The effectiveness of commerce video in driving revenue cannot be underestimated; nor can its vital role throughout retail brand strategy in today’s new world. 

Even before the majority of consumer purchasing went completely online, 84% of people said they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. 

Video will only continue to assert itself as the most powerful way brands connect with their audience. 

91% of buyers are looking for more interactive content online, and 41% of viewers add products to their cart as a result of interactive video.

What better way to convert viewers into shoppers than by bringing the purchase opportunity straight to them as they’re watching?  With commerce video at the forefront of your monetization strategy, you can shorten the viewer’s path to purchase and drive those precious dollars all while maintaining your storytelling techniques.

Best practices for commerce video

→ Provide clear viewer education

Letting your viewers know that the video you’ve built is interactive is key to driving clicks and revenue. Educate your audience on the power of commerce video by including a poster frame that calls out the shopping capabilities up-front. Be sure to include the word ‘interactive’ somewhere, and if possible, a representation of the hotspot they should be looking out for throughout the clip.

→ Include detailed product information

Treat your video as if it’s the first and only introduction to your product – which it very well may be. Include the important product details you normally would like price, description and a thorough photo gallery, to make product discoverability front and center. To create a photo gallery, simply upload more than one image at once to the Overlay editor.

→ Stay true to your brand

Bring the shopping experience as close to your own website design as best you possibly can. With WIREWAX’s custom overlay editor you can be sure every part of the interactive video design, from the fonts and colors to the graphics, matches your brand identity. Viewers will recognize the brand style as something familiar, acting as an extension of your online shopping portals. 
In addition, you can customize your clickable hotspots design to continue to remain on-brand. Try incorporating your brand colors and font, or using your logo or other recognizable icon as the hotspot design.

→Linger product shots 

Make sure your products are on-screen at least 3 seconds to provide enough time for the viewer to engage with the hotspot . Keep this in mind if you’re in the planning stages of filming your interactive video; or, if you’re looking to make it easy for your audience to shop existing content, choose clips without too many fast cuts. 

Check out our Creative Director Jen’s guide to shooting for interactive video for more tips on planning an interactive video shoot for best results post-edit. 

→ Utilize motion-tracking hotspots 

‘Sticky’ hotspots have proven to be 9x more engaging, as viewers are more likely to click and engage with a ‘gamified’ experience. You can stick your hotspots to products, people or faces in your video.

→ Be crystal clear with your calls-to-action

When this video for luxury brand Ted Baker launched on their proprietary site, the hotspots originally read as the individual product names. They weren’t seeing immediate results in the way of sales. Changing the hotspots to read ‘Click to shop’ for each showed immediate impact – Ted Baker sold $70K worth of product from the video in the first week after the change.

This isn’t to say product names won’t work for you – go with what will resonate with your unique audience, and don’t be afraid to A/B test a few options on your first go-round.

→ Utilize affiliate tracking

In order to accurately track the effectiveness of your commerce video, you’ll want to know what percentage of clicks in your video resulted in a product purchase. You can track the referral source of clicks to your product pages using a UTM parameter within the click-out URLs in your video. 

You can apply a WIREWAX UTM to your click-outs, or utilize a third-party affiliate link or other means of tracking URL. This way, you’ll be able to correctly attribute your product page arrivals to your interactive video audience.

Add-to-Cart integration

Shorten the buyer’s path to purchase by integrating your commerce interactive video deeply with your retail site. Using WIREWAX’s player API, you can listen for events within the video such as hotspot or button clicks, and add the product to the cart on your site. This allows your viewer to have a direct purchase path between what they’re watching and what they’re immediately buying. 

Using the WIREWAX player API, each retail site may use it to integrate in a different way. Check with your site developers on the best way to use the player API for your particular site setup.

Written by Marissa Ke, Customer Success Director