Youtube Adding Click-to-Buy Non-Obtrusive Retail Links

The well-known American public corporation, Google has introduced a new e-commerce advertising platform for its popular Youtube video-sharing site, named as Click-to-Buy, the non-obtrusive retail links that allows users to purchase products including songs, concert tickets, books as well as movies related to content they’re watching on Youtube.

“YouTube content partners now have the ability to promote and monetize their content in a new and exciting way and create a deeper distribution channel for their content online,” said Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of YouTube. “Our goal is to improve the overall YouTube experience by connecting consumers with relevant information and entertaining content. The addition of retail links will enhance the viewing experience and allow people to engage more deeply with the content they want to consume.”

Google is already starting to embed Apple’s iTunes and Amazon.com links on videos from EMI Music, Universal Music Group and Electronic Arts.

“Amazon.com is always looking for new ways to make discovering and buying products as convenient as possible for our customers, which is why we’re excited to collaborate with YouTube,” said Scott Merlino, Senior Manager, Amazon Associates Program. “Now in the context of the YouTube experience visitors will be able to discover and purchase products from Amazon.com that are relevant to the content they are viewing.”

According to Youtube Blog, “This is just the beginning of building a broad, viable eCommerce platform for users and partners on YouTube. Our vision is to help partners across all industries — from music, to film, to print, to TV — offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising we serve against their videos. And those partners who use our content identification and management system can also enable these links on user-generated content, by using Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site.”

“Ultimately advertising is most effective when it makes the most sense for what a user is doing at that moment,” said Aaron Zamost, YouTube spokesperson. “The ultimate goal for youtube advertising is to create the right ad for the right content.”

Right now, the new Click-to-Buy retail links are only available to users in US, and the company claims that this YouTube e-Commerce platform will be expanded internationally in the future.