As a platform with a huge user base and strong content marketing capabilities, YouTube Shopping has undoubtedly become a new blue ocean in the eyes of many merchants. However, its entry process has discouraged many merchants, who either try blindly because they cannot meet the entry requirements, or get lost in the complex operation steps and miss the opportunity. In order to help merchants successfully enter YouTube Shopping and start a new journey of cross-border e-commerce, the following is the latest comprehensive guide to the entry process in 2025.
Contents

I. What is YouTube Shopping?
In simple terms, YouTube creators can promote products in their own videos or channels by associating channels and stores, similar to domestic video or live streaming sales. It includes video shopping carts, live streaming shopping carts, showcases, stores, affiliate marketing and other major sections, which play a great role in broadening marketing channels and promoting monetization.
Unlike TikTok Shop, YouTube has a wide user base, covering different age groups and various interest areas. Users mostly gather because of specific themes and are more inclined to obtain knowledge, entertainment, reviews and other information before making consumption decisions.
YouTube Shopping provides a variety of shopping access points, including the YouTube store, the product display area below the video, and product tags directly embedded in short videos and live broadcasts, achieving a seamless combination of shopping and promotion, as shown below:

II. How to monetize?
1. Merchandise sales: Creators can sell personal or brand merchandise directly on YouTube.
2. In-video shopping links: YouTube allows creators to add shopping links in videos, and viewers can directly click on the links to purchase products.
3. Affiliate Marketing Cooperation: Creators can add affiliate links in video descriptions to promote third-party products or services and earn commissions from them.
4. Advertising revenue: Although YouTube Shopping itself does not directly involve advertising revenue, creators can increase channel exposure and traffic by turning on video ads, thereby increasing product sales opportunities and indirectly increasing advertising revenue.

III. Materials to be prepared for settlement
1. Company business license and related certification documents: used to prove the company’s legal operating status.
2. Google account and YouTube channel information: clarify the ownership and related settings of the account and channel, including channel name, introduction, avatar and other information. This information will affect the display and dissemination of the brand image to a certain extent.
3. Detailed product information: including product price, accurate description and high-quality pictures.
4. Video samples: Prepare several video samples that demonstrate the merchant’s content creation capabilities and style, ensure that they meet the platform requirements, and let the platform reviewers understand the merchant’s video production level and content direction in advance.

IV. How to apply for admission?
1. Enter YouTube Studio
After logging in to your YouTube account, click on your profile picture in the upper right corner and select “YouTube Studio” to enter the creator backend management interface.
2. Enable commercial settings
In YouTube Studio, find the Earn tab and click on it, then select Monetization to start the application process.
3. Review and agree to the terms
Carefully read the terms of the Creator Program, including advertising revenue sharing policy, content specifications and other important contents. After fully understanding, check the "Agree" option to ensure that subsequent operations meet the platform requirements.
4. Set country or region
According to the actual business operation scope and needs, set the correct country or region information, which may affect the scope of advertising and the applicability of some localization policies. This involves an account positioning issue. Usually in overseas account services, IPFoxy proxy pure IP can not only make the account more secure and authentic, but also help users overcome geographical restrictions by setting residential IP in specific countries and cities, and ensuring that the IP is pure and independent, which supports your advertising or market research analysis.

5. Associate AdSense account
If you already have an AdSense account, connect it here; if not, follow the prompts to create a new AdSense account. The AdSense account is a key link in achieving advertising revenue management and settlement. You must ensure that the account information is accurate and keep the relevant login credentials properly.
6. Submit review application
After completing all the above steps, click the "Submit Review Application" button and wait patiently for YouTube to review your channel. The review time may vary, generally taking several days to several weeks. During this period, you can continue to optimize your channel content and settings.
7. Wait for the review results
After submitting the application, the YouTube platform will conduct a comprehensive review of the channel, including content quality, compliance, fan activity and other factors.
(1) If the review is passed, you will be able to obtain more commercial function permissions, including displaying and promoting products in YouTube Shopping.
(2) If the review fails, the platform will provide feedback on the specific reasons. Creators need to make targeted rectifications and optimizations to the channel based on the feedback, such as improving the direction of content creation, handling violations, etc., and then they can submit their application again.

In short, although entering YouTube Shopping requires meeting certain conditions and following a series of procedures, as long as merchants prepare carefully and complete various operations step by step, they can successfully open this sales channel with huge potential. I hope everyone can successfully enter, thank you for watching!