YouTube is fuelling the next phase of monetization for the creator economy by expanding the YouTube Shopping experience with the addition of new merchants. This expansion, along with new creator tools and brand partnership programs, solidifies YouTube’s position as a destination for creators to build sustainable businesses, while enabling advertisers to drive brand-building and high-intent traffic.
Supercharging the YouTube Shopping ecosystem
With shopping-related watch time growing more than 250% year over year, YouTube is scaling the YouTube Shopping affiliate program. This expansion is built on a highly engaged audience base: Over 200 million logged-in users in India had shopping-related searches on YouTube.
YouTube is adding new merchants to support the beauty and lifestyle segment, with 89% of beauty shoppers in India saying YouTube helps them make confident purchase decisions. YouTube has added Nykaa to the YouTube Shopping Affiliate program. YouTube will also launch a program designed to discover, enable, and accelerate the next generation of beauty and lifestyle creators, with Nykaa.
YouTube has also onboarded Purplle as a new merchant partner to the YouTube Shopping Affiliate program. Creators enrolled in the program will be able to monetize their content by tagging products from both partners, in addition to Flipkart and Myntra. The expansion ensures creators and shoppers have access to a broader product range and brands.
The YouTube Shopping Affiliate program, which launched a year ago, has demonstrated that authentic recommendations can translate into revenue streams for creators and high-value traffic for partners. More than 40% of eligible creators in India are enrolled in the program, with more than 3 million videos tagged with affiliate products.
Gunjan Soni, Managing Director – India, YouTube said, “The next era of video commerce is already being defined by India’s vibrant creator economy on YouTube. We are scaling content-driven shopping from a successful program to a complete monetization ecosystem. By empowering our creators with new tools, offering new engaging formats to our viewers and deepening and forging new partnerships with top merchants, we are cementing YouTubes role as the leading platform for the next generation of shopping experiences, a powerful engine where authentic discovery and trusted creators directly fuel sustainable business growth for everyone.”
Pratik Arun Shetty, Vice President – Growth and Marketing, Flipkart said, “Our partnership with YouTube represents a powerful intersection of commerce and creativity – where discovery meets shopping in real time. India’s creator economy is transforming how people engage with brands, and over the past year, YouTube creators have helped unlock a brand new way for lakhs of Flipkart customers to explore, connect, and shop through engaging video content. Considering the festive season drives peak discovery and purchase intent, this ecosystem enables creators to turn inspiration into action, seamlessly. For a marketplace like Flipkart, this partnership reflects the potential for building the future of entertainment-led commerce in India – where content, community, and commerce come together to make shopping online more relevant and joyful.”
Deepash Jain, VP Marketing, Myntra said, “Our association with Youtube continues to be strong and rewarding, unlocking exciting opportunities at the intersection of creators, content and commerce. Our creator collaborations on Youtube have grown 3X in the last one year. The momentum is translating into a meaningful engagement across categories with Beauty and Fashion at the epicentre driving a growing share of new customers. This reflects social-led commerce’s evolving role in fostering authentic discovery and inspiration-led shopping.”
A Nykaa spokesperson said, “Nykaa has long believed in content-led commerce, putting creators at the center of how we connect with consumers. Many of them have been brand advocates from the very beginning, helping us pioneer how beauty is discovered in India. Collaborating with YouTube Shopping allows us to build on this approach and reach audiences in more authentic, meaningful ways.”
Suyash Katyayani, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Purplle said, “Our collaboration with YouTube Shopping is anchored in a shared vision to make beauty discovery engaging, content-driven, and impactful. YouTube’s unparalleled reach across India allows us to connect with consumers at scale and translate engagement into measurable business growth. We’re proud to partner with YouTube, blending content and commerce to create a seamless, trusted shopping experience. Together, we’re shaping a model where creators inspire, consumers discover, and brands grow, driving the next wave of digital commerce in India.”
To supercharge and streamline the YouTube Shopping experience for creators, YouTube is introducing an AI-powered system to automatically display the product tag at the exact moment they’re mentioned in a video, capturing viewer interest when it’s highest. YouTube will also begin testing the ability to automatically identify and tag all eligible products mentioned in videos later this year.
Since the launch of the YouTube Shopping affiliate program last year, YouTube has released a number of features, including Product Stickers on Shorts, clearly signalling shoppable items, Timestamps to sync tags to exact moments, and a new Chrome Extension to help creators easily save products to tag in their videos later.
New tools to accelerate brand to creator relationships
Recognising that 85% of viewers in India find brand collaborations with creators authentic, YouTube also shared a roadmap to strengthen creator and advertiser connections to make brand collaborations easier and more profitable. This includes:
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To effectively maximize the long-term earning potential of brand sponsorship videos, YouTube will introduce a new, flexible format that allows creators to insert and replace brand segments.
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YouTube Shorts creators will soon be able to add a link to a brand’s site for brand deals, enabling creators to drive results and providing advertisers with direct traffic and conversion data.
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With the new Creator Partnerships Hub inside Google Ads, brands will be able to discover new creators, and seamlessly integrate authentic creator content into their marketing strategies using Partnership Ads, turning authentic creator content into high-converting storefronts.
YouTube continues to invest in initiatives to increase brand deals on YouTube, including facilitating collaborations with eligible brands and agencies and hosting “Creator Collective: Brand Edition” to foster creator-advertiser partnerships. YouTube is committed to fueling the next phase of sustainable business growth for creators, partners, and advertisers, making authentic discovery a significant engine for success.
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