It’s surprising how long it has taken the industry to get to shoppable mobile video ads. Mobile, after all, has advanced to service the on-the-go consumer. Mobile marketers have strategized to take advantage of those decisive, targetable moments that take place in any given day, but they’ve lacked this technical capability to fulfill on the promise. Automotive, CPG, and consumer electronics brands — as well as any direct-response advertisers — would benefit from a mobile interface that supported easier shopping and instantaneous purchases. It has taken time, but we’re finally inching toward making this convenience a standard, especially in light of YouTube’s launch of shoppable ads for mobile. As data continues to demonstrate that the path to purchase increasingly runs through smartphones and tablets, how do we optimize visuals, message and conversion mechanics within mobile video to make the environment ultra-shoppable? The challenge is using compelling creative formats to enable the purchase-inclined consumer to take action with a seamless user interface. Gone are the days when viewers were exposed to a product and then asked to patiently click through a bunch of pages to get to execute the purchase. Thanks to wider implementation of more direct paths to purchase, a consumer now can hover over an item and click or tap through to the purchase page. Ubiquitous options like PayPal help also. As a result, video ads, always great for branding, now often lead directly to sales transactions. Practical thinking and technical innovation have successfully eliminated the cumbersome barriers between viewing and purchasing. So, what are the best approaches for publishers and marketers to take to fully realize the potential? There are a few practices that are yielding quantifiable results: