i don't want to panic you and I really
don't want this to come off as clickbait but this is really weird
did YouTube just completely end affiliate marketing on the YouTube platform?
I saw this today it was a really tiny announcement on a video
on the Creator Insider channel which is where YouTube tends to make announcements to creators
it's 15 seconds long, and about two minutes into their news flash video that came out today
and finally we're expanding on an experiment that detects products in your content or related
products now we've experimented with this in the past and what it does is allow viewers to
decide what to watch next and what to do next that's all
that is all it said but look at the screen grab
can you see it what it looks like is that under the video, YouTube or
Google will serve adverts – direct shopping adverts – to the products that appear in the video
and it looks like those adverts… they kind of look like the adverts on the Google shopping tab
so does this mean that YouTube is completely wiping out making money on YouTube
by using affiliate marketing? isn't this like really massive?
I mean people make like six figure sums a year from Amazon Associates
is this a whole industry on YouTube that's being wiped out?
and is it me or is there so much to pull apart in this 15 second clip especially
if you make money from affiliate marketing let's take another look at the screen grab
it looks like this feature is called watch & shop and sorry it looks so blurry
this is how it looks on the official YouTube video and from this it looks like to me that Google
will offer ads underneath our videos to the products that it can see in our videos
we already know that things like Google Cloud Vision can completely interpret
images and YouTube analyzes our videos frame by frame for all of this metadata
so the idea is if it detects a product it can directly take the viewer to a place
to buy the product straight from our videos so here's the problem and why
I think this is absolutely huge if you and I make money from affiliate
marketing here's how it works at the moment: I make a video where I talk about a microphone
– like say this microphone here – and I make that video last about six minutes
then down in the description there are these links here that link to the products
in this case they link to Amazon and if you click on the links there and buy the products or
other products I make a commission on that link but look at this – and I know it's blurry I'm
sorry – but this lovely visual box will now automatically appear to whisk your purchase after
you've done all that work…
The buyer is whisked away and can buy it straight from that Google ad
so does this mean that Google earns all the money from that sale?
and I know I'm racing ahead but there are probably a few other things we
need to pull apart from this 15 second clip the first thing is that we're in 2021 and this
is an experiment and finally we're expanding on an experiment – so it might very well come
and go but I've got a feeling that if it makes money for YouTube it's not gonna go
I think it's just gonna come and not go the second thing is that it's currently
only going to be in the United States this is going to apply to US viewers only
for now so that's interesting for non-us
affiliate marketing YouTubers like me by the way this is how much I earn
from Amazon affiliate marketing I made a whole video about how
much I make in a month the… the link is in the description and on screen now
it is a really tough place to make money I guess the biggest takeaway
from the announcement is this so now we've experimented with this in the past
and what it does is allow viewers to decide what to watch next and what to do next
yeah the viewers as you know YouTube will always decide
what is best for the viewer not the creator or the affiliate marketer but the viewers
it's always been this way by the way hello I'm Neil Mossey: I'm
a development producer helping high achieving creators and performers
just like you to get ideas out into the world here on YouTube to make people happier
I'm wondering could this be absolutely devastating for someone who earns money from unboxing
or reviewing products?
But as a viewer – and YouTube is all about the viewer experience
– this could be absolutely fantastic because currently it's a really ugly experience wading
through links like this instead of really nice shiny…
If a bit blurry… a picture
probably a bit better than this one bit less blurry… but you get the gist right?
but for YouTube this could be great because we'll now have stores competing for that
space underneath our videos instead of all that traffic going to to one online store
now you've probably had exactly the same thought – the same KERCHING thought that I've
had which is "huh, what what if YouTube were to actually share that revenue it gets
from the sales of products underneath creators videos with the YouTube creator?"
and so I left that question or suggestion or just out and out begging in the comments
of that Creator Insider video but then I found out that there was this
article from Bloomberg in October 2020 this article explains that it's an experiment
and claims that the YouTube person said: "creators will have control over
the products that are displayed" KERCHING!
I don't know if I've got the right sound effect for that?
[KERCHING SOUND EFFECT] that's better
the link to that article is in the description below but
let's take a look at the clip one more time and finally we're expanding on an experiment
that detects products in your content so what do you think?
leave a comment below is what you can see here – I'm treading
in all sorts – is what you can see here going to affect you financially do you think?
and on screen now is a link to that video which could either be really exciting
news or absolutely devastating so on the other side I've put another video
just to cheer you up thanks for watching!
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