Monetisation & Revenue
YouTube Shopping
Also called: Shopping on YouTube, shopping feature
Two routes exist. A creator with their own product line connects a store and tags their own items, while the affiliate programme, opened up in 2023, lets creators tag other brands' products and earn commission on any sale. Before that, shopping was available only to creators selling something of their own. Tags surface as a shelf under the video, as stickers in Shorts, or pinned during a live stream. Availability depends on country and on the retailer partnerships YouTube holds in that market, so what a US creator sees in Studio is often different from what a British one sees. Repeated tagging that breaks the guidelines costs a channel its affiliate access after a run of warnings.