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YouTube Creator Partnerships (Formerly BrandConnect): YouTube's Own Marketplace for Brand Deals
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YouTube Creator Partnerships is YouTube's own Gemini AI-powered platform for matching brands with creators for sponsored collaborations — a rename and consolidation of the former BrandConnect, announced at YouTube's NewFronts on 23 March 2026. For creators it lives as a tab under "Earn" in YouTube Studio and requires YouTube Partner Program membership plus a country on a 24-country list that does not include Denmark. For brands, access is far broader: any Google Ads account in a country where the YouTube Partner Program is active — including Denmark — can search creators and link their organic videos directly into paid campaigns.
YouTube Creator Partnerships is YouTube's own platform for matching brands with creators for sponsored collaborations, powered by Google's Gemini AI. It's a rename and consolidation of the former BrandConnect, which YouTube announced at its NewFronts event on 23 March 2026. For creators, the tool lives in a tab under "Earn" in YouTube Studio; for brands, it's built directly into Google Ads and Display & Video 360. The two sides have markedly different reach, covered below — and that difference is exactly what decides whether a Danish brand and a Danish creator can actually meet there today.
Per YouTube's own blog, YouTube Creator Partnerships is an evolution of tools YouTube previously called BrandConnect — a name that traces back to YouTube's 2016 acquisition of FameBit. At NewFronts 2026, YouTube described it as consolidating its creator-marketing tools into one centralized platform, built directly into YouTube Studio for creators and into Google Ads and Display & Video 360 for advertisers. The headline new element is Gemini: per YouTube itself, Gemini is meant to "analyze billions of data points — including audience similarity, organic brand mentions, and subscriber growth — to suggest creators tailored to a brand's specific identity." That full matching capability has been announced but isn't necessarily fully rolled out to every brand yet.
Per YouTube's own Help Center, access to Creator Partnerships requires:
Eligible creators get access automatically — no active opt-in is required. They can decline instead: emailing youtube-creator-partnerships-opt-out@google.com opts a creator out of the platform entirely, while youtube-brandconnect-opt-out@google.com opts out of search recommendations only. The Creator Partnerships tab itself, on the "Earn" page in Studio, provides inquiry management, a customizable Media Kit with audience insights for pitching to brands, rate preferences for both long-form and Shorts, and a secondary business contact email. The "Earn" page is also where Shorts ad revenue and other income streams live — see YouTube Shorts monetization and brand deals for how that income stream differs from a direct sponsorship.
On the advertiser side, the feature is called "YouTube Creator Partnerships" in Google Ads Help, and the access requirement is markedly broader than on the creator side: any active Google Ads account registered in a country where the YouTube Partner Program is active can use it — per Google, minimum spend requirements and assignment to specific sales teams no longer apply. Matching works by Google cross-referencing account signals (account name, business name, linked YouTube channels, ad creatives, landing page URLs) against YouTube content carrying partnership markers such as #sponsored tags and paid product placements — Google states it is continuously expanding these signals. Once a brand has found a relevant creator video and secured the rights to use it, the video can be linked directly into an existing campaign as an ad — a feature called "creator partnerships boost." Per Google's own figures, advertisers who boosted creator videos on YouTube Shorts saw an average 30% increase in conversion lift — a number from Google's own marketing material, not an independently audited measurement, and reported here as Google's own claim rather than a verified industry standard.
This is where the product's key asymmetry sits. YouTube's own Help Center lists 24 countries/regions where creators can be made discoverable to brands via Creator Partnerships: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. Denmark is not on that list as of 25 August 2026 — a Danish creator cannot currently be discovered by brands through the Creator Partnerships tab, regardless of YPP status. On the advertiser side the picture is entirely different: Google Ads access covers any country where the YouTube Partner Program itself is active, a set of well over 100 countries — and Denmark is among them, since YPP is already widely available to Danish creators. In practice, that means a Danish brand can log into Google Ads and use the search and boost functions today, but will find very few or no Danish creator profiles to search through, because almost no Danish creators are yet part of the discoverable pool.
YouTube is now the third of the major platforms to consolidate its native discovery tool into a single hub — see TikTok Creator Marketplace vs Instagram Creator Marketplace for the full rundown of the other two. Side by side:
| YouTube Creator Partnerships | TikTok One (Creator Marketplace) | Instagram Creator Marketplace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it's accessed | YouTube Studio (creators) / Google Ads & DV360 (brands) | TikTok One / TikTok Ads Manager | Meta Business Suite |
| AI matching | Gemini — audience similarity, organic brand mentions, subscriber growth (announced capability) | Creator AI Search — natural-language brief | Machine-learning-based recommendations |
| Creator eligibility | 18+, YPP member, country on 24-country list (not Denmark) | 18+, TikTok One launched in the region; 1,000+ followers to join paid projects | Sets up a profile in the professional dashboard — no published minimum follower count |
| Brand access | Google Ads accounts in 100+ countries where YPP is active (incl. Denmark) | TikTok Ads Manager / TikTok One | Meta Business Suite |
| Fee or commission disclosed? | No — not published on either the creator or advertiser side | No | No |
| Distinctive feature | Direct link into paid campaigns via "creator partnerships boost" | Partner Exchange — pool of approved production partners | Organic post can be boosted as a Partnership Ad |
Neither YouTube's own Help Center, Google Ads Help, nor YouTube's launch blog post mentions a fee, a commission rate, or a payment mechanism for the platform itself — only that it's integrated into existing Google Ads campaigns, which already carry their own ad spend. It shouldn't be assumed that Creator Partnerships takes a fixed percentage of a deal the way certain affiliate networks do; none of the sources this article draws on support such a figure, so none is repeated here.
IF you're a Danish brand already advertising through Google Ads or Display & Video 360 → you can start using the Creator Partnerships tab today, but should expect a thin pool of Danish creator profiles until Denmark, if ever, appears on the creator-side list.
IF you're a Danish creator who's a YPP member → you can't yet be discovered via Creator Partnerships, because Denmark isn't on the 24-country list — but it's worth checking Studio's "Earn" page periodically, since the list can expand without advance Danish press coverage.
IF you already have an established, curated creator network through a platform like Make Influence or an agency → Creator Partnerships isn't a replacement yet, but a supplementary sourcing channel worth watching, particularly for international campaigns targeting one of the 24 listed countries.
IF the goal is documented sales impact rather than just exposure → remember that Creator Partnerships' Gemini matching is a discovery and relevance feature, not a tracking solution — see how influencer tracking actually works for how you still need to measure the actual result of a collaboration, regardless of where the creator was found.
In Make Influence's experience, a platform's own AI matching is a useful filter for narrowing a large field of candidates quickly — but it doesn't replace the manual judgment of whether a specific creator's audience actually matches your customer. Gemini can point to audience similarity and organic brand mentions, but it says nothing about engagement quality or whether the audience is genuinely Danish or local enough for your market — see how to verify an influencer's audience before you pay for the full checklist, regardless of which AI tool surfaced the candidate in the first place. As with TikTok One and Instagram Creator Marketplace, we see the platforms' own discovery tools as one sourcing channel among several, not a replacement for a consolidated, tracked view across platforms — see how to choose an influencer marketing platform.
Effectively, yes — YouTube itself describes it as an evolution and rename of BrandConnect, announced at NewFronts on 23 March 2026. YouTube no longer actively uses the BrandConnect name.
Not to be discovered by brands through the platform today — Denmark isn't on YouTube's list of 24 countries with creator-side access as of 25 August 2026. Ordinary YPP monetization is unaffected by this.
Yes, on the advertiser side — access covers any country where the YouTube Partner Program is active, which includes Denmark. The pool of visible Danish creator profiles will be limited, though, until Denmark appears on the creator-side list.
No fee or commission rate for the platform itself is published in any of the sources this article draws on — campaigns using "creator partnerships boost" are billed through existing Google Ads spend.
Two separate things. Creator Partnerships is about finding creators for sponsored collaborations and linking them into paid campaigns; YouTube Shopping's affiliate program is a product-tagging system where a creator earns commission when a viewer buys a tagged product. See YouTube Shopping's affiliate program, explained for the full mechanics.
Structurally similar — all three are the platforms' own free discovery tools with an AI-matching feature. The biggest difference is eligibility: YouTube's creator side is limited to 24 countries (not Denmark), while TikTok's and Instagram's own access rules are broader, though still not fully documented either. See TikTok Creator Marketplace vs Instagram Creator Marketplace for the full comparison.
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