How to join the YouTube Shopping affiliate program and tag products in Shorts (October 2026)

YouTube lists five requirements: you’re in the YouTube Partner Program, you meet the YPP subscriber threshold, you live in a participating country, your channel isn’t a music channel or Official Artist Channel and isn’t linked to a music partner (a label, distributor, publisher or VEVO), and your audience isn’t set as Made for Kids and you don’t have a significant number of Made for Kids videos.

The participating countries are Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. Older versions of the page named a fixed subscriber count; the current page simply says you must meet the YPP threshold. Because YPP has more than one tier, the reliable check is whether “Join now” for Shopping appears under Earn › Programs in your Studio.

If you qualify but can’t join, make sure you’re signed in to the right channel, and if a content owner (such as an MCN) manages your channel, the owner may need to accept the agreement first.

After joining, Earn › Shopping shows participating retailers, their products and commission rates, and you can sort retailers alphabetically or by highest commission. If your channel has a custom rate, it appears under special event promotions. The “YouTube Shopping” Chrome extension lets you save products to tag later while you browse; it’s available in the Chrome Web Store in the US, Korea, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio on a computer.
2. Select Earn in the left menu.
3. Under Programs, click Join now for Shopping.
4. Review and accept the terms. You can now tag products in your content.

For a Short, tag products while uploading in the YouTube mobile app: tap the sticker icon, choose Products, search for the item and add it. For videos you’ve already uploaded, open the video’s details in Studio on a computer and use the Products field to add, reorder or remove tags. To tag many videos at once, use “Tag products” from the Shopping tab under Earn.

Both long-form videos and Shorts can have up to 60 tagged products. Viewers see a Shopping button on long-form videos and a shopping product sticker on Shorts. The sticker shows the first product in your list in the bottom-left by default, and you can change its position and size from Your videos › Edit in the mobile app. Timestamps that control when a product appears work only on long-form videos over one minute, with each window lasting 15 to 60 seconds.

YouTube may suggest products to tag by reading your title, description and captions during upload. Suggestions can be wrong, so check that each product actually appears in the video. Products tagged in Shorts can also show up near the top of Google Lens results.

Every tagged product has to meet four standards: it’s prominently featured and mentioned by voice or text, it genuinely relates to the content (like a demo or review), its design or features are clearly shown so viewers might want it, and it’s used safely as the manufacturer intended. Products in the background can be tagged only if they’re relevant and mentioned.

Spammy tagging of unrelated products gets removed, and repeated violations can limit your access to the affiliate program. Use the Products and tag-violation filters in Studio’s content list to find videos with removed tags, and contact Creator Support if you think a removal was a mistake. Sponsored content must follow YouTube’s branded content policies, including the paid promotion disclosure.

For viewers in other countries, tagged products can be matched automatically to the same item from a local retailer. Tags in sponsored content aren’t localized.

• Content with an audience set as Made for Kids
• Content with a copyright complaint, or content with limited or no monetization
• Content that uses a Creator Music revenue-sharing track
• Shorts with a product sticker that use a sound that isn’t a shopping-eligible sound
• Viewers on mobile browsers, smart TVs or game consoles, and viewers in unsupported countries
• Products removed by the brand or retailer, for example when out of stock

Brands and retailers, not YouTube, set the commission rate for each product, and the rate is shown next to it. A commission is created when a viewer clicks a tagged product and buys it on the retailer’s site. During the settlement period it can change if the order is canceled, fully refunded or exchanged, and it’s finalized once the transaction is complete and verified. Payouts arrive through AdSense for YouTube within 60 to 120 days of the purchase, and returns cancel the commission.

YouTube’s page currently says it passes 100% of the retailer’s commission in each market to creators, that this is temporary and could decrease, and that it will give at least 30 days’ notice before ending it. Time-limited bonuses appear from time to time with their own dates and tiers, so check whether only products tagged during the announced window count.

The guideline language — prominently featured, mentioned, shown so people want it — is also a recipe for Shorts that convert. In the first two seconds, show the problem the product solves or the result it gets. In the middle, show it in real use with a one-line verdict. At the end, say where to buy it, such as “it’s in the product sticker at the bottom left.” YouTube itself recommends tagging products shown in the video and adding a call to action.

If you already have a long review, split it into Shorts that each carry one conclusion. One review can become three Shorts — one strength, one weakness, and who it’s for — all tagged with the same product, which gives viewers three ways in.

Shortsmith takes a YouTube link or your own video file, watches the whole thing, suggests three story angles, and turns the one you pick into a finished 9:16 Short with captions and an AI voice-over. For product reviews, write an instruction in the brief such as “say the product name at the start and end, focus on scenes where it’s being used,” and the script follows it.

Product tagging is a YouTube feature, so Shortsmith doesn’t add tags for you. After you upload the finished Short, tag products in the YouTube app or Studio as described above. Shortsmith keeps the original audio and doesn’t add music to Shorts, so if you plan to use a product sticker, avoid adding a non-shopping sound in the YouTube app.

• YouTube Shorts monetization requirements
• How to turn long videos into Shorts