Shoppable video ads have evolved from experimental features to revenue-driving powerhouses in 2025. YouTube now lets advertisers embed product feeds directly into video ads across mobile, desktop, and connected TV, while TikTok Shop hit $26 billion in GMV during the first half of 2025 alone. 68% of YouTube users now watch videos specifically to make purchasing decisions, and TikTok Shop sales increased 120% year-over-year in the US. Marketing professionals across PPC, content strategy, and influencer marketing need to understand how shoppable video works, how to set it up, and how to measure its impact on sales.

Comparison Table: Shoppable Video Platforms 2025

Why Shoppable Video Ads Matter in 2025

Adding a product link to your video description was innovative in 2018. By 2025, people are browsing products on their TV screens using a remote, scanning QR codes to complete purchases, and discovering products through vertical videos that function as instant storefronts.

The numbers are hard to ignore: 68% of YouTube users watch videos to help make purchasing decisions. Not for entertainment, specifically to decide what to buy. TikTok reached $26 billion in global GMV in just the first half of 2025, double the previous year.

Whether you're managing PPC campaigns, developing content strategies, or tracking influencer partnerships, shoppable video has become the bridge between engagement metrics and actual revenue. The platforms finally built the infrastructure to support it, and the audience behavior has caught up.

What Changed in 2025

Two major updates reshaped video commerce this year.

YouTube launched shoppable product feeds for Connected TV ads in May 2025. Viewers see an interactive product carousel on the right side of their TV screen during ads. They browse with their remote, select items, and either scan a QR code with their phone or press-and-hold to send all product links to their device. According to Google, advertisers using product feeds in Video Action campaigns achieved over 60% more conversions at a lower cost compared to ads without product feeds.

TikTok Shop exploded. Sales hit 120% year-over-year growth in the US. The platform now hosts approximately 475,000 shops in the US alone, with nearly 58% of TikTok's users making purchases directly through the app. 49.7% of TikTok shoppers buy something at least once per month, more frequent than Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest shoppers.

YouTube's Shoppable Video Features

YouTube has built the most comprehensive shoppable video ecosystem of any platform. Three main features are available right now.

Product Feeds in Video Campaigns

When your video ad plays on mobile, desktop, or in YouTube Shorts, a panel below the video automatically expands to show your products. Viewers see images from your Google Merchant Center feed and can click through to your product pages.

You need an active Google Merchant Center account with at least 4 products in your feed (though more products typically perform better). Products must comply with Shopping ads policies. Link your Merchant Center account to Google Ads, and make sure your images have aspect ratios between 0.6 and 1.4.

Where it appears: YouTube home feed, watch pages, Google video partners, and YouTube Shorts when the device is in portrait mode.

Setup typically takes 3-5 days because new product feeds require approval. Don't launch a campaign expecting it to go live the same day.

Demand Gen Campaigns with Product Feeds

Google's Demand Gen campaign type brings product feeds to YouTube with better targeting control. You can segment placements separately (YouTube Shorts vs. In-Stream vs. In-Feed), build unique creative for each ad type, inject shoppable product feeds into specific formats, and, this is the big one, retarget users who viewed specific product pages with videos showing those exact products.

Someone visits your product detail page but doesn't buy? Show them a YouTube Shorts ad that also displays that product below the video. They're one step from checkout. That's the unlock for eCommerce brands.

Shoppable Connected TV Ads (New in 2025)

YouTube introduced an interactive product feed for Connected TV that displays products on the right side of the TV screen during ads. This format acts as a virtual storefront where viewers browse multiple products using their remote.

The flow: Your video ad plays on the viewer's TV, a product carousel appears on the right side, the viewer uses their remote to browse and select products, and when they select an item, a QR code appears. They scan with their phone to complete purchase.
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Is it seamless? Not really. Asking someone to grab their phone mid-ad creates friction. But Nielsen data shows YouTube has been the #1 platform for streaming watch time in the US for over two years, and in Q1 2025, TVs were the primary screen for YouTube viewing in the US. The audience is there, even if the UX isn't perfect yet.

TikTok Shop: The Numbers Behind the Growth

TikTok Shop isn't just growing, it's accelerating faster than most forecasts predicted.

The Core Statistics

Global scale: TikTok Shop reached $26 billion in GMV in the first half of 2025, on track to potentially double the $33.2 billion it did for all of 2024.

US-specific growth: Sales increased 120% year-over-year in the US market. There are now 475,000 shops in the US, up from just 4,450 in mid-2023. About 216,000 of those shops are actively selling products.

User behavior is where it gets interesting:

• 58% of TikTok users make purchases directly through the app
• 49.7% of TikTok shoppers buy something at least once per month
• 67% of users say they've bought a product after seeing it on TikTok, even when they weren't planning to purchase
• 55% of American TikTok users have made an impulse purchase on social media

Average spending: US shoppers under 60 spent an average of $708 on TikTok Shop in 2024, with an average purchase of $59 and about one purchase per month.

What's Selling

Beauty and Personal Care dominates, accounting for 79.3% of US TikTok Shop sales. TikTok Shop is already the 8th largest health and beauty eCommerce retailer in the US.

Most common purchases on TikTok Shop: personal accessories (46%), household items (43%), fashion items and clothing (40%), cosmetics (33%), and technology (27%).

Why It Works

Video-first discovery changes the game. TikTok users discover products while they're already entertained. The product appears in context, someone using it, demonstrating it, or making it part of a story. That context drives the purchase decision.

Friction reduction matters. No app switching. No searching. You see it, tap it, buy it. The entire purchase path happens without leaving the video.

The algorithm is genuinely impressive. 71.2% of TikTok shoppers say they're inspired to shop when they stumble across something interesting in their feed. The For You Page excels at showing products you didn't know you needed. Sometimes that's annoying, but for eCommerce brands, it's gold.

How to Set Up Shoppable Video Ads

YouTube Product Feed Setup

Step 1: Prepare Your Google Merchant Center Account

Create a Google Merchant Center account. Upload your product feed with accurate specifications including product names, descriptions, primary images, prices, and availability by country.

Use the item_group_id attribute if you have product variants (different colors, sizes) to prevent showing duplicate product images.

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Step 2: Enable Shopping Ads

In Merchant Center, enable Shopping ads and link the account to Google Ads.

Step 3: Create Your Video Campaign

In Google Ads, create a new Video Action campaign or Demand Gen campaign. In campaign settings, select your linked Merchant Center account and choose your product feed. Add at least 4 products (more is better), create your video creative, and add a call-to-action. Google automatically applies "Shop now" if you don't add your own.

Step 4: Wait for Approval

Product feeds can take up to 3 days to approve. Factor this into your launch timeline.

Pro tip: Include Google video partners in your campaign settings to extend reach beyond YouTube.

TikTok Shop Setup

Step 1: Create Your TikTok Shop

Through TikTok Seller Center, apply to set up your shop. You'll need business information, product listings, bank account for payments, and tax information.

Step 2: Upload Products

Add product listings with clear product images, detailed descriptions, pricing, inventory levels, and shipping information.

Step 3: Create Shoppable Content

You have three main formats to work with:

• ‍Shoppable Videos are in-feed videos with product links viewers can tap. Film your content, ideally native, vertical, authentic-looking videos because polished ads underperform, then tag your products when uploading.‍
• Live Shopping lets you go live and pin products to your screen during the livestream. Viewers tap to purchase in real-time. This drives urgency and accounts for about 10% of total TikTok Shop sales.‍
• Product Showcase is a shop tab on your TikTok profile where users can browse your full catalog.

TikTok charges approximately 6% commission on each order, with slight variations by category.

Best Practices That Actually Matter

For YouTube:

Create separate videos for YouTube Shorts. Vertical, fast-paced, 15-30 seconds. Don't repurpose horizontal videos, it looks lazy and performs poorly.

Use retargeting with product feeds. Show people the exact product they viewed on your site.

Test non-skippable in-stream formats on CTV for high-value products where visualization matters (furniture, fashion, tech).

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For TikTok:

User-generated content style performs better than polished ads. Film on your phone. The more "native" it looks, the better it converts.

Partner with micro-influencers. 48% of TikTok users buy from influencer posts, and nano-influencers (under 10K followers) have the highest engagement rates at 5.22%.

Run flash sales during live streams. Limited-time offers combined with live video create genuine urgency.

Use trending sounds and challenges. Brands that effectively "trend-jack" see massive reach multipliers. Yes, it requires staying on top of what's trending, but the payoff is worth it.

Tracking Video Commerce Performance

You've set up shoppable ads. Now comes the part where most marketers struggle: proving they actually worked.

The challenge with video commerce is that conversions don't always happen immediately. Someone watches your YouTube ad on Tuesday, thinks about it, searches for your brand on Thursday, and buys on Friday. Connecting those dots requires the right tracking setup.

Key Metrics to Track

For YouTube, focus on video-influenced orders (total orders where the user watched your shoppable video at some point in their journey), direct add-to-cart from video (users who clicked a product in the video player and added it to cart), attributed sales (revenue generated within your attribution window, typically 14 days, after video view or click), and view-through conversions. That last one is critical, purchases that occurred after viewing your ad without clicking often represent 30-50% of total conversions.

For TikTok, track direct sales from tagged products (immediate purchases through product links), video view-to-click rate (percentage of viewers who tap product links), average order value (tends to be lower on TikTok at $59 average due to impulse buying), and halo sales (related products purchased beyond the specific items featured).

Consolidating Cross-Platform Performance

When you're running shoppable campaigns across YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms, consolidating performance data becomes essential. You need to see which platform drives better ROAS, which products convert better through video, and how video performance compares to your other channels.

Tools that connect to YouTube Ads and TikTok Ads can pull video campaign performance directly into Google Sheets, Looker Studio, BigQuery, or Power BI. This lets you compare YouTube product feed campaign performance against TikTok Shop campaigns in one dashboard and track video-influenced revenue alongside your Meta and Google Shopping campaigns.

For detailed guidance on automating your ad spend tracking across platforms, this multi-platform tracking guide walks through the setup process.

You might discover that your YouTube Shorts campaigns have a lower cost per conversion but smaller order values than TikTok Shop campaigns. Or that your connected TV shoppable ads drive research behavior that leads to conversions 3-5 days later, something you'd completely miss with only last-click attribution.

Common Mistakes That Kill Performance

Using the Wrong Creative Format

Your 60-second horizontal brand video won't work as a YouTube Short. Your polished corporate explainer won't connect on TikTok. Create format-specific content. YouTube Shorts need vertical video, 15-30 seconds, with a hook in the first 3 seconds. YouTube In-Stream can be longer, but the product should appear in the first 10 seconds. YouTube CTV assumes viewers are 10 feet from the screen, keep text large and visuals clear. TikTok needs native feel, trending sounds, and content under 60 seconds.

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Ignoring View-Through Conversions

If you only measure click-based conversions, you're undercounting YouTube video performance by 30-50%. Many people watch ads, remember brands, then search and convert later without clicking the ad. View-through tracking captures this behavior.

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Not Testing Different Product Sets

Your best-selling products might not be your best-performing products in video ads. Products that are visually interesting, solve clear problems, or benefit from demonstration tend to outperform even if they're not your top revenue drivers normally. Test which products actually work in video format.

FAQ: Shoppable Video Ads

What's the difference between shoppable video and video ads with links?

Traditional video ads with links require viewers to click, leave the video, navigate to your website, find the product, and buy. That's five steps minimum. Shoppable video embeds product information directly into the video player. Users see product images, prices, and descriptions without leaving the video. This reduced friction typically doubles or triples conversion rates. The key difference is how many steps separate "interested" from "purchasing."

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Do I need different video content for YouTube and TikTok shoppable ads?

Absolutely. YouTube users typically want more information, product demonstrations, comparisons, detailed explanations. Your YouTube video can be 30-90 seconds, horizontal or vertical depending on format. TikTok users respond to native-feeling content that matches the platform's aesthetic, vertical format, trending sounds, authentic presentation, under 60 seconds. A polished corporate YouTube video will bomb on TikTok. A raw TikTok video might underperform in YouTube's in-stream placement. Create format-specific content. It doesn't mean doubling production costs, just filming multiple versions during the same shoot with different framing and pacing.

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How long does it take to see results from shoppable video campaigns?

Initial data shows up within 24-48 hours, but you need 7-14 days minimum for meaningful analysis. YouTube campaigns need 3-5 days just for feed approval before ads can run. Once live, you'll see immediate sales, but video campaigns often drive research behavior that converts days later. Attribution windows typically extend 14 days. For a real strategic assessment of whether shoppable video works for your business, plan a 30-day test minimum with consistent budget.

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What products work best in shoppable video ads?

Products that are visually interesting, benefit from demonstration, or solve clear problems. Beauty and personal care dominates (79.3% of TikTok Shop US sales) because these products photograph well and transform quickly in videos. Fashion, accessories, and electronics work well for similar reasons, visual impact and demonstration value. Commodity products with little visual differentiation struggle unless you have aggressive pricing or strong brand recognition. Impulse-buy price points ($20-$75) convert better than high-consideration purchases ($500+) on TikTok. YouTube supports higher-value products when videos provide sufficient information.

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Do shoppable ads work for B2B products?

Mostly no, with some exceptions. Shoppable video primarily benefits B2C products with visual appeal and lower price points. B2B applications exist if you sell physical products to small businesses (office supplies, equipment, tools) with short sales cycles and low enough price points that one person can make a purchase decision. High-consideration B2B software ($5,000+ annual contracts requiring multiple stakeholders) won't see direct conversions from shoppable video, the sales cycle is too long and too complex. TikTok Shop works almost exclusively for B2C consumer products given the platform's demographics and shopping behavior patterns.

Next Steps: Start Testing

If you're running any paid advertising, test shoppable video now. Pick your 5 best visual products. Create 3 short videos (15-30 seconds) for each. Test YouTube Shorts and TikTok Shop simultaneously for 30 days with a modest daily budget.

Track views, clicks, add-to-carts, purchases, and especially view-through conversions that happen days later.

The goal isn't perfection in your first campaign. It's understanding which products resonate in video format, which platform serves your customers better, and what your true cost per acquisition looks like when accounting for video-influenced sales. Once you have that baseline, scale what works.

Want to automate your video commerce tracking? Try Dataslayer free for 15 days to connect YouTube Ads and TikTok Ads to Google Sheets, Looker Studio, BigQuery, or Power BI. Pull your campaign data automatically and build dashboards that show which videos drive revenue, not just engagement.