All About Shoppable YouTube Ads: Shoppable Masthead, Shoppable CTV

By: Jyll Saskin Gales, Google Ads Coach

I'm often surprised by how many Google Ads practitioners don't realize the full extent of shoppable features available for video campaigns. If you're an ecommerce business, or running ads for one, you can incorporate your Google Merchant Center product feed directly into your YouTube video ads. This functionality allows you to present your products on YouTube, creating a more integrated, conversion-friendly experience for potential customers.

What are Shoppable ads on YouTube?

The concept is straightforward: as your video ad plays, you can display images of your products alongside it. This interactive element provides viewers with a convenient way to explore what you offer. They can browse through items and, if something interests them, click to go directly to your website to learn more or make a purchase. It's about bringing your product catalog closer to your video content.

What you need to run Shoppable Video Ads on YouTube

To make your video campaigns shoppable, you'll need a minimum of four products; however, Google says that providing more can often lead to better performance.

The fundamental requirements for setting this up include:

• Having a product feed established in Google Merchant Center, which serves as the central hub for your product data.
• Ensuring your products adhere to Google's Shopping ads and personalized advertising policies.
• Linking your Merchant Center account to your Google Ads account to enable the flow of product information.
• Selecting your product feed in the campaign settings for your video campaign

New Developments: Shoppable Masthead and Shoppable CTV

While shoppable video ads have been present in Google Ads for some time, Google recently announced two new types of shoppable video formats at Brandcast 2025 and Google Marketing Live 2025: Shoppable Masthead and Shoppable CTV (Connected TV). Google's vision for the future of video is clearly a very shoppable one, so let's explore what we know so far about these new capabilities.

Google Ads Shoppable CTV

The newly announced shoppable format for Connected TV (CTV) allows advertisers to present products on the right side of the TV screen during ads. This creates a kind of "virtual storefront," and viewers can use their remote to browse and select products.

If they select one, they'll see a QR code they can scan with their phone, which will give them a direct link to purchase. It's a little bit clunky, so we'll see if user behaviour adapts to this new functionality.

Google Ads Shoppable Masthead

To understand Shoppable Masthead, it's helpful to first know what the YouTube Masthead is. The YouTube Masthead is an ad format that appears at the top of the YouTube Home feed across all devices. It's designed for broad brand exposure and can be purchased on a CPM basis or a CPH - Cost Per Hour. Because of how prominent and important the Masthead is to YouTube, you can't just self-serve a Masthead buy in Google Ads; you have to go through a Google Rep, or use an advanced tool like DV360.

Ok, now that we understand the Masthead, we can get an idea of what a Shoppable Masthead is. You will now be able to showcase your products directly on this highly visible YouTube homepage placement. This offers a powerful way to reach a very wide audience quickly, though its prominent placement typically comes with a higher cost. I anticipate its functionality will be similar to the newly announced Shoppable CTV experience on Connected TVs, as well as the existing shoppable formats already available on desktop, mobile, and tablet.

Overall, integrating your product feed with your video campaigns in Google Ads is a great idea, whether through existing methods or the newly announced formats. There are plenty of opportunities now to bridge the gap between video content and direct product engagement. 

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