Understanding your affiliate metrics

Are you participating in the YouTube Affiliate Program and want to get a clearer picture of your earnings? This article will guide you through tracking your affiliate performance directly from YouTube Analytics. Learn how to understand key metrics to optimize your affiliate marketing strategy and increase your earnings.

Check your affiliate metrics

You can access your affiliate metrics in YouTube Studio.

YouTube Studio Analytics provides real-time visibility into your estimated performance and earnings, but AdSense is the source of truth for your finalized, bank-account-level payouts. Differences between the two can occur due to processing cycles, seller validation, and return periods.

Sign in to YouTube Studio.
On the left, select the Analytics tab.
Click Revenue.
Click Affiliate tab.

You can view your affiliate metrics by:

On the left, go to the Earn tab.
Click Shopping.
Under the “How you’re doing” section, select See more.

This page shows an overview of your channel’s monthly metrics in analytics cards for your monthly revenue, sales, and more. To view a more detailed breakdown of a specific metric, click its summary card.

Key metrics explained

Here are the key metrics you'll want to focus on to understand your affiliate performance:

Estimated revenue:
- This is the estimated revenue you've earned from qualifying affiliate sales within the observed time period. Note that this is an estimate and pending final approval. Estimated revenue amount is subject to change due to returns and cancellations.
- This metric gives you a general sense of how much money your affiliate efforts are generating.
Earned revenue
- This is the amount you’ve earned from commissions and bonuses over the selected time period.
- Earned revenue includes your payout from both direct purchases of tagged products and eligible products purchased by viewers who clicked or tapped your tagged products, then purchased something else.
Total sales:
- This is the total number of sales attributed to your affiliate links.
- This metric helps you understand how effectively you're converting clicks into actual purchases.

Note: Sales are measured at basket-level (all products included in the transaction), and not only at a tagged level (your product tagged). While “Total Sales” reflects the entire basket, some items in the basket may not be eligible for commission.

Orders:
- This is the total number of orders attributed to your affiliate links. An order may contain multiple items.
- This metric shows how many orders have been made as a result of your shopping tag.
Product clicks:
- This is the number of times viewers clicked on your affiliate links.
- This metric indicates the level of interest in the products you're tagging.
Top content:
- This card contains a breakdown of commission-based earnings by video over the selected time period.
Top tagged products:
- This card offers a breakdown of commission earned by product over the selected time period.
- Direct revenue refers to the commission estimates from tagged products while indirect revenue refers to commissions from the other eligible products viewers bought after clicking on your tagged products within the attribution window.
Top sellers:
- This card offers a breakdown of earnings by seller over the selected time period.
Advanced mode:
- This is an in-depth view of your shopping performance revenue data. This metric helps you better understand your products and identify performance, so you can make more strategic content decisions.

Understand your metrics with Advanced mode

With Advanced mode, you can choose what data you want to view in your desktop browser by selecting from the following controls:

Timeframe
Breakdown
- You can track your earnings by Product, Content, Geography, or Seller
Metrics
Filters

Use the left side dropdown menus to select your controls, then click Apply. Not all metrics are available with each breakdown.

Compare your metrics

To compare your earnings across different controls:

At the top left of Advanced mode, select Add comparison.
Select the controls you want to compare to the data you’re currently viewing.
Click Apply.

Note: For Official Artist Channels, O&O Content Owners are not able to view payment channel breakdown information in-app.

Commissions explained

Understanding how commissions are tracked and finalized is key to finding your earnings from YouTube Affiliate links. Commissions can be reviewed in 2 different stages: Estimated revenue and Earned revenue.

Estimated revenue: This is an estimate of what you may ultimately earn. It's calculated by taking your total commissions earned from purchases in the selected date range and subtracting the value of any products purchased through your links that have been returned. This gives you a clearer picture of your potential net earnings from recent activity. Keep in mind that the initial purchase might have occurred from a click made even before your selected date range.
- Check estimated revenue: You can check estimated revenue per video in YouTube Studio in the Analytics tab by tapping Top content and selecting the Revenue chip.
Earned revenue: These are the earnings (commissions and bonuses) that have been reviewed and officially confirmed by the seller during the selected timeframe. This approval process happens after a seller lock-in period. The total earned revenue earned within a specific month will then be included in your next payment cycle, subject to standard AdSense payment thresholds and terms.
- Seller lock-in period: This lock-in period is a timeframe (typically 30-90 days) that allows for returns and validation of the sale. The earned revenue you see in a selected period are from purchases that happened before the selected timeframe, due to these typical lock-in periods.
- Note: Validation and return windows are established solely by individual seller policies. Therefore, the timeline to transition from estimated revenue to earned revenue varies by retailer.

For more information on how commission rates are set and why they change, learn more about how to understand commission rates in the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program.

Note: Earned revenue can include revenue from sales occurred, prior to the selected time frame.

How Shopping earnings are processed

Note: Earnings are typically finalized and reflected in your account within a 2-3 month time frame, depending on the specific seller's return and validation policies. This allows for thorough processing, accommodation of returns, and completion of administrative procedures.

Getting clarity on your earnings

To understand your earnings data effectively, remember that there's a typical 2-3 month seller validation and return period before commissions are finalized as "Approved." Estimated and Approved revenue is always tied to the specific timeframe you've selected in your analytics, reflecting the status earnings had within that period.

For actionable insights into your recent performance, focus on shorter timeframes like the last 7 or 30 days. In contrast, the "Approved" commissions usually reflect sales that occurred 2–3 months prior. Once approved within a calendar month, this balance routes directly to your next payment cycle.

Regularly analyzing your data across different timeframes and looking at product-level performance within those ranges will provide a clearer picture of your earnings trends and help you optimize your strategies.

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