YouTube And Amazon Partner To Boost E-Commerce: Here’s How Creators Can Earn

YouTube creators can now earn commissions by tagging Amazon products directly in their videos and livestreams, following a new partnership between YouTube and Amazon that expands the platform’s affiliate shopping business.

Under the arrangement, creators can link eligible Amazon products within their content, allowing viewers to access product information and make purchases. Creators can then receive a commission when those purchases result in sales.

The partnership gives YouTubers a new way to monetise content beyond advertising and comes as YouTube seeks to make online shopping a larger part of its business, as per a report by Bloomberg (BBG).

“It’s the biggest online retailer in the world coming together with the most-used application on the internet,” YouTube Shopping chief Travis Katz said in an interview, as per Bloomberg.

Amazon had reportedly been among the most requested additions to YouTube’s shopping programme, but creators previously could not tag its products as easily.

How YouTubers Can Earn From Amazon Products

YouTube Shopping allows creators to tag products in videos and livestreams rather than relying only on affiliate links placed in descriptions or comments.

When viewers click on a tagged product and make a qualifying purchase, the creator earns a commission, the BBG report said.

YouTube Shopping chief Travis Katz said product tags generate around twice the engagement of affiliate links placed in video descriptions.

The platform says shopping-related content is now watched for about 110 million hours globally each day.

YouTube Steps Up Its E-Commerce Push

YouTube launched its shopping initiative four years ago, initially allowing creators to promote their own merchandise through links.

Its affiliate business began in the US in 2024 and has since expanded to markets including India, Southeast Asia, the UK, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

According to Katz, YouTube Shopping’s gross merchandise volume increased 13-fold globally between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2026.

More than one million of YouTube’s roughly three million monetising creators are currently part of the shopping programme, as per Bloomberg.

“Video has completely changed the way people shop,” Katz said, noting that consumers now often trust creators more than traditional salespeople, as per BBG. “In the old days, we used to browse store windows. Today, people browse videos,” he added.

The Amazon partnership also puts YouTube in closer competition with TikTok Shop, which reached an agreement with Amazon two years ago to enable users to shop for Amazon products through advertisements.

Katz said YouTube believes its search-driven nature could give it an advantage in product discovery.

“We’re the second-largest search engine in the world, so people are using YouTube for research in a way that they don’t use other platforms, and being part of the Google universe, we can leverage things like Gemini to build interesting experiences,” he said, as per the Bloomberg report.