YouTube is testing a new commission scheme for video creators to help lure them away from TikTok and stave off flagging ad revenues.
The new feature is coming to Shorts — YouTube’s short-form TikTok competitor — and it will let users buy products as they scroll through videos. The company is currently piloting the “affiliate marketing” scheme with a select number of US-based creators.
“Our goal is to focus on the best monetisation opportunities for creators in the market,” Michael Martin, YouTube Shopping’s general manager, told the Financial Times.
However, the rate YouTube charges and the commission it provides to the creator remains undisclosed. Viewers in the US, India, Brazil, Canada and Australia are currently able to shop through Shorts.
Creators will also get a 45 per cent cut of the revenue made through displaying ads between videos on Shorts from early next year.
“It is very much an endorsement model, versus a more traditional advertising model or a paid-placements model,” Martin said.
“That is the way they prefer to consume information about products, and Shorts are inherently shoppable from that perspective.”
YouTube Shorts recently surpassed TikTok in terms of monthly users. The YouTube spinoff attracted 1.5 billion users, while TikTok could only manage a paltry billion.
YouTube ha trialled live shopping which, unsurprisingly, lets users shop during a livestream. However, Martin told the FT that it had narrowed its scope following a lack of sales with western users. Instead, the company will focus its live shopping efforts in markets where it has become popular, such as South Korea.
“I think it’ll be a period of time before [live shopping] emerges at scale,” Martin said.
Social media platforms are in a race to attract creators, who have a strong appeal with Gen Z consumers, to their sites and away from rivals. Martin said that this younger generation favour “queryless video-based interactions,” meaning that they do not want to search products — instead having products delivered to them natively.
