While livestream shopping is booming in Asia, the trend has yet to make waves in the United States. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube are still betting on e-commerce, but have instead shifted their focus to short videos that drive sales rather than hours-long livestreams.
At its latest CreatorIQ Connect conference series in Los Angeles, the marketing platform hosted a panel discussion with industry experts like Michelle Miller, K18's senior vice president of global marketing. Bridget Dolan, Global Managing Director, YouTube Shopping. Jackie Pimentel, Senior Global Marketing Director at Meta, said:
Dolan talked about how the tech giant is thinking about social shopping and why her team is betting on short videos to drive sales over livestreams.
“Shoppable short videos are popular,” Dolan said. Talk about online shopping with creators on a panel. “In 2022, videos tagged with products, i.e. shoppable videos on YouTube, will have more than 150 billion views.The growth of shopping short videos is much more than the growth of short videos. It’s fast.”
Dolan says shopping content works best on YouTube if it's not overly staged or has high production values, and is short, 15- to 30-second vertical shorts that highlight a single product or brand. It added that this is a case.
“It's basically a quick review of why this product is great,” Dolan said.
YouTube includes over 150 brands as part of the platform's new affiliate program. To participate as a brand, businesses must have a relationship with an affiliate network, Rakuten, Impact, or CJ Affiliate.
For the first time in 2021, YouTube has quietly begun testing shopping tools, including: Product pins from a small group of creators.
A new affiliate program launched in June allows creators to earn commissions by tagging products in their videos, from short-form and long-form content to live streams.
Best practices for convincing creators and driving sales
Not every product or creator can drive e-commerce sales. Rather than relying on top creators like his MrBeast, YouTube is collaborating with a group of tech, fashion, and beauty influencers to drive shopping activity.
“150,000 or 1 million subscribers on YouTube is hard earned,” Dolan said. “It doesn't happen quickly, and it's not easy. But once they build that kind of audience, they're really listening, and they have that trust.”
It was the exclusive merchandise, as well as concert and sports team apparel, that was successful, Dolan said. Throughout 2023, YouTube is Coachella The NFL has hired creators to promote buzz around Google's Pixel 8 launch to sell exclusive merchandise.
Last month, YouTube invited 100 of its top beauty and fashion creators to its LA offices to shop from brands available in its affiliate program and get tips from executives on how to sell in an authentic way.
“Sure, they love doing business with brands and they love building those relationships, but this is the opposite,” Dolan said of affiliate marketing. “This is them coming up with what they want to talk about. They're creating it themselves.”
