• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 2, 2023

Timing is everything -- at least according to YouTube. The company updated its Product Drops feature allowing creators to announce new products during live shopping streams on the fly.

The tool, Product Drops, is also being rolled out to first-party stores for the first time. -- providing creators greater flexibility with the timing of product announcements.

In the past, this required creators to connect their Shopify product stores or have access to Google Merchant account. They also had to set up publish dates in advance.

Creators participating in the YouTube affiliate program or willing to connect the tool to their own store can set up Product Drops in the live YouTube control room, where they will find a button to schedule a live stream.

The control room will tag the product drop to the live stream. The product will be hidden until the creator is ready to drop the product.

Updates to the Revenue Analytics Tab have also been made. This allows creators to see the total number of members and enables them to further analyze members with current memberships, as well as where they have joined from. For example, the information might show that members joined from a certain video or social media promotion.

YouTube also makes it easier to access new information about why someone might have canceled their membership.

For brands looking to gain data on campaign investments on YouTube, third-party technology based on artificial intelligence (AI) supports higher return on investments (ROIs).

Despite the challenges marketers face amid the loss of targeting data, marketers can still rely on first-party audience targeting segments to improve campaign performance, according to the results from an undisclosed CPG company. 

Data from Albert.AI shows the company’s technology improved YouTube ROI by 16.3% for a CPG marketer during 12 months by continuously optimizing campaign performance across a range of audience segments. 

This was done by continuously analyzing the performance of the various affinity audience segments — Google ads targeting audiences based on people’s interests.

For example, affinity audience segments include Frequently Eats Breakfast Out, Sports Game Fans, and Thrill Seekers.

By targeting all relevant affinity audiences and continuously analyzing performance, Albert recommended shifting ad budgets as ad performance changed. The combination of starting broad and continuous optimization resulted in an improved campaign ROI.