YouTube Will Now Let You Link Off Site – Expect Traffic Games on Videos
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Now when I say traffic games they aren’t quite the kind of games that YouTube publishers started building recently. It rather works on the metaphor of playing tricks using features that weren’t made for such tricks.
The games however can now happen because of what YouTube plans with an update to its advertising system.
According to Techcrunch, YouTube is unveiling what they call the Call-To-Action Overlay,which is a semi-transparent pop-up that links viewers to any website you choose.
This is big news, especially for direct marketers and their likes. One doesn’t need to talk about the insane amount of traffic that YouTube gets. Marketers realized therefore very early the potential that the site has to drive traffic on to their web platforms. It started with funny videos, to video blogging, to ads with made for web viral elements.
However, despite all the apparent benefits that YouTube seemed to provide, there was always a constant nagging issue. The issue of embeding external URLs. I have watched countless videos of people spelling out web URLs, typing them out on screen, leaving URLs as post roll ads after the video is done. All this in the hope that the viewers note them down and come to the site by typing them out. Seriously, YouTube made things very difficult for marketers.
Part of the reason was of course the same as why Yahoo never bought Google when it could – putting URLs sends traffic out of the site. For a site that banks on engagement and higher user presence through the length of the video (video sites require the video to be completely viewed for advertisers to pay them, mostly) this is a critical point. Therefore this move by YouTube though a blessing for marketers, is quite a brave on Google’s part.
The immediate impact of this move can be felt by the following group of people:
- Online marketers who sell online/affiliate products
- Independent musicians who can link the video to their online album stores
- Bloggers/ Social Media Junkies
- Online learning centres and resources
..to name a few.
However, there is a catch still. YouTube has made this feature live only for those who pay to be on the promoted videos program. Like TC says, You don’t have to pay anything extra for the Call-To-Action overlay, but you do have to be a paying YouTube advertiser.
It would be interesting to note if this move would actually improve YouTube’s revenues with more users now willing to pay for it and have embedded offsite links, which on the face of it works like Google Adwords. It would also be a point to note if YouTube actually begins to send hordes of visitors like other social media tools like Digg and SU.
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