Tips for Shoppable Video Ads: Bring Your Stories to Life and Inspire Bigger Baskets 

Today, Instacart announced that shoppable video ads are now available to all brand partners — which brings together the best of inspirational storytelling and action. Like shoppable display ads, this format features add-to-cart buttons directly on the ad itself but instead of a static image advertisers can flex their creativity and storytelling muscles using short, engaging videos. 

Instacart’s shoppable video ads go beyond traditional video ads by pairing them with seamless add-to-cart and checkout experiences. Consumers inspired to try the products featured in clips can seamlessly add all of them straight to their cart — and then check out and get those products delivered in as fast as an hour.  You can set up shoppable video ads using our newly enhanced campaign creation flows designed to help you achieve your objectives.

If you’re getting ready to set up your first shoppable video ad campaign here are some helpful tips to follow:

Tip #1: Set up your post-click experience first 

When a consumer clicks on the brand logo or arrow in the top right corner of your shoppable video ad, they are taken to a customizable landing page that features a curated product selection. It helps to have your landing page pre-approved so that you can link directly to that destination in the shoppable video ad setup. 

To fast track your landing page set up we recently rolled out new page templates.  If you want to double-down on storytelling then use a brand story template featuring rich creatives. But if you’d rather get your page live faster and focus on your products, then use a product collections template. 

Tip #2: Connect with new consumers at scale 

Shoppable video ads are great for connecting with new consumers you haven’t reached before. Whether that’s targeting new, unique keywords or consumer behaviors you haven’t targeted, your budget will go farther and gain efficiencies when shoppable video ads target new audiences. 

And with flexible targeting options, you can use shoppable video ads to reach consumers who have not bought your brand/product/category before, lapsed consumers, or target complementary and broad keywords to go beyond your usual aisle. 

Tip #3 Tailor your story to your audience

While videos can be quite eye-catching, people are more likely to pay attention when the content speaks to them. To maximize relevance of your content in your ads, consider customizing your videos to your target audience. 

This can mean creating either unique videos or different, tweaked versions of the same video, for your different audience segments and campaign objectives.  

Here are some ideas to consider when storyboarding your videos: 

• Make stories unforgettable –  focus on your value proposition
• Communicate your brand’s mission to help raise awareness and build brand identity
• Incorporate emotionally-charged video elements, such as humor or inspirational themes
• Show products in action to inspire purchases
• Showcase different product variations, like the different flavors, scents, or colors your product comes in. 
• Educate with ‘how to’ videos

Tip #4 Create enticing videos — even while muted 

Since your shoppable videos ads autoplay with the sound off, you’ll want to create videos that entice viewers even when muted. Include rich imagery and subtitles to help tell your story. 

If consumers enable sound on your video, then it should offer additional value and further bring your story to life.   

Tip #5 Make your products easily accessible 

Shoppable video ads give you the opportunity to take consumers from awareness right through to purchase, all within a single ad. When you create your shoppable video ads you’ll need to select which products you want to ‘pin’ to the ad. These are the products shown to consumers just beneath your video. 

We’ve found this experience works best when you feature your products in the first 2-3 seconds of your video and these products are among those you’ve pinned to the ad. You’ll also want to include variations of your products, like different flavors and pack sizes, to maximize availability across the 1,000+ retail banners on our platform. 

Are you ready to set up your shoppable video ad today? Log into your account in Ads Manager.

Instacart

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Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.