When publishing videos on YouTube, you may want to optimize them with an end screen. YouTube doesn’t require content creators to use them; end screens are optional. By optimizing your videos with an end screen, however, you’ll experience higher rates of viewer engagement. You can use Youtube end screens to instruct viewers to subscribe to your channel, watch other videos you’ve published, visit your website, and more.
What Is a Youtube End Screen?
An end screen is a screen that appears in the last five to 20 seconds of a given YouTube video. It consists of customizable elements with which viewers can interact. When an end screen begins playing, viewers will see these elements displayed over the video itself. The end screen will continue playing until the video ends or the viewer engages with an element.
YouTube offers end screens to help content creators retain and engage their viewers. Viewers may part ways with your channel after they’ve finished one of your videos. Maybe a viewer returns to the YouTube homepage, or perhaps a viewer searches for a new keyword. To retain and engage viewers, you can use end screens.
Optimizing your videos with an end screen will allow you to guide viewers. You can guide them to your most recently uploaded video, for example, or you can guide them to subscribing to your channel. The end screen will feature customizable elements that you can use to guide viewers to take these actions.
Common Types of End Screen Elements
Elements are the building blocks of all end screens. Each end screen must have at least one element. For videos with a 16:9 aspect ratio, you can use anywhere from one to four elements. For videos with an alternative aspect ratio, you may be limited to using fewer elements. YouTube has undisclosed limits on the maximum number of elements end screens can have for various aspect ratios.
When you add an element to an end screen, you can customize it with content. Elements support different types of content. You can customize them with one of your other videos, a playlist, a subscribe button, another content creator’s channel or a link to an external website.
Each element will show a single piece of content. Viewers can typically interact with elements by clicking them. Clicking an element with a subscribe button, for example, will allow viewers to subscribe to your channel, whereas clicking an element with another video in it will take viewers to that YouTube page where they can watch the video.
Some of the different types of end screen elements include:
• Video or playlist
• Subscribe
• Channel
• External website
You can include a link to an external website in an element. External website links, though, are only available for YouTube Partner Program (YPP) content creators. If you haven’t been accepted into the YPP yet, you can still use end screens; you’ll just have to create elements with other videos, playlists, a subscribe button or other channels.
How to Add an End Screen to a Youtube Video
To add an end screen to a video, pull up the video in YouTube Studio. Click the “Content” menu in YouTube Studio and select the video that you want to optimize with an end screen.
With the video open in YouTube Studio, look for the “End screen” box on the right-hand side of the editing page. Clicking this box will redirect you to the end screen builder tool. You can use the end screen builder tool to add, customize and rearrange elements.
Clicking the plus icon will add a new element to the end screen. You’ll have to choose an element type, after which you’ll have to customize it. You can customize elements in different ways.
For the subscribe element, you can enable or disable the hovercard outline. The hovercard outline is a feature that allows viewers to see some of your channel information by hovering their cursor over the element. For the video or playlist element, you’ll need to select a video or playlist. For the external website element, you’ll have to enter the address of a website.
For all types of elements, you can customize placements and timestamps. Placement refers to where on the end screen the element will appear. If you’re creating an end screen with two video elements and one subscribe element, you may want to position the video elements at the top and the subscribe element at the bottom. With the end screen builder tool, you can move the elements around.
Elements can have different timestamps. A timestamp determines when an element appears and when it disappears. Rather than showing all of the end screen’s elements at once, you can stagger them with timestamps. Ensuring that no two elements have intersecting timestamps will stagger them.
Depending on how many videos you’ve uploaded to your channel, you may want to use end screen templates. An end screen template is simply a static image or a full-motion video that serves as the background for an end screen. Without a template, the end screen will be applied to the end of the video.
A template offers a separate and distinct place for end screens. End screens will still appear at the end of videos, but they’ll use the template for the background rather than the video. Some templates even have placeholders for specific element types.
To see what templates look like, check out adobe.com/express/create/youtube-end-screen. You can create end screen templates yourself or hire a graphic designer to create them.
You can also import end screens from your existing videos. While on the end screen builder tool page, there’s an “Import from Video” option to the right of the plus icon. Importing an end screen will copy it from the selected video. You can use an imported end screen in its original format, or you can customize the end screen’s elements.
You can also find modern end screen templates on Canva, and with the Tubebuddy Chrome Extension.
The end of a video doesn’t have to be the end of a viewer’s journey. With an end screen, you can engage viewers during this critical time. End screens feature interactive elements that, when used correctly, encourage viewers to continue their journey with your brand.
