The Shorts play: YouTube steps up creator monetization

A YouTube spokesperson declined to share the specific number of Shorts-based partnerships recently signed by the company, but confirmed that YouTube is actively working to expand its internal brand partnership tools and build relationships with a wide range of third-party creator monetization vendors – all aimed at unlocking more revenue for Shorts creators.

“Our goal is to help creators better find opportunities to work with brands, which is why we are investing in our own solutions like YouTube’s BrandConnect and working with industry partners to help creators monetize across Shorts and beyond,” the YouTube spokesperson said.

Agentio and StreamElements’ partnerships with YouTube are not replacing BrandConnect — YouTube’s built-in influencer marketing platform — or other internal tools.

BrandConnect links creators with brands for sponsored content, but it is currently in its beta-testing phase and available only to a small group of invited creators. Initial invitations were offered to YouTubers with at least 25,000 subscribers, with YouTube featuring creators with millions of subscribers, such as Michelle Khare and Jasmine Brown, in BrandConnect promotional materials. However, using BrandConnect requires more effort, including creative briefs, approvals and reporting, and it can be difficult for creators to scale up their use of the tool. In contrast, ad revenue from Shorts is open to anyone in the YouTube partner program, but offers low payouts unless a creator gets millions of views. 

By integrating third-party creator monetization platforms, YouTube can potentially unlock more partnerships for smaller creators, tapping into the long tail for suitable advertisers. StreamElements CEO Or Perry told Digiday that “hundreds of thousands of creators” use the platform on an annual basis. By handling elements like creative briefs and editing logistics, platforms like StreamElements and Agentio aim to make branded content campaigns more manageable for both creators and advertisers.

“Creators on Agentio receive bids for long-form integrations from leading brands like DoorDash, Away, Turo, Tecovas, David Protein, Bombas,” said Agentio CEO Arthur Leopold. “These are brands that historically hadn’t spent with YouTube creators given the complexity involved in doing so — more so than even typical influencer partnerships.”

The YouTube spokesperson agreed that the partners are using “an ‘and’ approach of meeting creators where they are” by creating more monetization options for creators who want them — but declined to comment on exactly how many more creators would be able to monetize their Shorts through third-party partners. 

“Creators are drawn to the freedom platforms like StreamElements and Agentio offer: they can own their brand and monetize content with fewer brand-imposed constraints,” said Ogilvy associate director of connections strategy Ashley Bowling. “We expect brand-creator partnerships to grow in volume and creativity as tools like Agentio and StreamElements remove friction and enable more personalized deals.”

Creators hopeful about future Shorts monetization 

Creators view YouTube’s Shorts branded content push as a positive, believing it will help address some of their lingering concerns about the format. Creators’ RPMs — revenue earned per 1,000 views — for Shorts content are generally lower than the RPMs they can achieve through long-form content, and brand deals are an attractive way for creators to potentially make up for that income gap.

“Long-form monetization is 100 percent better; it’s more consistent,” said “Dungeons & Dragons” creator Zachery “ZachTheBold” Renauldo. “With Shorts, you get a peak, and then it falls off. You get paid X amount of money for those days, and it’s great — but it makes it so you have to keep posting frequently.”

The regularity of brand partnership revenue could also help assuage creators’ concerns over the relative inconsistency of the advertising revenue share they receive through viewership of their Shorts. In addition to the lower RPMs of short-form content on YouTube, creators such as foam dart blaster YouTuber Beret said that the opacity of the YouTube Shorts algorithm has made it more difficult to determine which Shorts would go viral, discouraging creators from investing more time and money into the format due to the ever-present chance that a Short might flop.

“I’ve realized that you never know which one might gain traction until you post the next one,” he said. “Guaranteed payment for a particular short would be cool.”

However, YouTube’s bid to make more brand deals available to Shorts creators is not all upside. “Magic: The Gathering” YouTuber MaldHound noted that the rise in branded content opportunities could lead some Shorts creators to prioritize quantity over quality, potentially decreasing the overall perception of the format.

“I think that it’s good overall, even though it will probably lead to more slop content, because people will be trying to pick them up, and because they’re small,” he said. “From a career perspective, you cannot invest days into scripting and shooting and reshooting a $50 partnership.”

A rising tide

Advertiser interest in YouTube Shorts has steadily grown over the past year. Seventy-five percent of Dentsu Creative UK’s creator-led campaigns in 2025 have included Shorts, according to CEO Jessica Tamsedge, who said that this represented a significant year-over-year increase but did not specify last year’s figure. 

“There’s a democratizing of creative stuff that’s going on there, and that definitely follows the trend of the increase in nano-influencers with smaller reach — more authentic, less polished, less scaled,” Tamsedge said. 

Kim Iadevaia, chief growth officer of the Publicis-owned influencer marketing agency Influential, said that adoption of YouTube Shorts was also picking up among her clients, although she declined to share specific numbers. She pointed out that YouTube has partnered with Influential and other agencies to grow advertiser awareness in Shorts since last year, although the company’s recent run of partnerships is focused more on scaling up direct brand deal opportunities for Shorts creators rather than educating marketers. 

“We are absolutely starting to see much more of an adoption and a hand raise [from clients],” she said, “and I think the biggest reason for that right now is that YouTube is investing in partnerships with Influential and like-minded companies.”