Have you ever wondered how your favorite YouTube celebrities recommend more of their videos through these handy pop-up windows? Or how can they deliver viewers from video directly to their online stores? They’re all using YouTube cards.
YouTube cards can direct viewers to certain content, encourage interaction and even increase sales. Today’s post will cover everything you need to know about YouTube cards and how to use them more effectively in your YouTube strategy. Further reading: How to Promote Your YouTube Channel – 8 Tips.
What Are YouTube Cards?
What are cards on YouTube? YouTube cards are panels that pops up when you watch a video. These panels often link to more relevant videos, channels, or even websites or merchandise of the creators of the channel.
The best example of YouTube cards is the one you see at the end of the video that encourages you to click or watch something else. In YouTube videos, the YouTube cards can appear as a trailer with a call to action. Once the user clicks on the tip, a large panel with linked content appears.
YouTube cards are a great tool that can promote your other content, increase traffic, and encourage sales when using YouTube monetization strategies.
The Types of YouTube Cards:
Channel Cards: Allows you to link directly to YouTube channels. This can be useful for promoting your own channel, other channels that have similar content, or channels that your audience will find helpful.
Video/Playlist Cards: Allows you to link to another video or playlist with similar content that your audience will find interesting, based on the video they just watched or what you mentioned in the video.
Poll Cards: Allows your audience to vote in the poll you create. YouTube poll cards are great for soliciting feedback from viewers and letting them interact with your videos.
Donation Cards: Allow you to request and collect donations from a nonprofit of your choice. However, if you want to link to a crowdfunding site, you need to use the link card mentioned below.
Link Cards: There are three different card categories that allow you to directly link to your own website and related website cards, to crowdfunding websites with crowdfunding cards, and your own merchandise with merchandise cards. You must be a member of the YouTube Partners Program to access this feature.
Link cards are one of the best ways to link to your store from YouTube. To use the merchandise cards, your product’s URL must be on YouTube’s list of approved URLs.
How to Use YouTube Cards More Effectively?
The best way to use the YouTube cards is to pair it with the relevant video and, if possible, mention the card in the video script. When you quote the card for the viewer to click on via audio and/or visual, they are more likely to continue and click on the prompt.
To get more attention, consider adding some graphics or visual effects to get more attention, and carefully select the text that appears so that people will definitely want to click on it. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can see YouTube cards on your mobile device, but only if you’re using the YouTube app.
You can add 5 cards to a video, so choose your content wisely. Make sure that each card you add is relevant to the content in your video, and that your users actually get something valuable by clicking on it. YouTube also recommends placing a YouTube card in the last 20% of videos for best results.
Finally, as long as you can produce high-quality content and attract the right audience, you’re monetizing your YouTube channel in the right direction.
Bottom Line
YouTube cards can help you jump-start your marketing efforts and start sending your audience in the right direction to increase sales. No matter how professional you are as a YouTuber, using YouTube cards is a must for your YouTube strategy.