Why Shoppable Video is Taking Over Retail (and Beyond)

Every marketer is painfully aware that it’s never been more difficult to grab a consumer’s attention. Some research even suggests that the average goldfish has a longer attention span than the average human. So how do retail brands capture attention, let alone grow their conversions and, by extension, their sales?

Video has long been considered the solution. For decades, brands have recognized that video content is one of the most powerful tools they can leverage to connect with their audience. A few years ago, social platforms even created a “pivot to video” trend across the industry by telling brands and publishers that when it came to determining what would appear in their users' feeds, their algorithms would favor — you guessed it — video.

We all understand that video is powerful, but awareness around its challenges is also becoming more prevalent as brands and advertisers strive to find new ways to drive true engagement, conversions, and limited data capture. John Wanamaker, an early pioneer of advertising in the U.S., famously said in the early 20th century, “I know half my advertising works. The problem is, I don’t know which half.” Over 100 years later, the quote still mostly rings true today.

Video advertising efficacy is famously tricky for brands to measure given that no obvious or effective conversion action exists. Sure, you can measure how often the audience watches the entire video (completion rates), but that doesn’t really tie you to the important thing: consumer interest, engagement, intent and, of course, sales.

Enter shoppable video.

Shoppable video, as the name suggests, is an interactive video that allows viewers to learn more or purchase products while they watch. While earlier iterations of the technology leveraged limited tactics such as QR codes or intrusive banner ads, other models take a more sophisticated approach by leveraging advanced technology to create a monetization opportunity for any and all products seen within a video.

Retail brands have begun to leverage shoppable videos more and more because they're starting to understand the importance of immediately connecting their audiences to the products they want through an interactive experience that allows them to move through the entire purchase funnel within the same video. Audiences can watch a video, notice a cool pair of sneakers worn by a model, click on them, and instantly have the chance to learn more or buy them for themselves or a loved one.

This creates opportunities for brands to increase the return on investment of their video content and solves the problem that Wanamaker highlighted by giving brands access to a new and granular set of data that connects their video efforts to true engagement, ROI and sales.

And it couldn’t come at a better time. Many brands have reported seeing a drop in conversion rates across traditional “performance” channels such as search and social. For the last 10 years, brands could rely on giants like Meta and Google to deliver ads to their gigantic consumer audiences and give them an understanding of the ads' effectiveness.

The rise of privacy legislation and consumer privacy protection measures, like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) initiative, have led brands to increasingly lose their ability to measure ad performance within Meta and Google’s walled gardens. However, owned and operated video content is unimpacted by these issues, creating another incentive for brands to leverage their own content and make it shoppable.

While consumer attention spans will probably not increase enough to beat out a goldfish any time soon, brands can leverage shoppable videos to help them stand out, increase sales, and measure the effectiveness of their video efforts.

Chris Roebuck is founder and CEO of shoppable video platform Clicktivated.