Guide
Platform & Automation
Brands
YouTube Shopping's affiliate program lets approved creators tag products directly in videos, Shorts and livestreams and earn commission when a viewer buys through the tag — without the merchant ever choosing or briefing that specific creator beforehand. Access requires YouTube Partner Program membership and at least 500 subscribers in an available market (down from 10,000 as of 27 March 2026). As of writing, the program is live in only 15 markets — the UK joined on 23 July 2026 via Awin — and neither Denmark nor the rest of the EU is among them.
YouTube Shopping's affiliate program lets approved creators tag products directly in videos, Shorts and livestreams, and they earn commission when a viewer buys through the tag — without the merchant ever having chosen or briefed that specific creator beforehand. That makes the program structurally an affiliate channel, not a curated influencer deal: everything runs on open enrolment, not a brand-to-creator conversation. As of writing, the program is live for creators and merchants in only 15 markets — the UK joined on 23 July 2026 — and neither Denmark nor the rest of the EU is among them. Below: how tagging and commission actually work, where the program is genuinely live today, and how it differs from TikTok Shop's Affiliate Program and the Amazon Influencer Program.
Per YouTube's own creator page, an approved creator can tag products in new and existing content — long-form videos, Shorts and livestreams — and add a call to action so the viewer knows they can shop directly. Tagging happens in YouTube Studio, under the "Shopping" tab in the "Earn" section, where the creator can search for products by name or URL and select up to 60 products at a time; an auto-tagging feature also suggests products based on links already present in a video's description. Per YouTube, the creator earns commission — not just on the tagged item, but on the entire basket of qualifying purchases the viewer completes in the same transaction.
It's worth being precise about what this is not: it is not the same as the YouTube Partner Program's ordinary ad revenue from Shorts (the Creator Pool model), and it is not a briefed, paid sponsorship either. See YouTube Shorts monetization and brand deals for the separate mechanics behind YouTube's own ad payout — the two systems run entirely independently, and a creator can easily have access to one without the other.
The program has two independent eligibility gates that both have to be cleared — one for the creator, one for the merchant — and they're governed by different Google systems.
| Creator side | Merchant side | |
|---|---|---|
| Base requirement | Member of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) | Google Merchant Center account |
| Subscribers | At least 500 subscribers in an available market — down from 10,000 as of 27 March 2026, per YouTube's own update and multiple independent industry sources that covered the change the same day | No subscriber figure — the requirement is about store type and market eligibility, see the next section |
| Channel type | Can't be marked "Made for Kids" with substantial kids' content, and can't be a music channel or affiliated with a music partner | Must follow Google Merchant Center's own guidelines for accurate product information |
| Geographic requirement | The channel must be located in one of the countries where the program is open (see the next section) | Depends on the entry route — Shopify merchants have historically needed a US target country in Merchant Center; merchants onboarded via Awin (as in the UK launch) follow Awin's own admission rules instead |
The two layers are independent of each other: a creator who clears the subscriber threshold still can't earn anything if no merchant in their market participates — and the reverse holds too. That combination is exactly what keeps Denmark out today, regardless of whether a Danish creator has 500, 5,000 or 500,000 subscribers.
Per YouTube's own Help Center, the program is currently open to creators in the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam — 14 countries, none of them in the EU.
On 23 July 2026, the United Kingdom became the first European market to join, per an official YouTube statement quoted on affiliate network Awin's own blog. Awin acts as YouTube's affiliate platform partner for the UK launch, connecting creators with seven named retailers at launch: Boots, M&S, Currys, Wayfair, Debenhams, Next and Etsy. The requirement is the same 500 subscribers and active YPP membership as in the other 14 countries.
Neither Denmark nor any other EU country is on either list as of writing. This is an explainer of how the program works and where it stands today — not a guarantee it stays that way. Always check YouTube's own list before building a strategy around the program, since it has already expanded more than once across 2026 alone.
The program has historically run through one main route: Shopify merchants with an Advanced or Plus subscription plan can join via the free "Google & YouTube" app, which syncs products from the store to Google Merchant Center, from where the merchant manages the program under "YouTube affiliate" in the marketing menu. The UK launch added a second route: merchants that don't necessarily run on Shopify (like the named UK retailers) instead come in through Awin's existing affiliate infrastructure as a platform partner — a structure that resembles the one many brands already know from an ordinary affiliate network. See affiliate influencer marketing: how the model works for the general mechanics behind an open affiliate network like Awin, independent of YouTube.
It's the merchant — not YouTube — that sets the commission rate, and any attribution window, per product; the rate shows directly on the product offer, so a creator can see it before tagging anything. Per Google Merchant Center's own documentation, merchants who joined through an affiliate network like Awin need to configure commission and eligibility periods through the network itself — not directly through Google.
The purchase itself does not happen inside YouTube. Per Google Merchant Center's own page, checkout completes on the merchant's own website — "so you own the customer experience," as Google puts it. That makes YouTube Shopping structurally closer to Instagram's wound-down product tags than to TikTok Shop's full in-app checkout; see the comparison table below.
Once a purchase completes, the commission isn't paid out immediately. Per YouTube's own Help Center, commission is processed through AdSense for YouTube, and there's a 60–120 day window after the purchase before the payout is final — a holding period that explicitly exists to allow for returns, cancellations and partial refunds. If the customer returns the product within that window, the commission is reversed through the same AdSense system, the same way ordinary ad revenue can be adjusted.
| YouTube Shopping affiliate | TikTok Shop Affiliate | Amazon Influencer Program | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who sets commission | The merchant, per product | The brand, per product | Amazon, per product category |
| Where checkout happens | The merchant's own website | Inside the TikTok app | On Amazon itself, via the creator's storefront |
| Creator eligibility | YPP membership + 500 subscribers in an open market | 1,000 followers (with a 30-day pilot program under 5,000) | No official published minimum — in practice rarely under roughly 1,000 followers |
| Available to Danish creators today | No — neither Denmark nor the rest of the EU is on the list | No — the Nordics aren't among the ten European markets TikTok Shop is live in | Only indirectly via amazon.de or another EU marketplace — there's no Danish Amazon marketplace |
| Payout route | AdSense for YouTube, 60–120 day holding period | Directly from TikTok, automatic once a sale is attributed | Via Amazon's Associates infrastructure |
The pattern repeats across all three: none of them are available to a purely Danish creator or brand yet — see TikTok Shop LIVE Shopping with influencers and the Amazon Influencer Program for the other two platforms' full mechanics and market status.
IF you already run a Shopify Advanced or Plus store and sell into one of the 15 available markets → join through Google Merchant Center and the "Google & YouTube" app; that's the fastest route in for a Shopify merchant today.
IF you're a UK-based retailer without Shopify → onboarding runs through Awin as the platform partner instead of directly through Merchant Center.
IF your creators and your customers are exclusively Danish → the program isn't an option yet, regardless of subscriber count. See how to set up an affiliate program for influencers for an alternative you can run yourself through a network like Awin or Adtraction, independent of YouTube's own program.
IF you want a purchase flow that happens entirely inside the app → YouTube Shopping isn't the right fit — the purchase always happens on your own website. TikTok Shop is closer to a full in-app experience, but it isn't available in the Nordics yet either.
IF a creator has under 500 subscribers → they aren't YPP-eligible for this program at all regardless of market, and a curated affiliate or performance deal is a more realistic option in the meantime.
The figures below are hypothetical and illustrate only how the commission mechanic works technically — they are not a documented market price and not a real Make Influence customer case. Because the program isn't available to Danish creators today, the example assumes a hypothetical creator in one of the 15 open markets, with figures converted to DKK for comparability with the rest of the Academy.
A creator tags four products in a video. One of them — a speaker priced at 899 kr — sells 18 units through the tag over the video's lifetime. The merchant has set commission at 8% for that specific product:
Compare that with a briefed, curated video from the same creator at a fixed fee — there's no holding period, and payment doesn't depend on whether this particular product sells. The point isn't which model is "better," but that the two carry fundamentally different risk and timing profiles — see affiliate influencer marketing: how the model works for the broader comparison between curated and open affiliate distribution.
Make Influence doesn't run YouTube Shopping's affiliate infrastructure — it's a Google/YouTube-owned program outside our curated model, and it isn't available to Danish creators or brands at all today. Our experience from other platform-native commission programs — like TikTok Shop's Affiliate Program — is that these channels work best as a supplement to, not a replacement for, a curated relationship: they add scale and low risk, but you lose control over who represents the product and how, and — in this case — whether payment can even reach a Danish creator before YouTube opens the market. Until then, a curated affiliate track through a network like Awin or Adtraction, or a briefed performance deal, is the real option for a Danish brand — see how to set up an affiliate program for influencers.
No. The two are entirely separate systems with different eligibility requirements and payout mechanics. See YouTube Shorts monetization and brand deals for how the Creator Pool model works separately.
No. As of writing, the program is open in 15 markets — 14 outside the EU plus the UK from 23 July 2026 — and neither Denmark nor any other EU country is among them.
500, in one of the available markets, since YouTube lowered the requirement from 10,000 on 27 March 2026. The channel also has to be an active YouTube Partner Program member.
The merchant, per product — not YouTube. The rate shows on the product offer, so a creator can see it before tagging the product.
No. Per Google Merchant Center's own page, checkout completes on the merchant's own website, not inside the YouTube app.
60–120 days after the purchase, via AdSense for YouTube — a holding period that explicitly exists to allow for returns and cancellations before the commission is final.
No. Shopify merchants join through Google Merchant Center and the "Google & YouTube" app. The named UK retailers (Boots, M&S, Currys, Wayfair, Debenhams, Next and Etsy) instead joined through affiliate network Awin as YouTube's platform partner for the UK launch — a different technical entry point, but the same creator-side requirements.
All three are compared directly in TikTok Shop vs Instagram Shop vs YouTube Shopping compared, including where checkout happens on each and Instagram's newly relaunched (March 2026) affiliate tagging in Reels.
Make Influence
Find creators with real audience data, run collaborations in one place, and see clicks and sales per creator while the campaign is live.
Book a demoCreate accountMake Influence
Apply to campaigns from brands that are actively looking, follow your own clicks and sales, and get paid without chasing invoices.
Create creator profileMore creator guidesMake Influence
Briefs, agreed terms, tracking links and results sit together — so brands and creators see the same numbers.
See how it worksBrowse the Academy
