Ahead of the local festival season, YouTube has introduced an affiliate program in India, allowing uploaders to tag products in their videos and get featured. The company has partnered with Walmart-owned e-commerce service Flipkart and fashion retailer Myntra to open up its product catalog to uploaders.
To participate in the Affiliate Program, a creator’s channel must be enrolled in the Partner Program and have at least 10,000 subscribers.
YouTube is already allowing some creators in India to list their products on their channels, and now creators can tag the products they want to talk about in their videos, Shorts, and live streams.
In the United States, YouTube has launched several programs related to shopping and affiliate links over the past few years. In 2022, the video streaming service began testing affiliate links in Shorts, and in 2023, it launched the ability to bulk tag products across its video library, allowing creators to monetize older videos.
YouTube expanded its partnership with Shopify last August, giving creators access to thousands more products. The company also launched new features, including allowing creators to create shopping collections and creating a new affiliate hub.
“Amplify the impact creators can have by making products seamlessly discoverable across all formats, from long and short videos to live streams, and accessible across all devices, including mobile, web, and connected TV, and making it easier than ever before. You can make it. To connect with our audience,” the company said in a blog post.
India, YouTube’s largest user base with over 400 million users, has over 110,000 channels and over 100,000 subscribers, and users have watched Shorts over 1 trillion times since it launched in India in 2020, the company said. The side stated.
Praanesh Bhuvaneswar, founder of influencer marketing platform Quroz, said this is a positive step for creators, but they should avoid overselling their products.
“It is clear that entertainment venues are transforming into retail outlets and this is a milestone for Indian consumer and brand trends. “This is great news for creators, especially smaller creators, who don’t get a lot of attention from mainstream brands for partnerships,” he told TechCrunch via email.
YouTube also has an active affiliate program for creators in Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
