"Creator 'Chae-woo' posted content titled 'How to Purchase VDL Cushion at the Cheapest Price' along with Olive Young product tags immediately after CJ Olive Young joined the YouTube Shopping partnership. Compared to the 28 days prior to posting the video, revenue from the shopping affiliate program increased by 799%, and the number of orders surged by 1061%. Views were more than double compared to other videos." (Park Jeong-yeon, Head of YouTube Marketing in Korea)
On the afternoon of the 24th, YouTube held the 'YouTube Shopping Accelerator' event at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul, announcing this. The event was organized to share the achievements of the YouTube shopping affiliate program after one year of its launch and to exchange successful cases among creators.
YouTube introduced the shopping affiliate program to Korea in June last year, the first outside the United States. Creators who meet the eligibility requirements can tag various products sold by affiliates in their content after a simple registration process. The affiliate partners have expanded from Coupang this year to include Olive Young and Zigzag. Viewers can click on the tags to purchase products, and creators receive a commission through this.
Park noted, "More than 25,000 creators in Korea have joined this program, and product tags have been featured in over 950,000 videos." Park added, "Thanks to the creators, YouTube Shopping has seen significant growth so far," and stated, "YouTube will also spare no effort in supporting faster growth for creators. A large-scale marketing campaign is planned to increase recognition of YouTube Shopping among unfamiliar viewers."
Coupang, the affiliate partner along with YouTube Shopping, has also experienced rapid growth. At the event, Shin Young-ho, manager of the Coupang Partners team, stated, "So far, 20,000 YouTube creators have collaborated with Coupang, and 1.75 million pieces of content and 3.12 million product tags have been activated." He added, "We have newly launched a feature that recommends products by mixing Coupang's data based on creators' channel information and selected categories to assist creators facing difficulties in content planning."
Seo Jeong-hoon, founder of Zigzag and CEO of Kakao Style, remarked, "I believe the primary revenue business for creators has shifted from 'advertising' to 'YouTube shopping tags'" and stated, "Viewers are very aware of whether a product is one that the creator has intentionally selected or simply advertised. They are looking for creators who know what authentic content is." He added, "We are preparing data features that will help creators," emphasizing that enhancing product recommendations to ensure that only products reflecting the creators' character and usual preferences are tagged is a top priority.
With Olive Young and Zigzag joining as partners this year, fashion and beauty-related trends in YouTube Shopping were actively shared at the event. Shin suggested, "In the second quarter, the share of short-form content was large, but the average purchase amount was highest in long-form content," adding, "Introducing high-priced luxury brand products in long-form content is advantageous." Coupang is enabling YouTube creators to introduce and sell high-priced foreign brands in their content through channels like R.LUX and Farfetch.
Kim Ga-yeon, a marketer in the social commerce team at Olive Young, noted, "The keywords that Olive Young customers are interested in are the beauty trends," adding, "The common search terms derived from related searches shown when searching for Olive Young on YouTube and Olive Young's rapidly rising search terms are currently the 'hottest' keywords." For instance, incorporating Olive Young's Sanrio collaboration into content is likely to lead to an increase in views as well as a conversion to purchases through Olive Young product tags.
Heo Seung-ha, a YouTube cultural trends manager, stated, "For viewers interested in fashion trends, they grasp the essence through shorts and then watch long-form content to see deeper analysis," noting, "YouTube is a platform where viewers gather who want to learn broadly and sometimes in-depth about topics they are interested in. These viewers are likely to be more proactive in purchasing products." Heo also mentioned, "Recently, content with 'pursuing beauty' in the title has seen over 800% growth in views compared to last year," stating, "This is evidence that viewers are seeking their own unique tastes rather than conforming to standardized trends."