YouTube Launches Affiliate Program in India
YouTube has introduced its affiliate program in India just in time for the local festive season. This new program allows creators to tag products in their videos and earn referrals. The company has partnered with Flipkart, an e-commerce service owned by Walmart, and fashion retailer Myntra to provide uploaders with access to their product catalogs.
To be eligible for the affiliate program, creators must be part of the partner program and have a minimum of 10,000 subscribers on their channels.
Creators in India already have the option to list their own merchandise on their channels. Now, they can also tag products they mention in their videos, shorts, and livestreams.
In the United States, YouTube has introduced various shopping and affiliate link programs in recent years. In 2022, the platform began testing affiliate links in Shorts, followed by the launch of a feature in 2023 that allows creators to tag products in bulk across their video libraries to monetize older content.
YouTube has expanded its partnership with Shopify to provide creators with access to a wider range of products. Additionally, the platform has introduced new features such as shopping collections and an affiliate hub.
According to a blog post by YouTube, India is the platform’s largest user base with over 400 million users. There are more than 110,000 channels and 100,000 subscribers in India. Since the launch of Shorts in India in 2020, users have viewed them over a trillion times.
Praanesh Bhuvaneswar, founder of influencer marketing platform Quroz, believes that this new program is a positive development for creators. However, he advises creators to avoid overselling products.
YouTube also offers an affiliate program for creators in South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
