YouTube also announced that it’s launching a new Chrome extension that will allow creators in the U.S. who are part of the affiliate program to save products while browsing a brand or retailer’s site in order to quickly find them when they’re ready to tag them in a video.
The expansion of the affiliate program comes as YouTube has ramped up its e-commerce efforts over the past few years as a way to bring in more revenue amid a slowdown in digital advertising. Its efforts seem to be working, as YouTube previously announced that people watched more than 30 billion hours of shopping-related videos on YouTube in 2023, and that that platform saw a 25% increase in watch time for videos that help people shop.