Are End Cards Still Needed?

[itsonbtv]

YouTube is constantly evolving and end cards have been a great way of getting people to subscribe and click over to another specific video, but with the newer feature CARDS, it makes it easier and works on mobile unlike the end cards we have to make ourselves and then add annotations to them.

I've been doing these for years now and have seen some success, they help the video look more professional but I wonder how long this will be a thing. I wonder if YouTube will incorporate some type of real End Card template that allows us to insert things in a premade form that works across all mediums and does not take away from the video itself. If we watch videos when/if this feature dies, we will have these video end cards that do nothing and can degrade the overall quality by them not working, as it already does on mobile devices. It would be amazing to upload a separate video that could be used as End Cards, that way we would be able to update it or remove it when need be.

I continue to do end cards with annotations but would love to hear back from other people on what works best for them and what is "future ready" when it comes to making content that will work with the future still.

 

[JadesGraphics]

I've had a nice amount of people click on to over videos from annotations from end cards, I would say in my opinion that they are still pretty helpful.

I would also prefer to have control of my end card rather then use a template YouTube provide, but would be interesting to see what they come up with.

Even though like you mention with mobile devices being unable to click annotations I still think they can be of use in some way, for example it gives the user an insight into your other videos which may be of interest to them but they might not have seen because they didn't click on your channel and found your video through searching (Hope that makes sense what I just said) which could spike there interest to click onto your channel.

I quite like end cards, but like I said it would be interesting to see if you YouTube comes up with something.

 

[CrystalD]

I don't click on end card things just because they're inaccessible to the software I use to use my computer. Instead, I usually go down to the video description or the Up Next section to find other videos by the person, or go to their channel, so I don't really think they help much other than making your video look a bit more professional I guess. I prefer the recorded style of end card where someone gives you a call to action and tells you what other videos they have, then at least you can look for them that way instead of having to click on something in the video.