Ahead of the local festival season, YouTube has introduced an affiliate program to India, allowing uploaders to tag products in their videos and earn referrals. The company has partnered with Walmart-owned e-commerce service Flipkart and fashion retailer Myntra to make product catalogs available to uploaders.
To be eligible for the affiliate program, creators must subscribe their channel to the partner program and have at least 10,000 subscribers.
YouTube already allows select creators in India to list their products on their channels, and creators can now tag products they might feature in their videos, Shorts, and livestreams.
Image credit: YouTube
In the US, YouTube has launched several programs related to shopping and affiliate links in recent years. The video streaming service began testing affiliate links in short videos in 2022, and in 2023 launched the ability for creators to bulk tag products across their video library, allowing them to monetize older videos.
YouTube expanded its partnership with Shopify in August, giving creators access to thousands more products. The company also launched new features such as allowing creators to create shopping collections and a new affiliate hub.
“By making product discovery seamless in all formats, from long-form and short-form videos to live streams, and accessible on any device, including mobile, web and connected TV, we’re making it easier than ever for creators to amplify their impact and connect with their audiences,” the company said in a blog post.
The company said it has more than 110,000 channels and 100,000 subscribers in India, YouTube’s largest user base with more than 400 million users, and that users have watched short videos more than 1 trillion times since Shorts launched in India in 2020.
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Pranesh Bhubaneswar, founder of influencer marketing platform Quroz, said this is a positive step for creators, but they should avoid overselling their products.
“It’s clear that places of entertainment are becoming stores, and this is a milestone in this trend for Indian consumers and brands. This is great news for creators, especially smaller ones, who don’t get as much attention from mainstream brands in partnerships,” he told TechCrunch via email.
YouTube also offers an active affiliate program for creators in South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
