YouTube’s Call-to-Action Overlay Isn’t Enough: Drive More Action With Description Links

YouTube’s call-to-action overlay, a feature found in both their Nonprofit program and on Promoted Videos, is great at driving site traffic. But it's not enough. You can get even more site traffic by adding a link to your video's description.

We've done this for multiple clients and the results so far have been a little surprising — when a video has both an overlay and a description link, the description link performs better. We've measured roughly four times as many description link site visits than overlay site visits. And there were seven times as many sign ups from description links than from overlays.

Overlay or no overlay, put a link in your video's YouTube description. For any brand or cause, these links will translate to site visits, signups, and donations.

Currently, YouTube is rolling out a new call-to-action overlay design. The new design is smaller, more translucent, and looks exactly like YouTube’s paid advertising overlays:

Old Overlay		New Overlay

Will the new design perform better? We’ll keep you posted.

Soo Kusumpa is a Video Strategist and Analyst at Blue State Digital.

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