YouTube Shopping tags vs links: put the product on screen

Use the tag, and make sure the tagged product is clearly visible in the video itself. YouTube says its Shopping tags "drive more than twice as many clicks as adding links". That is YouTube's figure, not a promise for your channel. A tag names one product, so a clip where the product is hidden or off-screen for most of its length works against it. You can check this with a few stills from the finished file.

What does YouTube say about tags?

Treat these as YouTube's statements about its own product. Your results depend on the video, the product and the audience.

How do I check the product is visible?

Video inspect reads one clip you already host on media.sume.com. With no frames field it returns the probe and 8 stills, one from the middle of each of 8 equal bins. A 20-second clip gives one still about every 2.5 seconds. Look at the stills in order and ask one question: is the tagged product in frame in most of them?

If you want exact moments, send frames: { "at": [0, 1, 3, 6] } with 1 to 24 timestamps. Stills default to a 768-pixel long edge, and the call is billed by its Modal compute. Import a clip from elsewhere first with POST /v1/media-imports.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-inspect \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: tag-check-clip-07" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/short.mp4",
    "frames": { "at": [0, 1, 3, 6] }
  }'

What if the product is missing in some shots?

Cut the shots where it is missing. Video trim returns a new MP4 for a [start, end) range and costs a flat $0.02. Or regenerate with a prompt that keeps the product centred. The product-usage-demo Format is built around one real action with the product.

Keep one tagged product per Short. If a clip shows three products, tag the main one and mention the others in the description.