4 Complete Steps to Tag Products on YouTube

Who can tag products in YouTube Videos?

Upon the initial release of its tagging products feature, YouTube took a clever approach to gathering feedback and data from creators. They gave only a small sum of creators the opportunity to start tagging products in their YouTube videos. Subsequently, it provided YouTube with the ability to carefully evaluate the impact and performance of their new feature before it became available to everyone. 

However, ever since it was launched in April 2022, the question still remains: why hasn't YouTube shopping flooded my YouTube page? After conducting extensive research, I slowly began to understand why brands had not made this transition to the social media platform just yet.

YouTube had at the time created a lengthy set of criteria you need to follow in order to begin featuring tags on products. As a result, it made the entire process too complicated to undertake.  After being redirected on YouTube's help page from one article to another, these were my findings regarding the eligibility criteria for tagging products:

Firstly, you have to be a part of the YouTube Partner Program(YPP) to be qualified.

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To enter in to the YouTube Partner Program, you must have the following two requirements:

• 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months
• You need 1,000 subscribers with 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days.

It is really important to keep in mind that “any public watch hours from Shorts views in the Shorts Feed won’t count towards the 4,000 public watch hours thresholds.” If you fit the criteria to be a part of the YPP you can then move on to the next steps to see if you can set up YouTube shopping. The next steps are as follows:

• You have to take into account the geolocation and be located either in The United States or South Korea.
• You have to have at least 20,000 subscribers.
• Furthermore, you mustn't have any associations with a music partner or be a music channel whatsoever.
• Lastly, your main audience can not be children, meaning your videos can not be set as “Made for Kids”

In my opinion, these requirements are quite unrealistic for new and emerging brands that would like to set up YouTube shopping. Not only this, but also seems to be exclusive to big brands, therefore it minimises shopping opportunities and competition on the social media platform.

However, just last month, YouTube had made a new announcement on its new YouTube Partner Expansion Program. The conditions for it are considerably more feasible:

• At least 500 subscribers with 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days.
• At least 3000 valid public watch hours in the past year or 3 million valid public Short views in the last 90 days.

We have now learned how you can be eligible for this feature, so let’s have a look at the process on how you can start tagging YouTube videos!

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How to tag your YouTube videos

1. Connect your e-commerce store to your YouTube channel:

It integrates with platforms like Shopify, Spring, Spreadshop, Suzuri (Japan only), and Cafe24 (South Korea only). We haven't found other supported platforms, although we believe they will keep expanding their integrations.

Google's step-by-step walkthrough seems like enough for a non-technical person to handle it.

Keep in mind, merchants can integrate one or multiple stores to a single YouTube channel.

2. Upload your Video:

Once, you record and edit your video, upload it on to YouTube. You will then need to make your way to the "Video elements" page.

3. Go to video elements page:

Once on this page, go to “Tag Products” and select “Add”. Here, you will see the same products you can see on your "Store tab", inside your YouTube account. These products are pulled automatically from your store you previously connected.

4. Choose and enter the name of the product:

After you have selected the option “Tag Products”, you will need to add names on to your tags. When you come up with the name, put it in the search box and click enter on your keyboard. You will then get multiple options to choose from, so be sure to make the appropriate selection.

Once you have selected the product, you can drag and drop it in its designated space. YouTube also allows you to tag up to 30 products, making it a key feature for long video content that can now have different products tagged throughout the video. 

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How to Tag products on pre-existing videos

One of the biggest misconceptions that I have noticed with product tagging is that you can not tag a product on a pre-existing YouTube video. On the contrary, YouTube actually gives us the ability to do so in a few simple steps:

1. To begin with, find your way to the YouTube Studio page.
2. Select the already posted video you want to add tags to in your Menu section.
3. The next step is to click on Edit.
4. Upon reaching the editing section, proceed to include the relevant tags within the tags box located in the description tab of the video.

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Key components when tagging products on YouTube

Trending

A very vital element to tagging products is using trendy hashtags. When creating your content, you should utilise relevant tags that cater to your audience's specific interests and search preferences. YouTube is the largest video sharing platform with 51 million channels, so in order to stand out you will need to use popular product tags.

Using popular tags will bring your brand visibility and widen its reach. If you use product tags that consumers do not seek out, you won't be able to generate any sales since customers will have a hard time trying to find you. One thing to note is that not every single tag on your video has to be something that's popular or trendy, in fact, it can be something people are generally interested in.

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Diversify product tags

To bring more viewers to your YouTube videos, it is essential to diversify the product tags. Alongside with your main keyword tags, adding other relevant tags that drive traffic is a great way to optimize the utilization of this feature. For example, if someone is looking for a specific product, and you have a tag on your YouTube video for that product, this will navigate that individual towards your video.

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Associated

Last but not least, it is really crucial to make sure all the tags that you add to your video are relevant to your content. The reason these tags need to be related to the subject of your video is so that your viewers can easily find the product they want to purchase.

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Benefits of using product tagging

Improved customer journey

Product tags have a profoundly positive effect on your customers’ journey. This is largely due to the fact that it enables customers to easily find products that may be of interest to them. More importantly, due to the large influx of options on YouTube, the tagging feature provides a more organised and structured way for viewers to find what they are looking for. Therefore, this new innovative attribute has created an efficient process that will overall increase the customer satisfaction.

Increase in Conversion Rates

With the improvement in the customer journey, there is a simultaneous increase in conversion rates. With the help of YouTube's new feature, customers can seamlessly access the product they want due to the reduced number of steps involved to get there.

YouTube now allows its viewers to spend less time in search for the goods they like, while engaging brands with new audiences. Thereby, giving the opportunity for existing and new customers to convert even more.

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