YouTube highlights its shoppable videos with holiday gift guide festival

Today, the video platform launched a 10-day shopping event called “From YouTube to You,” featuring top YouTube creators promoting holiday gifts and merch drops. Though multiple categories are included, the event leans heavily on beauty, with Ulta Beauty, Tula and R.E.M. Beauty among the participating brands. The event highlights all of YouTube’s shoppable video formats including standard videos, livestreaming and Shorts.

“As a digitally native, social-first brand, we are always looking for new ways for customers to discover our clean, clinically effective products, and this live shopping activation allows us to bring Tula’s holiday shopping experience to life in a festive and innovative way,” said Tula CEO Savannah Sachs. 

This will be the first time Tula is using YouTube’s livestream shopping feature. On November 16 at 5 p.m. PST, the brand will participate along with Ulta Beauty in an event broadcast live from YouTube’s L.A.-based recording studio YouTube Stages. Beauty influencers including Manny MUA (4.6 million YouTube subscribers),  Amber Scholl (3.6 million), Mai Pham (2.7 million) and AllyiahsFace (715,000) will promote products and offer livestream-exclusive discount codes from both Ulta Beauty and Tula. 

The broadcast will be part of YouTube’s five nights of live-streamed shopping events from November 14-19. In addition to the November 16 livestream, another beauty-focused night will feature Simply Nailogical (7.5M subs), who will drop a five-product collection for her nail-care brand, Holo Taco, exclusive to the event.

The goal of the event is about “reinforcing that YouTube Shopping is the ultimate destination for creators to launch exclusive products and deals for the holiday season,” said Bridget Dolan, YouTube’s managing director of shopping partnerships.

Influencers are key to this strategy, and adding shopping links to influencer content was the “next logical step” in monetization for creators, said Dolan.

“YouTube is focused on helping creators diversify their income by becoming brands selling their own products and designs, and fueling creators to authentically recommend their favorite products to their viewers from brands and retailers they love,” said Dolan. 

So far this year, “hundreds” of beauty brands have been tagged in shoppable videos on YouTube, with YouTube shopping enabled for close to 40 beauty brands, according to Dolan. 

While the festival features influencers and brands across categories including fashion, home and gadgets, YouTube’s beauty influencers play a big role. Other beauty influencer talent with programming planned over the course of the festival includes AlishaMarie (8 million subscribers), Shalom Blac (1.5 million) and Alex Costa (3.7 million).

YouTube will also continue to emphasize branded Shoppable Shorts challenges, which Glossier adopted during the platform’s first beauty shopping festival in July. The holiday shopping festival will feature 20 new holiday gift guides on YouTube Shorts from over 20 creators, and offer challenges with the chance to win prizes.