Featured content: Video or playlist
Featured content is the best way to promote a new video to all of your fans. Featured content enables you to embed a chosen video or playlist across all of the videos on your channel and ensures that returning subscribers to your channel see your featured content first.
This feature was previously known as “Invideo Programming”. For the Branding watermark, refer to Branding.
*Looking for more tools for branding and featured content? Find out how to give your videos a strong identity.
How to enable Featured content
You can feature content in two ways.
From your channel homepage:
- Open your channel homepage with the browse view enabled
- Click the pencil icon under the section for returning subscribers
- Select the content that you’d like to feature from the available options
From your channel settings:
- Click the pencil icon on the right side of your channel just below your banner and select Channel settings
- From the left bar under Channel settings, click on Feature content
- Select the content that you’d like to feature from the available options
Feature a video or playlist
After clicking on Featured content, you can choose to feature a video or a playlist.
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Most recent upload: to automatically feature the most recently uploaded video
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Specific video or playlist: select any video or playlist you want to feature from your uploads or enter a YouTube video or playlist URL. You can also add a custom message that will appear alongside the featured content.
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Optimize timing: If selected, YouTube will try to choose the best time to show your promotion, based on past viewer behavior in each video. If a customised start time is also been specified, this time will be used as a fallback if no better time can be determined.
The content you have selected will display consistently across devices in the bottom left corner and appear in the what to watch next module for subscribed viewers. It will also include a label with the video or playlist information that appears when you hover over the icon.
You can program any public video or playlist regardless of whether you’ve uploaded it or not. Nevertheless, you may not use Featured content to sell advertising, sponsorships, or promotions. Such activity would violate YouTube Terms of Service and may result in loss of access to the tool and/or termination of the YouTube account.
You can get information about the performance of your Featured content and Branding watermark in the Annotations report in YouTube Analytics.
Notes
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You will be able to see your featured content in portrait and landscape view on Android and iOS devices.
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Featured content is currently available on Android and iOS but doesn’t work in any other mobile, tablet or TV devices.
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Featured content annotations do not appear on custom YouTube chromeless players.
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Featured videos or playlists will not show on videos using cards.
Fan Finder Program
The YouTube Fan Finder program allowed creators to utilize YouTube ads to promote their channels to viewers. Fan Finder is no longer accepting new public submissions. Channels currently running in Fan Finder can check the status of their Fan Finder ads via Creator Studio under the Featured content section.
We will still be accepting channel ad submissions for potential promotion through the Creator Studio UI. A small number of ads will be selected for Fan Finder promotion, however we cannot guarantee ingestion or impact.
Also, be sure to check out the YouTube Creator Hub to find additional tools and resources for growing your channel.
Fan Finder FAQs
What if my channel ad is in queue?
If your Fan Finder channel ad is in queue, we were not able to match your channel with viewers at this time. We have learned that Fan Finder is not optimized for all channels and some channels do not have enough viewership data to support our matching algorithm. If you choose to leave your channel ad in the system, it may be selected for promotion experiments.
Where can I track status and analytics of channel ads already in Fan Finder?
You can see the channel ads you submitted to Fan Finder and analytics on these ads under the Featured content section in Creator Studio.
How can I opt out of the Fan Finder program?
If you do not provide a channel ad, your channel will not be included in Fan Finder promotions. If you have already provided a channel ad, you can opt out by:
- Navigate to the Featured content page
- Click Read terms and deselect “Allow my channel(s) and videos to participate in this program”
- Click Save
Can I prevent certain channels from running ads on my channel?
Yes. You can prevent specific channel ads from appearing on your content by blocking the channel’s URL in your linkedAdSense account. Navigate to the Allow & block ads tab, click on ‘Content Host’ in the left navigation, and enter in the URL for the channel you would like to block in the ‘Advertiser URLs’ tab.
