• by Colin Kirkland , 4 hours ago

Following its recent Amazon product tag launch, YouTube is further expanding its shopping affiliate program with a small test designed to introduce alternative creator product tags tied to local merchants.

“We’re running a small affiliate shopping experiment to show the exact same creator-tagged affiliate product, but sourced from a different eligible local retailer,” the company’s announcement explains. 

By linking product tags from creators’ videos to local merchants, YouTube is attempting to measure whether the platform can improve shopping performance by automatically selecting local retailers to serve for a tagged product.  

Beyond highlighting local retailers and brick-and-mortar shopping, YouTube’s experiment with localized product tags could cut down on delivery times, providing a more efficient in-stream shopping experience. 

According to YouTube’s announcement, this limited test will not impact product tags on videos creators have enabled the “Paid Product Placement” setting and will only apply to product tags within the shopping affiliate program. 

YouTube has been running its shopping affiliate initiative since 2022, when the company began inviting creators to earn commissions when a product they recommend in their video posts is purchased by a consumer. 

Internal findings from the Google-owned company state that videos using YouTube shopping product tags see over 110% more clicks on products compared to the utilization of description links. 

Late last month, YouTube expanded the U.S.-based program to allow creators to earn from Amazon product tags across video posts, Shorts, and livestream, with the option to turn on “auto-tagging” to tag Amazon products that may align with the creator’s brand.