By publisher type · YouTubers
Affiliate Programs
for YouTubers
The Video Is Permanent. The Description Is Not.
An upload is two things on two clocks. The video is fixed the second it publishes — whatever you said about a price or a plan is said for good. The description under it can be re-pointed any time, and the edit reaches every future view. Almost everything practical about monetising a channel comes out of that one difference.
- No audience minimum
- Sources declared, then matched
- Five sub ID slots per link
- What is checked
- The channel you declare, not how many subscribe
- What keeps earning
- A video that stays findable, and the link under it
- The catch
- You can re-point the link; you cannot re-cut the words
- Where it is decided
- The brief — sources, markets and the qualifying action
Where the link goes
Six places a link can sit on a video
The link is never in the video — it is beside it, under it or spoken through it, and each route asks something different of the viewer. The third column is a question to settle before you record, not a rule any platform has published here.
| Placement | What it can carry | Settle first |
|---|---|---|
| The first lines of the description | A full tracking link, visible without anyone expanding anything. | That it still points somewhere live. This is the one part of a published video you can fix later, so it is where the campaign that might change belongs. |
| The rest of the description | Everything else — further links, the disclosure in writing, chapter notes. | That nothing important depends on a viewer tapping to expand. Plan for most of them never doing it. |
| A pinned comment | A second copy of the link, sitting under the video rather than inside it. | Whether you will keep it current. A pinned link to a campaign that has ended is worse than no pinned comment at all. |
| Said out loud, or shown on screen | A short address a viewer types, or a code they remember. Nothing clickable. | A plain redirect on an address you control — cloaked links are refused across the marketplace — and a code only where the advertiser has agreed one. |
| The channel page links | One set of destinations shared by every video you have ever published. | Sub IDs, or the whole channel reports back as one undifferentiated row with nothing to learn from. |
| A short vertical clip | Depends entirely on the format — some show no description at all. | Whether the format you are posting to gives you a link surface in the first place. That is the platform's own rule and it moves, so check it before you build a plan on it. |
No platform is named on this page, deliberately: which formats show a description, what an end screen may carry and what survives a re-share are each the venue's own rules, and they move. Read the current ones alongside the brief. Link anatomy and the five sub ID slots are on tracking links; a spoken address with nothing clickable behind it is taken apart on programs for podcasters; and the row about one link slot serving everything you publish belongs to no-website affiliate programs.
The line that decides the rest
The video is permanent, the description is not
A blog post can be corrected. A live read is gone in a minute. A video is the awkward third case: it keeps being watched for years and cannot be changed, while the one part of it you can edit sits underneath. Five things follow.
- 01
The words are fixed the moment you publish
A price you read out, a plan name, a country list, a limit — all of them move, and the recording does not. Creatives have to reflect what the advertiser currently publishes, so say the things that stay true out loud and leave the things that move to the part of the page you can edit.
- 02
The description is the repair kit
It is the only surface on a published video you can change, and a change applies to every future view — including views of something you uploaded two years ago. Treat it as maintenance with a schedule, not as a field you filled in once on upload day.
- 03
A finished campaign fails quietly
Nothing tells you when an advertiser stops. The video keeps recommending, the link keeps being clicked, and the earnings simply stop arriving. A broken link at least looks broken; this does not, which is why the re-check has to be a habit rather than a reaction.
- 04
The disclosure has to be where the video is watched
A description can be collapsed, and it does not always travel when a video is embedded elsewhere or re-shared. A link in a description still carries your disclosure — so put it in writing there and say it in the video as well, because only one of the two is guaranteed to arrive.
- 05
One upload is one row unless you label it
Every tracking link carries five sub ID slots you fill yourself. Put the video in one and the placement inside it in another, and you can tell which upload earned months later. Skip it and a year of publishing comes back as a single number.
Row one is a network rule rather than a style preference: creatives have to reflect what the advertiser currently publishes, and a misleading one is refused with its conversions invalidated — both are on campaign guidelines, with the three-rung ladder that follows a breach. The disclosure line in row four is the same one every content publisher works to on content sites and blogs. What a reviewer opens before any of it is on how approval works.
What the video is for
Three jobs a video does, and what each one can hold
The placement that works is decided by why somebody pressed play. These three cover most monetised uploads, and they do not want the same campaign, the same link position or the same amount of upkeep.
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Job one
The tutorial someone searched for
They arrived with a problem.
The viewer went looking, which means the recommendation is already halfway made and the link belongs in the first lines rather than at the end. This is also the job with the longest tail, so terms that hold still matter more here than a headline rate that may not.
Suits tools and subscriptions that do not change every week.
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Job two
The review of one thing
One product, one decision.
What you may say is bounded by what the advertiser publishes: their claims are theirs to make, and yours are evidence about your own use. Keep the two apart inside the sentence — a reviewer reads the sentence, not the intention behind it.
Read the creative rules before you read the rate.
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Job three
The comparison or round-up
Several links, several briefs.
Every item you list is a separate campaign with its own accepted sources, market list and qualifying action, and they will not agree. Label each link separately or the report cannot tell them apart, and give any ordering a reason a viewer could check for themselves.
The most upkeep, because every listed item can move.
The third one is where most upkeep hides: a round-up is several campaigns at once, and they will not share a market list or a qualifying action. If the ordering follows what a row pays rather than a criterion you named, say so plainly or change the order. The creator-facing terms behind all three are on creator campaigns, and what is open to applications right now is in the campaign index.
What fits a library
Eight shelves, sorted by how well they age
A channel is an archive that keeps selling, so the useful question is not only what your audience buys — it is what will still be true about the campaign when somebody watches this in eighteen months. Each line is the one thing that changes on that shelf.
-
Subscription software
The shelf a library suits best: the product is the same next year, and where a campaign pays on renewals rather than once, an old video keeps mattering.
-
Online courses and learning
Bought after a long think, often days after the video. The attribution window on the brief decides whether that delay is yours or nobody's.
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Creator hardware and electronics
Prices move faster than your upload schedule, and rates are applied per item, so an accessory is not paid like the device it plugs into. Quote the advertiser's page instead of a number.
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Digital downloads and templates
Stable terms and an instant qualifying action — the least maintenance on this list once the link is right.
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Web hosting and site builders
Plans and tiers are renamed more often than they are retired, so the name you said on camera is the line most likely to go stale first.
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VPN and security tools
Country availability is a real line here rather than a formality, and a video is watched from everywhere. A conversion from a market the campaign does not list is rejected rather than repriced.
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Mobile apps
The qualifying action can be an install, a signup or something after it, and the brief is the only place that says which. Store availability moves by market too.
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Seasonal and gift offers
The one shelf that fights a library: the offer ends and the video does not. If you publish these, plan the description edit for the week after, not for next year.
Each of those shelves is somebody else's page here, and the rulebook goes with it: subscription software on SaaS and cloud, and the renewal question on recurring commission programs; teaching on online courses; cameras, lights and components on electronics; downloads on digital products; web hosting and website builders on their own; VPN beside them; installs on mobile app campaigns; and the dated shelf on seasonal and gift offers.
How it works
From a channel to a video that pays
Five steps, and the two that matter most happen before the upload button. A description can be fixed in a minute; the recording cannot be fixed at all.
- 01
Register and name the channel
Registration is free and a person reads the application, usually within a day or two — nothing is auto-approved. Name the channel you actually publish on, with a link a reviewer can open. What is matched is the source, not the size of the audience.
- 02
Read the source checklist before the rate
Every brief marks social, organic and in-app traffic allowed or blocked, one line at a time. Organic channel content and verified partnerships are an accepted category across the marketplace; anything a brief does not name should be read as refused rather than as undecided.
- 03
Build the link and label it per video
Each tracking link carries five sub ID slots you fill yourself. Put the video in one and the placement — description, pinned comment, channel page — in another, so you can see which upload and which surface did the work.
- 04
Fire a test conversion before you publish
Check the labels come back exactly as you typed them. A wrong link in a description can be fixed in a minute; a wrong address read out on camera is in the recording for good.
- 05
Judge on approved, then re-check the descriptions
Read approved against pending once validation has caught up, and put a recurring date in the calendar to open your best-performing videos and confirm every link still lands where you think it does.
Which sources a campaign accepts is set per campaign and printed on the brief — the standard behind that is on compliance, and the checklist on each listing is on browse campaigns. What happens between a conversion and a payment is on payouts, and the dates and thresholds are on the payment schedule.
Creative
What goes inside the video, and what goes under it
Both lists are network rules rather than preferences. The split matters here more than anywhere else on the site, because one column can be edited after publication and the other one never can.
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Inside the video — say it so it lasts
- A disclosure said aloud, not only typed in the description
- The advertiser's published claims in the advertiser's own wording
- Your own experience described as yours rather than as the product's
- Facts that will still be true in a year — leave the moving ones below
- An address you control if you say one, pointing at a plain redirect
-
Under the video — keep it true
- The tracking link in the first lines, checked after every campaign change
- The disclosure in writing as well, because the spoken one can be skipped
- One sub ID for the video and one for the surface it sits on
- Nothing rewarded for clicking unless the campaign carries the incentive tag
- No income promise, no invented claim, no countdown the advertiser has not set
The incentive line is the one creators hit by accident, because rewarding an audience is ordinary elsewhere. Rewarded clicks sent to a campaign carrying no incentive tag do not pay less — the conversions are invalidated and access can be paused. Where codes and rewards are the whole model, that playbook is on cashback and coupon sites.
Questions
Creator questions
What video publishers ask before they put a campaign in a description — starting with the one about subscriber counts.
Do I need a minimum number of subscribers to join?
No. Access is matched to the traffic sources you declare, not to a subscriber or view count, and no audience threshold is published here because the network does not screen on one. A person reads the application and opens the channel you named, so what matters is that it is real, active and yours. A small channel with a clear subject is assessed the same way as a large one.
What are the best affiliate programs for YouTubers?
No ranking is published here, and a ranked list elsewhere is usually the list-maker's own affiliate links. Judge a campaign on four lines instead: whether it names your traffic source, what the qualifying action is, how long the attribution window runs, and how stable the terms are — because your video will still be recommending the thing long after you have moved on. What is open right now is in the campaign index.
Can I put affiliate links in my video description?
Yes, on campaigns whose brief names your source, and the description is the natural home for them: it is the only part of a published video you can edit afterwards. Use the first lines rather than the bottom, keep the disclosure in writing beside the link, and remember that the same link needs its own sub ID if you want to know which video produced the sale.
What happens to my old videos when a campaign ends?
The video keeps playing and the link stops earning, usually with no notification at all. Nothing about a finished campaign is visible from the outside, which is why a scheduled re-check of your best-performing uploads is worth more than reacting to a drop months later. Re-point the description to a live campaign and the fix applies to every future view.
Can I read out a discount code instead of a link?
Where the advertiser has agreed one. A vanity code is issued against your publisher account, so a conversion is credited to you even when the buyer typed it straight into checkout and never touched a link. It is agreed per campaign rather than assumed, and it is the only route that survives a viewer watching on a screen they cannot click.
How do I know which video earned the commission?
Label it. Each tracking link carries five sub ID slots you fill yourself, and conversions report back against the exact values you sent. Put the video in one slot and the placement in another; without that, every upload you have ever published arrives as a single number.
Can I say the price in the video?
You can, and it is the line most likely to age badly. Creatives have to reflect what the advertiser currently publishes, and a recording cannot be corrected — so if a price or a plan name is central to the video, expect to add a correction in the description when it moves, or phrase it on camera in a way that does not depend on the number.
Are short vertical videos treated differently?
By this network, no — the campaign's brief names the sources it accepts and the format is not a separate permission. What does differ is the surface: some short formats show little or no description, so the link you were relying on may not exist there. Check what the format currently gives you before you plan around it, because those rules are the platform's and they change.
Can I run a giveaway around an affiliate link?
Only on a campaign the advertiser has tagged for incentivised traffic. Rewarded clicks sent to a campaign with no incentive tag do not simply pay less — the conversions are invalidated and access can be paused. The tag is set per campaign, so read the brief before you record the announcement.
When does the money actually arrive?
After the qualifying event the conversion sits pending while the advertiser validates it, then waits out the campaign's hold period, then joins the next payment run once your balance clears the minimum. A video library tends to earn in a steady trickle rather than in spikes, so the threshold matters more than the frequency of the runs.
Keep reading
- Publisher hub The parent page: how a publisher account works end to end
- Programs for podcasters The channel where nothing is clickable, and how a spoken address is tracked
- Programs for streamers The live half of video: a rolling audience and seven link surfaces
- Social media traffic Why reach is granted rather than targeted, and what clears each source
- Tracking links Click IDs, the five sub ID slots and the test conversion
- Campaign guidelines Creative rules, accepted traffic and the enforcement ladder
Set the link up before you record
Create your publisher account, declare the channel you publish on, then apply to the campaigns whose traffic checklist names it.