About Cards
Cards allow you to add a new layer of interactivity to your videos. They are applied on a per video basis and are rendered on desktop and mobile devices. You can provide a destination URL from a list of eligible sites and, depending on the card type, customize an image, title, and call-to-action text.
How cards work
A teaser is shown at the designated time for a few seconds, and viewers who click on it can then access the card directly:
At any other point in the video, viewers will see an icon appear when they hover over the player on desktop or whenever the player controls are showing on mobile. They can click the icon to browse all of the cards present on the video:
How cards are surfaced
Cards are designed to be contextual to the video and should help creators reach their goals, while providing an enriched viewer experience. As the system evolves, we plan to optimize it to surface the most relevant teasers and cards based on performance, viewer behavior and the device they are using.
Additional Info
- We recommend not pointing to a card within your video as cards might be surfaced differently on different devices.
- If you have a featured video or playlist in your video, it will be hidden on videos that use cards. The Branding watermarkis now displayed in the bottom right of the player to not conflict with cards.
- If your video has been claimed by Content ID and the content owner has set up a campaign, cards will not be displayed on the video.
- Videos displaying cards will not show a Call-to-Action overlay.
- As iTunes is not supported on Android, merchandise cards linking to iTunes will not be shown on Android devices.
- In order to display cards, your account needs to be in good standing.
- Performance reporting for cards is available in YouTube Analytics.
- Cards work better when they’re not too close to each other. Try spacing them out.
- Cards also work on live streams.
Card types
These card types are currently available:
Merchandise card
Similar to merch annotations, merchandise cards can promote a creator’s licensed merchandise directly from the video. If you haven’t used merchandise annotations before, in order to create merchandise cards you need to accept the Terms & Conditions which will be presented to you during the set-up. You can choose from a number of approved destination URLsand the card will display a top-level URL.
Fundraising card
Similar to fundraising annotations, fundraising cards can link viewers directly to projects on whitelisted fundraising sites. You can choose from a number of approved destination URLs and the card will display a top-level URL.
Video or playlist card
This card can link to another public YouTube video or playlist which can be of interest to the viewer of the current video. You can also link to a specific time in a video or to an individual video in a playlist by entering a video or playlist URL directly.
Associated website card
Link directly to your associated website from a card. See instructions on how to add an associated website to your account. If you haven’t used associated website annotations before, in order to create associated website cards you need to accept the Terms & Conditions which will be presented to you during the set-up.
Fan Funding card
This card lets your fans show their appreciation for your videos, by making a monetary contribution directly on the video page. Please note that you need to enable Fan Funding for your channel, before including the Fan Funding Card in your videos.
Set up cards
1. Visit your Video Manager.
2. Click Edit for the video you want to add cards to.
3. Click Cards in the top tab bar or the video drop-down menu to get to the editor page.
4. Click Add card.
5. Click Create to open the creation dialog for the selected card type. If you haven’t used merchandise or associated website annotations previously, click Enable to accept the Terms & Conditions and proceed to the creation dialog.
6. Enter a valid URL that is supported for the chosen card type. This is the destination URL for the call-to-action and automatically populates the dialog boxes.
7. Upload an image or select one of the suggestions from the site. Uploads need to be in .jpg, .gif, or .png format, no larger than 5MB and will be cropped to be square.
8. Edit the title, call-to-action and teaser text to fit in the allowed character count of 50 for the title and 30 for the call-to-action and teaser. Note that there are no customization options for video or playlist cards.
9. Click Create card when you’re ready.
10. If appropriate, adjust the start time for the card teaser in the timeline below. You can also do this by using your keyboard:
- LEFT/RIGHT arrow keys move the selected card teaser by 100 milliseconds.
- SHIFT + LEFT/RIGHT arrow keys move the card teaser by 1000 milliseconds (=1 second).
11. You can add up to 5 cards to one video and you can edit your cards anytime by clicking on the ‘edit’ icon next to the card in question under the Cards tab.
