YouTube has signed Amazon as an affiliate partner for its shopping program, marking a major deal between the two tech giants.
Eligible YouTube creators will be able to natively tag Amazon products in Shorts, regular videos, and livestreams, earning commissions on qualifying purchases made within Amazon’s attribution window. Previously, creators generally had to place Amazon affiliate links in their video descriptions rather than tag the products through YouTube Shopping.
YouTube said early tests showed that natively tagged Amazon products generated twice the click-through rate of links placed in video descriptions. This could benefit both companies, with YouTube potentially receiving a share of eligible affiliate transactions and Amazon gaining another route for turning video views into purchases.
Why Amazon and YouTube are integrating shopping now
The integration arrives more than four years after the companies began discussing a partnership, according to Bloomberg. YouTube’s parent company Google has had some tense dealings with Amazon in the past, such as when the ecommerce giant stopped selling Chromecast and Google Home devices to boost its own Alexa line. Google later withdrew YouTube support from Fire TV and Echo Show during the dispute.
The agreement suggests that both companies now see more value in connecting YouTube’s creator economy with Amazon’s ecommerce platform, even as they continue to compete in other markets. Both companies are also major AI infrastructure providers: Amazon Web Services leads the cloud infrastructure market, while Google Cloud generally ranks third, and both develop their own generative AI models.
On that front, there is far less cooperation between the two companies.
Both have increased capital expenditure over the last two years to account for the buildout of data centers. Google parent Alphabet expects capital expenditures of nearly $200 billion this year, while Amazon has projected approximately $220 billion. Both are also investing in proprietary AI models, with Amazon recently restructuring its Nova strategy to compete more directly with Google and other leading AI developers.
YouTube facing more competition for eyeballs
The integration may also be an attempt by YouTube to placate its creators amid increased competition from TikTok and Meta. Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, recently launched Creator Fast Track, which offers guaranteed pay and opportunities to reach more users as a way to fast-track creator moves to its platforms.
YouTube has also adjusted the viewer and creator experience by reducing some ad interruptions during livestreams and tightening monetization rules for repetitive, mass-produced, and low-quality AI-generated content. The latter decision could also be a boost for human creators, who have voiced their unhappiness about AI content farms republishing clips from their channels and receiving revenue from them.
For creators, the agreement adds a potentially more effective way to earn affiliate revenue without sending viewers into video descriptions. For viewers, Amazon products should be easier to find and buy through native tags within the YouTube experience, although the partnership’s value will ultimately depend on creator eligibility and whether higher click-through rates translate into more completed purchases.
Read more: A Chrome extension caught replacing creators’ Amazon affiliate tags with its own, highlighting another risk for creators who rely on product commissions.
