12 Creators on the Rise earning with YouTube Shopping
Aug 06, 2024 – minute read
The YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program helps creators across genres better connect with their audience and share their favorite products, all while earning money on YouTube. Want to give it a try, but not sure how shopping content fits into your content strategy? Read on to see how 12 creators in the US and Korea are organically leveraging YouTube Shopping — from product tags to recommendations.
@TheScienceofSelfCare
San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA, USA
About: The Science of Self-Care explores health science, life philosophy, and all kinds of self-care experimentation. This channel is all about helping people fall in love with taking care of their beautiful bodies—approaching wellness with a scientific eye and a playful twist.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? I typically make 2 long-form videos each month. With longer videos, I can really get into the details of wellness products, which helps health-interested people make well-informed decisions. Going forward, I will be incorporating YT Shopping into my videos with timestamps. I also plan to focus on posting more short-form cuts of my longer videos in the future.
Tell us about your Collections: I currently have 4 collections, and plan to make many more. I often get asked about general products categories (like what skincare I use). Now I can send people to a single link so they can shop directly. My collections: https://www.youtube.com/@TheScienceofSelfCare/store.
@소개팁 (Intro Tip)
Korea
About: 소개팁 Intro Tip is a go-to channel for all things interesting and useful! This dynamic duo, a discerning wife and a creative husband, teams up to bring you engaging and informative product reviews. Their fast-paced videos are designed to keep you entertained while showcasing a wide range of products.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? My channel is all about 1-minute short-form videos where I showcase interesting and useful products, exclusively through the Coupang affiliate program. I try to make my shopping tag content fun and engaging, often incorporating humor and focusing on reviews rather than just straight-up advertising. I always ask myself, "Is this product eye-catching enough to make viewers want to click?" If it's a niche product that only appeals to a small audience, it might not be the best fit for my channel, especially since I have a smaller subscriber base. I also like to feature affordable products that my viewers find practical and budget-friendly. Additionally, since my videos are short, I focus on products that are easy to understand and use. If it's too complicated, viewers might just skip to the next video. Lastly, if a product I've featured suddenly becomes super popular, I try to create more content around it to take advantage of the trend. For instance, one of my videos about a bug trap went viral, and the follow-up videos I made about similar products also got a lot of views.
How do you use analytics? I refer to YouTube Analytics to understand my audience's age demographics. Since my channel's main audience is between 25-34 years old, I focus on products that are trending on social media and likely to capture their attention, rather than catering to very young or older demographics.
@hughhou
Los Angeles, CA, USA
About: Hugh Hou is an Immersive Filmmaker and Educator with a mission to revolutionize storytelling in the immersive 360 and VR180 space. They create original 3D Spatial films that rival big-budget Hollywood productions, all freely available to inspire others to break away from traditional 2D storytelling.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? To support our original films and cover production costs in Los Angeles, we've devised creative strategies for income generation, with affiliate marketing emerging as a significant source through our YouTube channel. We seamlessly incorporate product mentions and placements into our content, ensuring they align with our storytelling and benefit our audience and fellow creators. Learning from experience, we've discovered that strategically timing product mentions using the affiliate tagging timestamp feature within our long-form content maximizes engagement while maintaining organic affiliate tagging.
How do you use analytics? Analyzing data meticulously, we continuously refine our approach, even retroactively tagging our older content and YouTube Shorts to optimize performance. We see our views vs. clicks compared to our content without any affiliated tagging to measure our audience's acceptance of tagging and draw more effective tagging in future content.
@김자케 gimjake
Korea
About: Gimjake, a self-proclaimed connoisseur of taste, embarks on a culinary adventure to uncover hidden hotspots and delectable restaurants. His restaurant review vlog offers a unique perspective on the world of food, guided solely by his unfiltered opinions and discerning palate.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? While I try to maintain a balance between branded (ad) and non-branded videos, as sponsored content can sometimes affect the overall viewing experience for my audience, I incorporate shopping tags into most of my videos because it's a simple way to add value without impacting the content itself. Given that my content focuses on restaurant reviews, I prioritize tagging Home Meal Replacement (HMR) products from the featured restaurants. I also tag other relevant products, such as similar dishes or local specialties, to provide my audience with a broader range of options.
@hpmakeup
Korea
About: Hpmakeup, a talented makeup artist, is here to share her passion for all things beauty. She'll be your guide to the latest makeup trends, offering reviews and insights on the coolest new cosmetics. Get ready for a fun and informative journey into the world of makeup!
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? I tag products used in my "Get Ready With Me" videos, as well as interesting and trendy cosmetics to keep my audience engaged.
@taishaalicea
El Paso, Texas, USA
About: Taisha is a proud Latina who moved to Texas at 5 years old from Puerto Rico. She has a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and loves anything fashion and beauty. She felt the community was lacking representation of Latin women, which inspired her to start her channel.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? My subscribers are just as passionate and share the same interest as me. I focus on sharing my go-to products or anything new in the market and organically post them in the description of my videos. I also make sure to only share products I organically use, which has built trust in my community.
How do you use analytics? I like to see what products are getting the most attention, which helps me create future content. I am able to see what my viewer is interested in shopping and watching from me. Ex: If I see more clicks on a beauty item rather than a clothing piece, I will focus on talking about more beauty products.
@소소담다 Sosodamda
Korea
About: Sosodamda channel is run by a happy family, featuring a mom, dad, and 2 years old twins. Through vlogs and humorous scenarios, they create content that resonates with viewers and fosters a sense of shared experience.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? Our family-oriented channel prioritizes natural product integration within our vlogs and skits, avoiding overt promotion. We strategically use product tags whenever relevant, enhancing the viewing experience without disrupting the narrative. To strike a balance between entertainment and shopping, we carefully plan content to seamlessly incorporate products that resonate with our audience's interests. We're also exploring themed and seasonal content to further leverage this approach.
@peachietech
Los Angeles, CA, USA
About: Peachietech is a gaming and tech content creator who loves building PCs and making the gaming space more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. She strives to create a welcoming community where everyone can explore the latest tech trends, gadgets, and software.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? Since my content is focused on tech reviews and tutorials, I tag products that I feature organically in my content!
@reallifehoomom
Korea
About: Reallifehoomom is a homemaker and creator who has been active for 6 years. Through her popular YouTube channel, she shares her expertise on organization, housekeeping, and household items, connecting with a wide audience of housewives ranging from their 20s to 60s and older.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? As a lifestyle channel focused on homemaking, viewers are often curious about the household items featured in my videos. By utilizing product tags, I provide easy access to this information, enhancing viewer engagement and driving click-throughs to additional products.
@DannyPops
Nashville, TN, USA
About: DannyPops started YouTube to voice his unfiltered opinion about speakers he both loved and hated. He has been creating speaker reviews for about 2 years to share his love for music and sound, and more recently has been trying to spread that love into new products he enjoys.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? I do lifestyle shorts, and then focus my long form content on actual useful reviews that naturally need affiliate links.
How do you use analytics? I look at what speakers consistently get the most searches, and then use my long term experience to identify key pain points for my viewers.
@jessicayflores
NY, NY, USA
About: Jessica Y. Flores is the founder of the lifestyle channel Domesticated Me, which focuses on fashion, beauty and luxury family travel from the view of a busy but fab mom. Her channel features shopping hauls, product reviews, tutorials, travel tips and vlogs.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? I create affiliate content by doing what I've always done on my channel - product reviews, tutorials/demos, hauls and wishlists.
How do you use analytics? Analytics helps me discover who my audience is and what they are interested in so that I can tailor my content to their needs and interests.
@B_drawing
Korea
About: A vibrant art channel bursting with energy, this channel shatters the conventional image of art with its bold and playful "nonsense" concept. Everyday items like coffee, slime, Hallabong oranges, and wine are ingeniously repurposed as art tools, resulting in captivating hand-drawn masterpieces.
What’s your YouTube Shopping Strategy? I prioritize authenticity by featuring only products I personally use and love, ensuring high-quality recommendations that drive clicks. I also seek out unique items with strong potential for brand partnerships.