About interactive features for video ads

If you're running video ads to reach your ideal audience and increase awareness, you can use interactive features to drive more engagement with your audience.

Adding interactive elements can create opportunities for viewers to engage with your brand on a deeper level, beyond watching and enjoying your video ad. Making your video ads interactive can also help you tailor your ads to better achieve specific advertising goals, such as creating awareness for your brand, driving visits to your websites or encouraging viewers to shop for products.

Note: Some interactive features may not be supported across all devices and platforms.

Supported interactive features

Using Google Ads

• Auto end screens: Show an automatically generated screen at the end of your video ad that encourages viewers to take action, such as installing an app.
• Call-to-action button: Encourage viewers to visit your website with a call-to-action button.
• Assets: Provide more information about your business, such as adding links to specific parts of your website or adding a lead form for people to submit their contact information.
• Product feeds from Merchant Center: Turn your video ads into a virtual shop front with an interactive product feed (created through Merchant Center).
• Related videos: Show a list of related videos with a video ad when the ad is playing on YouTube.

Using YouTube Studio

• Cards: Showcase the features of a product or service within a video, or promote other videos or playlists to generate engagement for your channel.
• End screens: Create an end screen on YouTube videos to encourage further engagement with your brand.

Note: All interactive features used in your video ads must adhere to the Google Ads policies.

Expand a section below to learn more about these interactive features.

Call-to-action button

A call-to-action button encourages viewers to visit your website. You can set up a call-to-action button by entering text into the 'Call to action' field when creating a video ad. The call-to-action button can be customised for specific use cases, like 'Get a quote', 'Book now' or 'Sign up'.

When watching video ads on YouTube, viewers can interact with call-to-action buttons from their phones, computers and TVs.

On mobile and desktop, the viewer can select the call-to-action button to visit your website in their browser.

If viewers are signed in to the YouTube on TV app, they can select the call-to-action button to send the link to their mobile device, and then access your website from their mobile device's browser. The call-to-action button on TVs is only available for Video campaigns that use the 'Brand awareness and reach' and 'Product and brand consideration' goals.

Cards

Cards are created in YouTube and show on a per-video basis, on both desktop and mobile devices. You can provide a final URL from a list of eligible sites and customise the image, title and call-to-action text (depending on the card type).

A teaser is shown at the designated time for a few seconds, and viewers who interact with the teaser can then access the card directly. At any other point in the video, viewers will see an icon appear when they hover over the player on desktops or whenever the player controls appear on mobile devices. Viewers can also select the icon to browse all of the cards present on the video.

Learn more about adding cards to videos on YouTube

End screens

There are two types of end screens: auto end screens and YouTube end screens. Auto end screens are generated in Google Ads and run on your video ads. YouTube end screens are created in YouTube Studio and can run on videos on your channel and on your video ads.

Auto end screens

Auto end screens help drive ad performance with your audience by providing information that encourages viewers to take an action, such as installing your mobile app or buying your products. In Google Ads, auto end screens are automatically generated using information from your campaign and appear for a few seconds at the end of the video ad. For example, in an App campaign, the end screen will show certain details about your app, such as the name and price, along with a link to install the app.

Learn more about auto end screens for video ads

Note: When auto end screens are enabled, YouTube end screens won’t appear.

YouTube end screens

In YouTube, you can make custom end screens to add to the end of your videos with YouTube Studio from your Google Account. Your video has to be at least 25 seconds long to have an end screen. You can use them to build viewership and:

• Point viewers to other videos, playlists or channels on YouTube
• Call for subscriptions to your channel
• Promote your website, merchandise and crowdfunding campaigns

Learn more about adding end screens to videos on YouTube

Assets

To expand your ads and show people more reasons to interact with your business, add assets. Assets add useful business data with your ad (such as helpful links).

For video ads, you can add:

• Sitelink assets: Sitelink assets take people to specific pages on your site (for example, a specific product or shop hours). When someone interacts with your links, they go directly to what they want to know or buy.
  
• Lead form assets: Lead form assets help you generate leads by letting people submit their information in a form directly in your ad (such as an email address or a phone number).
  
• Location assets and affiliate location assets: Location assets can help people find your locations by showing your ads with your address, a map to your location or the distance to your business. If you sell your products through retail chains or vehicle dealers, you can also set up affiliate location assets, which allow you to help people find your products at these locations.

Product feeds

You can turn your YouTube video ads into a virtual shop front when you add a product feed. With this creative add-on, you can show browsable product imagery with your video ads, which can inspire people to make a purchase and drive more clicks and conversions.

Before you can use a product feed with your video ads, you'll need to set up the feed in a Merchant Center account, enable Shopping ads and link your Merchant Center account to your Google Ads account.

Learn more about product feeds in video ads

Related videos

You can show a list of related videos below a video ad when the ad is playing on YouTube. These videos can reinforce and extend your ad’s message beyond the primary video ad. You can add two to five related videos per campaign. Related videos appear below the video ad when it’s playing in the YouTube app on mobile devices.

Related videos are available for campaigns that use the 'Product or brand consideration' and 'Brand awareness and reach' goals (or you can create a Video campaign without a goal’s guidance using the CPV or tCPM bidding strategy).

Learn more about related videos

Use interactive features in Video action campaigns

Video action campaigns are a simple and cost-effective way to drive more conversions in more places on and off YouTube – all in a single automated campaign. Video action campaigns support call-to-action buttons, sitelink assets, lead form assets and product feeds. By using these interactive elements in the campaign, you can encourage people to explore your product or service, share their contact information and take other actions that are valuable to your business. Learn more about Video action campaigns