- YouTube has a new type of YouTube monetization,
and is expanding YouTube shopping into affiliate marketing,
and allowing you to earn commissions
from tagged products in your videos.
Now, this is different than the YouTube merch
shelf where you will sell your own products.
YouTube has partnered with over 50 brands
to start and allow this.
This is something that you do need 20,000 subscribers
to be eligible for,
and you do need to be in the YouTube Partner Program.
And each of these 50 brands
and any additional brands that come in the future
set their own rates for commissions.
Now, for those of you who are familiar
with the Amazon Affiliate and Amazon Influencer Program,
we've made several videos about those on my YouTube channel,
and we've done a lot of videos actually
about affiliate marketing.
I think we've done literally over 50 videos
about affiliate marketing on this channel.
There is a lot to unpack here,
but what I do wanna tell you is that
when people buy products through these links
that will be displayed on your YouTube channel,
and they'll also have these graphical images
and representations for YouTube shopping
for these individual products,
you can earn commission that might be better,
significantly better than the commissions
that you earn from Amazon in some cases.
So it actually would be worth it to have this feature
on your YouTube channel,
and then for customers who do wanna buy
from Amazon for one reason or another,
it's still worth it to have those affiliate links
in the description of your YouTube channel,
but this will give you on-platform monetization
when it comes to affiliate marketing
through YouTube shopping.
And I know this might feel a little bit confusing for you,
we will have a step-by-step tutorial
on the channel as soon as we can.
But what I will tell you about this,
and what I think is really interesting
is this is another way
for you to monetize directly on the platform
without having to take that many additional steps.
And because it's direct through YouTube,
you don't have to worry,
neither does your audience have to feel like,
"Oh, is affiliate marketing a scam?"
It's not.
It never really has been.
I talk about this all the time.
It's just commission sales
for things that people already want to buy,
and because you help them with that process, you earn a cut.
With regard to your earnings and revenue,
this will be somewhat different
than your regular YouTube earnings,
even though it will come
through your YouTube AdSense account.
The estimated earnings for the commissions
on products purchased through YouTube shopping
with your affiliate links are going to be deferred
by anywhere from according to the information I have here,
it looks like that is going to be 60 to 120 days,
and this is to accommodate any potential returns,
and any returns that do happen
from customers returning those products
will be deducted from your estimated earnings.
Your final payout will be what you have
once that period has passed.
So again, this is going to go towards
your YouTube AdSense earnings and payouts.
However, unlike your regular YouTube AdSense,
this amount, or the estimate amount,
is going to be deferred by much longer than usual,
60 to 120 days, and that just counts for returns.
This is fairly normal with many affiliate programs,
so it's nothing new here, just new to most YouTubers.
There are four categories that this YouTube shopping
affiliate commissions is really going to apply to for now,
could be more in the future, and it's across 50 brands.
This is gonna be beauty, apparel and footwear,
home, and tech.
So this is great for product-based influencers
who do reviews anyway, so this is gonna apply
to beauty and tech influencers who already
do very product-driven videos anyway,
but also DIY, fashion, and home decor content creators
are also gonna benefit from this.
I actually think that this
is gonna be great for the platform.
I think this is gonna be great for creators.
A lot of you are gonna earn more money.
The YouTube shopping affiliate program
is unfortunately for now
only gonna be available to US creators.
I do expect that like other YouTube partnership features,
that this will roll out
to other countries and regions as well.
But for now, it'll be a US release and rollout for this.
As I said earlier, does require to have 20,000 subscribers
on your YouTube channel,
which means that small YouTube channels anywhere
from 0 to 20,000, some of you should go ahead
and probably get started with other affiliate programs.
That will also help get your audience used to this
and conditioned to the idea
until you have access to this feature.
Your channel also, of course,
does have to already be in YPP,
YouTube Partner Program, monetized, and in good standing.
You're gonna be able to tag these products
in your existing videos already,
so even your back catalog can become profitable.
You'll be able to obviously do this in new videos,
and you'll be able to track your earnings
and sales commissions in your YouTube dashboard.
Pretty much the same as always,
so that's gonna be great that they're expanding
our ability to see where our revenue is coming from,
as well as giving us these new revenue opportunities.
And something that, again,
I've been benefiting from affiliate marketing
for years on YouTube,
is actually the first way I made my first $1,000 on YouTube
was through the Amazon Affiliate Program,
as at the time, that was the main option
for most of us content creators.
Having this directly in-platform
is finally going to allow more creators
to monetize in different ways.
I've always talked about diversifying your revenue streams,
and now you're gonna be able to do that
in more ways directly here on YouTube, as a creator.
I still encourage you to pursue options
outside of platform revenue, but for most of you
who that might just be overwhelming for,
this is gonna be a wonderful option.
And like I said, for small creators who might feel left out,
go ahead and get started with affiliate marketing
through off-platform means so that you get used to the idea,
and so does your audience.
If you wanna learn more about that,
you should definitely check out the videos
in my affiliate marketing playlist.
They will be linked in the description down below.
If you have questions, let me know in the comment section.
Stay awesome, and I will catch you on the next video.
Take care.