Unlocking the Power of Shoppable Videos to Drive Conversions

As the digital landscape evolves, brands are finding innovative ways to capture attention and drive purchases. Shoppable videos offer a seamless blend of entertainment and e-commerce, removing friction from the buying journey. 

Let’s explore how to optimize shoppable videos to boost conversions, starting with the basics and diving into best practices, types, and actionable tips, especially how buywith can help in creating and optimizing them.

Shoppable videos are dynamic, interactive clips that allow viewers to make purchases directly from the video. Instead of just watching a product in action, consumers can click on embedded links or buttons to shop instantly.

These videos bridge the gap between discovery and purchase by removing steps in the buyer’s journey, such as searching for the product on a separate site. From unboxing videos to live streams, shoppable videos are redefining how consumers engage with brands. With platforms like buywith, brands can now make video content interactive, immersive, and highly effective at converting viewers into customers. Learn more about how this works.

The demand for shoppable videos stems from the behavior of today’s digital-savvy shoppers, especially millennials and Gen Z. These consumers are accustomed to fast, seamless experiences like those found on TikTok or Instagram. Shoppable videos mimic this familiar environment, making it easier for brands to capture their audience’s attention.

The key benefits include:

• Higher Engagement: 64% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product after watching a video.
• Reduced Cart Abandonment: By enabling purchases directly within the video, shoppable videos minimize friction points that often lead to abandoned carts.
• Streamlined Buyer Journey: Shoppable videos simplify the decision-making process, allowing viewers to move from curiosity to purchase in a few clicks.

For brands in industries like beauty, fashion, or home goods, shoppable videos are a direct path to higher sales and greater loyalty.

Shoppable videos come in various formats, each suited to different objectives:

• Product Demonstrations and Tutorials: Showcase features and benefits, perfect for gadgets or utility items, beauty, or food demos.
• Lifestyle Videos: Almost as a replacement to traditional ads, lifestyle videos can  integrate products into aspirational scenarios to build an emotional connection.
• Creator Videos: Many creator partnerships include shoppable videos, where they are talking about a brand or product that they are embedding into their life, enabling users to purchase it.
• Unboxing or Assembling Videos: A popular format of a product demonstration, this usually includes tips and tricks for products where packaging is key, or enables the shopper to understand how products are put together if they require assembly.

buywith provides a video editing tool that uses AI to automatically segment larger, longer clips into bite-sized shoppable videos, which can integrate smoothly into your e-commerce site and other marketing collateral.

Creating high-performing shoppable videos requires strategy and attention to detail. We recommend the following steps to better optimize your shoppable videos.

• Understand your audience: Tailor content to their interests, pain points, and aspirations.
• Plan your content: Storyboard your videos to include a hook, product showcase, benefits, and a strong call to action. Pro tip: the content could come from a longer video which already exists! Plus, keep it short and engaging; concise, visually compelling content to hold viewers’ attention. Aim for storytelling that aligns with your brand and evokes emotion.
• Utilize storytelling: Create an emotional connection by showcasing transformations or relatable characters. This comes by blending educational, product demonstrational content with entertainment. Craft videos that immediately grab viewers’ attention. Include clear calls-to-action and utilize shoppable features to enable seamless purchasing.
• Leverage experts, influencers and UGC: Partner with sales associates, product experts, or influencers and feature authentic user-generated content (UGC). Shoppable videos derived from UGC are relatable and can drive higher engagement.
• Determine KPIs and use analytics: Use tools to track views, clicks, and conversions, and adapt your content accordingly. Having a comprehensive set of KPIs helps to measure which shoppable videos are performing better than others. For a starting list of KPIs, check out our blog on measuring the best ones for specific types of video commerce.

Once created, it is an iterative process of measuring which videos perform best – whether it is to drive engagement, or ideally skyrocket sales. Optimization is key to ensuring your shoppable videos drive conversions:

• Optimize for all formats, especially mobile: Use vertical formats and captions, as most viewers shop on their phones. Did you know that buywith’s patent automatically adjusts video formats for different devices? Learn more here. 
• Interactive Elements: Use subtle yet clear CTAs, and enable features like “Add to Cart” directly within the video. This is where elements like buywith’s “want button” are useful, which are utilized in longer form livestreams, but can easily be spliced into short form shoppable videos. 
• FOMO Strategies: Incorporate timers, countdowns, or low-stock indicators to create urgency. Having these in the first few seconds of a shoppable video is usually a way to capture an audience’s attention to retain them for the duration of the short-form shoppable video.
• Improve accessibility: Where needed, design visually appealing thumbnails and titles that entice viewers to click. Plus, emphasize accessibility; include captions and optimize videos for all audiences to maximize reach and inclusivity. The strength of a shoppable video depends on how interesting it is to open, and what it does to hook and retain audiences.
• Seamless Shopping: Ensure the buying process is intuitive, with minimal clicks required. This is where KPIs will help; for example, seeing at what point audiences are likely to drop off, or the average duration of watch time of the shoppable video.
• Add a Call-to-Action: Always add a call-to-action to either purchase, learn more, follow the brand (if it’s on social media) or to discover more on the ecommerce site. While the goal is always to enable shoppers to shop during the video or from it, there should be an easy way for them to still stay hooked to the brand even after the video is done.
• A/B Testing: Experiment with different formats, CTAs, and content styles to identify what resonates best with your audience. Remember to focus on different KPIs; for example, views and attendance may be more relevant for newer brands, but specific SKU movement or sales might be helpful for peak periods, like the holiday season.

buywith specializes in making this optimization process easy with tools that enable any videos to be spliced into attractive shoppable video snippets with proprietary AI. Plus, with advanced analytics to interactive features, buywith equips brands to maximize their video commerce ROI.