As YouTube looks to build on its in-stream shopping elements, one of those experiments has failed to show enough promise to justify its continuation.
Last week, YouTube said it would be winding down its product tags in posts experiment, which had enabled some creators to tag Shopping products in community posts.
YouTube’s Creator Posts provide a social media-like option to extend engagement with channel members through text-based posts that can be viewed in the Subscriptions feed in the app.
After expanding access to the option to all creators in 2024, YouTube added a range of enhancements, including polls and quizzes, as well as carousel updates, which are now displayed within the Shorts feed of followers.
Product tagging, then, seemed like a logical extension of YouTube’s in-stream shopping push, but evidently, this hasn't proven to be a beneficial feature for users.
YouTube announced that as of June 3, creators would no longer be able to tag products in new community posts. Meanwhile, beginning July 3, existing tags on older posts would stop showing to viewers, though the posts themselves will remain active.
YouTube is still trying to work out the best way to integrate shopping into the user experience, and has had varying success with product tags in Shorts and other in-stream shopping options.
In a broader context, the deprecation of product tags in posts is likely not a major loss, and presumably, not many creators were using them anyway.
But it’s another change of note for those looking to use YouTube to reach a broader audience and showcase their products in the app.
