How publishers pull YouTube viewers to shop on their sites, with Architectural Digest’s Amy Astley

Last year Architectural Digest switched up its e-commerce strategy. Having added affiliate links to its “Open Door” YouTube series showcasing celebrities’ decked-out abodes in 2021, the Condé Nast-owned publication started redirecting viewers from the Google-owned video platform to its own site to shop the decor.

“It’s a much, much deeper, richer experience for the user to go to our site. It’s more fully shopped-out there, and it’s more visual. We can put photos of all the items,” sad Amy Astley, global editorial director at Architectural Digest, on the latest Digiday Podcast episode.

The strategy shift has coincided with the publication doubling its commerce revenue in the past two years. And it’s not like the previous approach of embedding affiliate links on-platform in the YouTube videos’ descriptions wasn’t working. But having a place on AD’s own site for people to shop the products featured in the “Open Door” videos seems to be working even more.

“We saw a four-times increase in the revenue from ‘Open Door’ from shopping it out on the site,” said Astley, noting that AD highlights the link to the site in a pinned comment atop the videos’ comments feed on YouTube.

Now AD is prepping another major update to its commerce strategy. In March, the publication plans to relaunch the AD Shopping commerce property that it launched in January 2024 and is home to the “Open Door” product showcases as well as shopping selections hand-picked by AD’s own team, including Astley.

“The main overhaul that we look for this year is a lot more leaning into our staff picks, leaning more into the editors and to the designers, and integrating all the shopping content more fully across everything that we do,” said Astley.

(00:00) - Intro

(15:32) - Interview with Amy Astley