Make Your YouTube App Video a Marketing Machine

The Call-to-Action overlay appears as an image (app icon in this case) in your video

Hello and Happy 2014 to you, good readers.

I just looked at the clock and see that it's almost February so I sprang into action, compelled to provide some useful content to you before the first month of the new year is done.

Speaking of action, how is that YouTube app trailer working for you? Sure you can see how many views and likes you're getting but can you tell if if your video is actually sending customers to your app? We recently discovered Call-to-Action overlays, a very handy tool you can leverage to display an attractive promo link in your video to seize the moment while you have your customers attention and drive them directly to your app, straight from the video. This is especially useful when embedding your YouTube video because all of that really important stuff you put in your video text description is hidden.

The overlay expands to show more information and a link

Adding a Call-to-Action overlay to your video is relatively quick and easy to do, once you know where to look. First, you will need to link your Google AdWords account to your YouTube account. In the YouTube Video Manager choose 'Promote' for a given video which transitions you to Google AdWords where you will set up your campaign. Once your campaign is configured, you need to go back to YouTube and edit the video in question. At this point, there should be a Call-to-Action Overlay option where you can add some text, an icon, link etc. Once that info is filled out and saved, the overlay should appear in your video.

That's it! Now your video is a marketing machine that never sleeps.

If you need more assistance setting up your Call-to-Action overlays, this video helped us:


Now go forth into 2014 and sell some apps!