YouTube is adding new ways for creators to earn money from brand partnerships and product recommendations, the company said at its Made On YouTube event today. The changes center on making sponsorship deals less administratively burdensome and expanding the platform's shopping tools, according to the announcement.
The company says it is simplifying how creators pitch, negotiate, and close brand deals, part of an effort to cut down on the hours of administrative work that sponsorship agreements can require.
On the shopping side, YouTube says its Shopping affiliate program now includes more than 1.3 million creators, with gross merchandise volume growing 13 times over the past two years. The program lets creators earn money by tagging products they recommend, and the company says those tags generate more than twice as many clicks as links placed in a video description. The affiliate program also allows creators to monetize audiences on Shorts as well as Living Room, according to the announcement.
The push follows changes YouTube announced in August to its Partner Program, which the company described at the time as an effort to keep that program competitive in the creator economy.
YouTube frames the strategy around the relationship between creators and their audiences, arguing that trust is what draws advertisers to the platform in the first place. The company says global advertisers want to work with creators specifically because of those connections.
The company has positioned the shopping and sponsorship features as complementary, with product tagging and brand partnerships both aimed at turning audience attention into revenue. YouTube says the goal is to give creators the tools and partnerships to build a sustainable business on the platform.
For creators already in the affiliate program, the immediate change is the promise of more ways to earn from product recommendations, though the announcement stops short of detailing what those additional methods are.
