feedback, and dedicated customer support from
technical specialists.
OVP usage is growing across retailers. According to the IR 2014
Top 500 Guide, 312 out of 500 have some sort of rich media solution
in place. (Rich media includes video.)
Host Your Website Videos on an Online Video Platform
Ultimately, the retailer should focus first on putting their
videos especially product page videos on their own website and
optimizing those videos; thats in regards to SEO and overall
visibility effort. It certainly is to the e-commerce retailers
benefit when someone is doing a search, find a product video from
that business and end up on their own website and not on YouTube. -
Mark Robertson, Publisher of ReelSEO.
Why a Hybrid Video Platform Strategy?
A hybrid video platform strategy combines the best elements of
each YouTubes reach and community, and the analytics and site
merchandising capabilities of an online video platform. Think of
this as a Host and Post strategy: Host for your website videos, and
Post for videos on YouTube.
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HOST + POST Works Best for Retailers
The old mentality was about cannibalization and separation. But
its not a versus, and its not an either-or like many retailers have
been misled into believing. Today its all about augmentation,
customization, and integration. You should do both: Host and
Post.
Leading video SEO experts like ReelSEO Publisher Mark Robertson
agree that retailers gain a considerable advantage in putting up
videos on both YouTube and their website. Ive found that to be much
more likely to yield huge benefits, and will also help mitigate
some of the potential out-rankings that YouTube videos could have
on your own website.
Bridge the Customer Journey
YouTube is strongest when used as a top-of-funnel tool in the
customer journey, using reach to raise awareness with new customers
and move them towards consideration. An online video platform is
strongest as a mid-to-end-funnel strategy in the customer journey,
moving customers from consideration through purchase.
YouTube is only effective for e-commerce when it leads shoppers
to the next stage in the customer journey, and not leaving shoppers
hanging.
YouTube video, whether video viewed on YouTube watch pages on an
embedded player, should guide shoppers to the next stage in their
journey: your website. For best relevance, take them to a product
page or other landing page where they can make a purchase and/or
learn more. The key is to set a bridge for their path.
8
SALE
SITE COVERAGE
PURCHASE
CONSIDERATION
AWARENESS
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Think Program, Not Platforms
A strategic video program is built around business objectives,
not tools or platforms. When reach and awareness is the objective,
YouTube is often the right tool. However, those arent the only
goals: on-site engagement, conversion, and customer experience are
important as well. A program incorporating an online video platform
has many advantages for e-commerce marketing over a YouTube-only
video program.
Not every online video platform offers all of the benefits
below, as not all players are engineered for commerce, so its
important to look carefully at the capabilities of your
platform.
Better video quality
In-player site merchandising power
Better player customization (size, location, style) geared for
e-commerce and white labeling so you avoid having your site traffic
cannibalized
Videos indexed directly to your domain, dropping visitors from
search engines directly to the product page or other desired
location
E-commerce specific tools (e.g, built-in A/B testing, automatic
product page publishing)
Custom call-to-action links on video overlay and other
interactive elements that can provide in-video shopping or
otherwise make a video shoppable
Dedicated customer support
Multiple SEO boost: Indexing your website product pages
featuring your OVP videos for some searches and YouTube watch pages
for others
Better analytics through the entire customer funnel from views
and time watched and other engagement KPIs, all the way to purchase
and sales KPIs
In-video ratings and audience feedback for adjusting video
content to improve conversions
Custom URLs
Easier content syndication
Option of automated video publication
Most important for many retailers, product page videos hosted
with an online video platform generate a much higher ROI than
YouTube videos; and the average conversion lift is consistently
higher over YouTube videos.
Videos Work Towards A Single Purpose
Your YouTube video and your website video should not be
operating separately they should supplement your video strategy
with their own distinct roles to play for the different stages of
the customer journey they are best suited for
9
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E-retailers can (and probably should) have a different marketing
strategy with their YouTube channel than videos on their website;
but having product videos in both areas should be looked at as an
opportunity for e-commerce retailers, as opposed to the YouTube
cannibalization theory (which treats it as a problem), says Mark
Robertson, publisher at ReelSEO.4
YouTube and website video require similar yet distinctive,
contextual video content that understands where customers are in
their journey. The chart below shows where in the customer journey
your YouTube and online video platform videos fit. Its key to not
leave shoppers on YouTube hanging. Your YouTube videos should have
clear calls to action, be clickable to landing pages on your
website or wherever the user can go further down the journey
towards purchase. Ideally, shoppers who become customers will go
directly to your website for clear shopping needs in the future
instead of relying on YouTube.
*Attention refers to how much notice is taken of something.
Passive attention refers to the amount of energy spent on having
video content that is given minimal notice, such as playing in the
background. Active attention
speaks to the shoppers focus on a specific purpose they have
with watching the video.
From Awareness to Consideration
To bring your shoppers from the Awareness stage to the
Consideration stage, guide them accordingly:
YouTube strategy: Multiple CTAs, associated website annotations,
hyperlinks, vanity URLs
Website strategy: placing video along their path through your
site, which likely includes search results pages, category pages,
how-to or DIY landing pages, and brand pages.
From Consideration to Purchase
Many people dont realize that YouTube can take people directly
to a web page where they can make a purchase either on an
associated website or an approved third-party eCommerce site.
YouTube Online Video Platform
Reach
*Attention
Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Tracking
Very High Medium / Low
Passive: Very High
Active: Low
Passive: Medium
Active: High
High / Medium
Medium / Low
Medium / Low
*Medium
High
Very High / High
Very High
Very High
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Any product-level videos on YouTube should include a CTA that
takes people directly to the landing page with the information that
shoppers need, and the ability to make a purchase.
Make sure to implement tracking URLs in your YouTube video links
(both in your YouTube annotations and on the YouTube watch page).
Thanks to website analytics providers such as Google Analytics, IBM
CoreMetrics, and others, businesses can now measure actual purchase
data on their website from YouTube traffic.
Tracking YouTube for E-Commerce
YouTube is for many shoppers, the start of the journey. For many
of those shoppers on YouTube to travel further into their buying
journey you simply need to do the following:
Associate your website to your YouTube account5
Set up annotations with links to your website
Set up multiple calls-to-action pointing to your website
Description field
Hotlink URLs
In-video content
Ideally, you should have a link from YouTube point to a direct
landing page that takes shoppers further towards a purchase.
However, you can also include multiple links to different website
landing pages, for shoppers at different stages of the journey each
featuring a video from your online video platform. These can
include, for example:
Individual product page
Product category page
How-to
Testimonials
FAQs
SEO Boost: Website Video SEO FIrst
Integrating YouTube with an online video platform not only
increases your ROI, but it boosts the success of your marketing
efforts as well especially SEO. Both YouTube video and videos
hosted on your site (with a video sitemap) show up in Search Engine
Results Pages (SERPs). By indexing twice on YouTube for awareness
and reach, and on your own product page for conversion you can have
the best of both worlds.
Video SEO experts agree that any e-commerce retailer with video
should optimize the video that they have on their own product pages
first and foremost, and optimize videos on YouTube, afterwards.
11
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Ultimately, the retailer should focus first on putting their
videos especially product page videos on their own website and
optimizing those videos; thats in regards to SEO and overall
visibility effort. It certainly is to the e-commerce retailers
benefit when someone is doing a search, find a product video from
that business and end up on their own website and not on YouTube
Ive found that to be much more likely to yield huge benefits, and
will also help mitigate some of the potential out-rankings that
YouTube videos could have on your own website,claims Mark Robertson
at ReelSEO.6
If youre doing Video SEO, optimize your website first with a
professional online video platform and make that your #1 priority;
and THEN do YouTube for your Video SEO.
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YouTube SEO Website Video SEO
What YouTube / Google Measures
Time Watched
Audience retention
Next actions after initial video watch
Subscribers
What Google Measures
Optimized web site / web pages
Social sharing
Factors
YouTube Video Commerce Platform
What YouTube / Google Measures
Metadata (Title, Description, Keywords)
Custom Thumbnails (via YouTube
Watch Pages) Playlists, Categories Transcripts / Closed
Captions
Annotations
Social actions (likes, shares,
favorites, comments) CTAs
What Google Measures
Website and web page SEO best practices
Custom thumbnails (via Video Sitemap)
Video gallery / subdomain
Transcripts / closed captions
In-video hotspots
Social actions (likes, shares, favorites, comments)
CTAs
Video Sitemap (submission)
Schema.org (HTML markup)
How To Do It
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INTRODUCTIONYouTube + OVP = Video ROIRemember these steps to
your YouTube-to-Website Video Hybrid strategy with a clear-cut plan
on the customer journey, from awareness to purchase:
Step 1: YouTube is the cliffhanger: Have creative, succinct
content on YouTube that captures shoppers attention who are at the
top-of-funnel awareness stage, and keeps their attention through to
the next stage of their video experience.
Step 2: Set up a bridge: Now that you have your shoppers hooked
and wanting more, have clear, persuasive, clickable calls-to-action
in your YouTube videos that easily guide people to the next-step
website landing pages.
Step 3: Create videos on your website and OVP that build on
awareness, consideration, ease of purchase, and overall customer
loyalty (trust). Feature website videos in your online video
platform that match the context of where shoppers are at in the
mid-to-end stages of their journey driving purchases and properly
measuring eCommerce performance.
Smart retailers know that marketing and e-commerce initiatives
perform much better when theyre aligned, not separated. The same is
especially true for video. Make a hybrid YouTube + OVP solution a
core element of your marketing and merchandising strategy. This
will deliver the most impact to your business, substantially
increase your ROI, and leave all the guesswork behind
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Online shopping is a highly visual, content-driven experience.
Invodo educates and influences consumers by creating and delivering
the worlds most powerful content. Invodos video programs combine
strategy, production, and technology to improve conversion rates,
reduce returns, and increase consumer engagement. The Invodo video
platform manages production workflow, delivers video SEO, and
collects integrated analytics to drive ongoing optimization of
video strategy. For more information, please visit
www.invodo.com
211 East Seventh StreetSuite 1020Austin, TX 78701
(512) 279-4800
www.invodo.com
[email protected]
facebook.com/invodo
twitter.com/invodo
linkedin.com/company/invodo
@
We hope that you found this information useful, and wed love to
hear from you! Send your questions or feedback by emailing us at
[email protected], calling us at (512) 279-4800, or visiting our
site at www.invodo.com
About
Grant CrowellVideo Marketing Expert & Content Strategist
Grant Crowell has worked in the online marketing industry since
1996 providing digital strategies and development to enterprises
and entrepreneurs of all sizes, including video, search
marketing/SEO, e-commerce, social media and social business,
usability, reputation management, and customer experience. His
enterprise-level organizations including CDW, Sears Holdings, HSBC,
and Readers Digest.
His long-time coverage of the online video space includes being
a long-time freelance contributor to ReelSEO.com and
OnlineVideo.net, along with a guest contributor for online video
best practices published in Mashable, Social Media Examiner, Search
Engine Watch, and Search Engine Land. He was also the head
researcher and co-editor of the book Socialized! How the Most
Successful Businesses Harness The Power of Social.
about.me/grantcrowell@grantcrowell
linkedin/in/grantcrowell
http://www.invodo.commailto:marketing%40invodo.com?subject=facebook.com/invodotwitter.com/invodolinkedin.com/company/invodo
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1 http://icebreakerconsulting.com/2013-ecommerce-stats/
2 according to the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide.
3 http://www.e-tailing.com/content/, March 3rd, 2014, the
e-tailing group
4 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2887282?hl=en
5 http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-cannibalization-ecommerce/
Sources
