Disclosure rules differ between countries and between platforms, and some countries require particular wording. What follows is practical principle rather than legal advice, and the authority is your platform's rules and your country's law.
In one video's description he put twenty links: the camera, the lens, the microphone, the tripod, the lights, the bag, the memory card. A month later a small amount came in and he was pleased with it.
Two months later a long-time viewer left a comment: "question, do you get a commission on these links?"
He had never said anything. Not because he wanted to hide it, but because he had not thought about it. And his reply to that comment cost him more than everything that had come in.
How it works: three facts before anything
You are not selling, you are pointing. You put up a link, and whoever buys through it earns you a commission from the shop. You control neither the price, nor the product, nor the shipping, nor the customer service, yet your audience will hold you responsible for all of it.
Commission comes from buying volume, not viewing volume. A thousand views from people who want to buy are worth more than a hundred thousand from spectators. Which is why this route fails on large general channels and works on small specialised ones.
The income is unstable by nature. It follows buying seasons, shop decisions, and rates that change. So do not build a steady income on it; treat it as one layer among several. The other layers are in ways to earn from your content beyond platform ads.
When it suits your channel
It suits you if three conditions hold:
- Your audience asks you about things they buy. "Which microphone do you use?" and "is this lens worth it?" If those questions actually reach you, the door is open.
- Your content involves tools or products by its nature. Filming, cooking, sport, travel, programming.
- The products are actually available to your audience. Practically the biggest obstacle, and it has its own section below.
And it does not suit you if your content has nothing to do with buying, or your audience is spread across countries the shop does not reach, or you are linking to things you have not used.
The one rule that protects your trust
Write it down and pin it up: never link to something you have not used yourself.
There is no exception to this rule, because the price of breaking it does not show in the first month but in the second year: one person buys something bad because of you, writes one comment, and everybody who was about to buy next reads it.
Two corollaries:
- If you used the thing and disliked it, say so and remove its link. Removing one link earns you credibility across the twenty links after it.
- If the thing only suits a particular situation, write that situation. "Works if you film in one room, does not work outdoors" is a sentence worth the whole review.
Disclosure: three places and one sentence
Disclosure is neither an apology nor an irritating condition; it is what makes your words believable. Three places are enough.
In the video, in one short sentence at the point where you mention the product: "links to everything I use are in the description, and they earn me a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you."
At the top of the description, not the bottom. One line in the first two lines, because most people do not open the full description. A disclosure hidden on line forty is not a disclosure.
In the platform's own tools. Most platforms have an option to flag content containing promotion. Use it, because it is a requirement in many systems rather than a choice.
And the wording rule: one clear sentence, with no words that dance around the meaning, and no length that makes the viewer feel something is behind it.
How to pick programmes
Before joining a programme, look at five things in this order:
1. Does the shop sell in your audience's countries? Open your analytics, take the top three countries, and check. This point alone rules out many programmes that are famous elsewhere, and a link that does not work in the viewer's country annoys them and earns you nothing.
2. The attribution window. Some programmes credit you if the purchase happens within a short period of the click, others give a longer window. The difference in outcome is large.
3. What counts. Some programmes credit anything the person buys in that visit, others credit only the specific product.
4. The payment threshold and method. Look at the minimum they pay out, how they transfer, and whether the transfer reaches your country. A programme with a high commission that cannot pay you is not a programme.
5. How long the links last. Links that expire leave your old videos' descriptions full of dead links.
Ordering the links in the description
A description stuffed with twenty links is used by nobody. Do this instead:
- Three links only at the top of the description: what the video specifically mentions.
- A full list on one page of your own, with a single link to it. You update that page in one place rather than editing a hundred descriptions.
- A line per link saying who it suits, rather than the product name alone.
The videos that actually work
Not every video suits this. Three formats work:
A comparison between two or three options, because the viewer arrives wanting to decide.
"What I use", provided it is real and kept current. This type lasts years.
Solving a specific problem that ends in a tool. "Does your audio have echo? Here are three fixes, the cheapest of which is this."
And the format that does not work: a list video about things you never touched, written from specifications you read.
What kills a channel in this area
- Links to things you have not used.
- Exaggeration in the description that does not match your experience.
- Hiding the commission and then being found out.
- Turning every video into a buying recommendation, so your audience starts feeling like a target rather than a viewer.
- Not updating links, so somebody buys an older version at a higher price.
And if a paid offer arrives from a brand in the same field, the limits of a sponsored segment and how to write one without losing your audience's trust are in writing a sponsored segment.
Measuring: two numbers only
Do not check the programme dashboards daily. Look once a month at two numbers:
The share of a video's viewers who click the link. If it is low on a video about a product, the problem is in the video rather than the link.
Return per video rather than the total. That tells you which format is worth repeating and which to drop.
And if it does not suit your channel
Do not force it. A channel whose content has nothing to do with buying will earn nothing worth having from this route, and will lose a little of its audience's trust in the attempt. There are other routes that suit you better, and the first is knowing when to start thinking about money at all, which is in when should you start thinking about making money from your channel.
In short
Affiliate marketing is a tool for a channel whose audience asks it about tools. Its one rule: no link to anything you have not used. Its disclosure is one sentence in the video and one line at the top of the description. Hold to those two lines and it is the least irritating form of income for your audience, and the most durable over time, because it works from your old videos while you sleep.