The Maze: YouTube used its November 6 creator update to revisit a rollout it first described on October 26. It is adding a list of suggested products to YouTube Studio, the dashboard where creators manage their videos. The feature is for eligible Shopping affiliates, who can earn a commission when a viewer makes a qualifying purchase through a product link in a video. For retailers, the list is another place a creator can discover an item before deciding what to feature. YouTube gave no country list or completion date for the rollout.
Video: YouTube Creator Insider. YouTube’s October 26 announcement explains who gets product suggestions, why the picks vary and how creators can save products to tag later.
The Details:
The shortlist arrives before the upload. A creator with access goes to Earn, then Shopping, to see the suggested products. YouTube says it draws on a channel’s past videos, how viewers engage with them and what is trending in the channel’s category. Its help page says past videos and tags help identify that category, and that the products shown reflect which items receive the most clicks in it. Creators can compare estimated commission rates and save products to a list they can pull up later when uploading a video. A kitchen reviewer, for example, could save a suggested kettle, then choose to tag it after actually featuring it. Creators can still search the catalog during an upload. The recommendations add a way to find products before that search.
The rate on screen is an estimate. In Google’s documented retailer-site setup, a viewer can follow a product tag to the retailer and check out there. YouTube tracks which purchases qualify for commission and handles billing for the retailer. Retailers set rates and the period after a click during which an order can count. A creator’s actual payout uses the rate in effect on the purchase date. Returns can reverse it. For a merchant, that makes a higher commission a real cost on qualifying orders. The rate may make an offer more attractive once a creator sees it. YouTube has given no indication that raising the rate moves an offer up the recommendation list.
The new step is a personalized list inside Studio. YouTube’s 2024 Affiliate Hub already showed offers, rates and promotions. Its browser extension let eligible U.S. creators save items they found on retailers’ sites. An earlier bulk tagging tool suggested products based on items creators had already put in their video descriptions. The Studio shelf starts with YouTube’s suggestions for a channel, before the creator settles on a product. TikTok Shop’s U.S. creator guide already describes a similar way to find products. It also lets viewers buy within TikTok, while the retailer runs checkout in the YouTube affiliate setup described here. That leaves retailers on YouTube responsible for turning the visit into a purchase on their own site.
MarketMaze Take: The shelf gives retailers two separate jobs. The first is getting considered by a creator whose audience is a good fit. The second is offering terms that make the product worth featuring. A better commission can help with the second job, but its role in the first remains unknown. Google already shows merchants clicks, orders, sales and commissions. Those measures can show how tagged products performed. Without knowing which creators saw a product in the shelf, they cannot tell a merchant how much extra business the shelf generated.
