YouTube is bringing its affiliate program to India, partnering with Flipkart

Just ahead of the local holiday season, YouTube has brought its affiliate program to India, allowing uploaders to tag brands in their videos and earn referrals. The company is partnering with Walmart-owned e-commerce service Flipkart and fashion retailer Myntra to open their product catalog to uploaders.

To qualify for the affiliate program, creators must have their channels listed in the partner program and have at least 10,000 subscribers.

YouTube already allows certain creators in India to list merchandise on their channels, and now creators can tag products they might be talking about in their videos, shorts and live streams.

In the US, YouTube has launched several programs related to purchasing and affiliate links over the past few years. In 2022, the video streaming service began testing affiliate links, and in 2023, the company introduced a feature to let creators mass tag products across their video library to monetize older videos.

YouTube in August expanded its partnership with Shopify to give creators access to thousands more products. The company is also introducing new features, such as allowing creators to create shopping collections and a new affiliate hub.

“By making product discovery seamless across all formats—from long and short form videos to live streaming—and accessible on any device—mobile, web, and Connected TVs—we’re maximizing the impact creators can have and making it easier than ever. to connect with their audience,” the company said in a blog post.

The company said that India, which is YouTube’s largest user base with more than 400 million users, has more than 110,00 channels and more than 100,00 subscribers, and since Shorts was launched in India in 2020, users have watched over a billion times.

YouTube also has an active affiliate program for creators in South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.