How To Place Affiliate Links On YouTube 2026 (Description, Pinned Comments, End Screens)

Introduction: A Great Video With No Links Earns Nothing

If you don’t know how to place affiliate links on YouTube, it won’t matter how helpful the video is or even how optimized it might even be.

You can produce the most genuinely helpful review, tutorial or comparison video in your niche, optimize it perfectly using the SEO fundamentals covered earlier in this cluster, and still earn nothing from it — if the viewer never sees a clear, clickable path to the product you are recommending.

Affiliate link placement is one of the more mechanical parts of running a YouTube channel, but it is also one of the most commonly under-optimized.

This article covers exactly where your links belong, how to structure them, and how to stay compliant while doing it.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

Your video description is the primary, most reliable home for affiliate links on YouTube
A pinned comment reinforces the link for viewers who skip the description entirely
End screens and cards can point to an external link, but only once your channel qualifies for the YouTube Partner Program
Every affiliate link needs a clear disclosure, both in the description and verbally within the video
Consistent placement across every video builds a habit in your audience, which increases click-through over time

The Description: Your Primary Link Location

The video description is the one location where an affiliate link is available to every channel, regardless of size or monetisation status, and it is where the overwhelming majority of your affiliate clicks will originate.

A few placement principles matter here:

Put your most important link first. Viewers who click “Show more” are scanning, not reading closely. I

f you are recommending three or four tools in a single video, list the one most central to the video’s topic at the very top, with clear text describing what it is and why you recommend it.

Use clear, descriptive link text. Rather than pasting a raw, unformatted URL, tell the viewer what they are clicking — “Get [Tool Name] here” reads as more trustworthy and intentional than a bare link, and it also reads better if a viewer skims the description quickly.

Disclose the relationship plainly. A short, clear line such as “This description contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you” belongs near your links, not buried at the bottom of a long description.

Beyond being a legal requirement in most jurisdictions, upfront disclosure protects the trust that makes your recommendations effective in the first place.

Keep your default description structure consistent. YouTube allows you to save a default description template that pre-fills on every upload.

Use this to keep your disclosure language and core link formatting consistent across every video, reducing the chance of forgetting a disclosure on a busy upload day.

The Pinned Comment: A Second Chance at the Same Link

Not every viewer expands the description, particularly on mobile. A pinned comment repeating your primary affiliate link gives you a second, highly visible placement without cluttering the description itself.

To pin a comment, post it as you normally would beneath your own video, then use the three-dot menu on that comment to pin it to the top of the comment section.

A pinned comment stays visible above all other comments regardless of how the conversation below develops.

Keep the pinned comment short and direct — repeating your top affiliate link with a brief, clear call to action works better here than a long explanation, since the description is already the place for detail.

Something like “Link to the tool I used in this video is in the description below 👇” is often enough to prompt a viewer to scroll back up and click through.

End Screens and Cards: Powerful, But Gated Behind the Partner Program

End screens and cards can display an external link, which makes them an appealing option for driving affiliate clicks directly within the video itself, layered on top of your description and pinned comment.

There is an important eligibility detail beginners often miss: external website links in both cards and end screens are only available to channels that have been accepted into the YouTube Partner Program.

Until your channel meets the subscriber and watch-hour thresholds required to apply, cards and end screens can still promote your own other videos, playlists, or a subscribe prompt — genuinely useful for keeping viewers on your channel longer — but they cannot link out to an external affiliate offer.

This is not a reason to avoid cards and end screens early on.

Use them in the meantime to point viewers toward your other related videos, which keeps them engaged with your channel and supports the kind of internal video-to-video structure covered in the 90-day content plan.

Once your channel qualifies for the Partner Program, you can layer in direct external links as an additional, high-visibility placement alongside your description and pinned comment.

Verbal Mentions: Directing Attention to Where the Link Lives

A viewer cannot click a link they do not know exists.

Every video that includes an affiliate link should also include a brief, natural verbal mention directing viewers to it — “I’ll leave a link to this in the description below” is a simple, low-friction line that takes seconds to say and meaningfully increases the odds a viewer scrolls down to look.

This matters more than it might seem.

Viewers who are actively engaged in watching your video are not simultaneously reading your description — the verbal cue is often what prompts them to pause, scroll, and click once the video ends or once they hear the mention.

A Note on Link Trust and Overloading Your Description

There is a temptation, once you realise how many places a link can go, to list every product you have ever recommended in every description.

Resist this.

A description crowded with ten or more links reads as promotional rather than helpful, and it dilutes attention away from the specific tool most relevant to the video a viewer is currently watching.

A better approach is to keep each video’s description focused on the one or two links genuinely relevant to that video’s topic, and to maintain a dedicated page — such as your Tools and Resources page — where viewers who want your complete recommended stack can find everything in one organised place.

You can link to that page from every description as a secondary option, without needing to repeat every individual affiliate link in every video you publish.

This same principle applies to pinned comments.

One clear link with one clear call to action outperforms a pinned comment listing several options, simply because a viewer deciding whether to click benefits from a single, obvious next step rather than a menu of choices to weigh.

Building a Consistent Link Placement Routine

The individual pieces above matter less than the consistency with which you apply them.

A simple, repeatable routine for every video you publish:

Write your description with the primary affiliate link and disclosure at the top, before any secondary information
Post and pin a comment repeating that same link with a brief, direct call to action
Mention the link placement verbally at least once in the video itself
Use cards and end screens to promote related videos on your channel, adding external links once your channel becomes Partner Program eligible
Following the same routine on every upload means viewers learn to expect where your links live, which reduces friction and increases the likelihood of a click over time — much the same way a consistent structure across your blog posts helps readers navigate The Breakthrough Shift and your other content with ease.

FAQ

Q: Where should my affiliate link go if I can only place it in one location?

A: The video description. It is available to every channel regardless of size, and it is where the majority of affiliate clicks originate, especially when the link is placed near the top with clear, descriptive text.

Q: Can any channel add an external affiliate link to an end screen or card?

A: No. External website links in both cards and end screens require your channel to be accepted into the YouTube Partner Program.

Smaller channels can still use cards and end screens to promote their own videos and playlists in the meantime.

Q: Do I need to disclose affiliate links verbally, or is the description enough?

A: Both. A written disclosure in the description is standard practice, but mentioning the affiliate relationship briefly within the video itself reinforces transparency and viewer trust.

Q: Does a pinned comment actually improve click-through on affiliate links?

A: Yes, because it gives viewers who did not expand the description a second, highly visible place to find the link, particularly on mobile where descriptions are collapsed by default.

Q: Should I use different link placement strategies for reviews versus tutorials?

A: The core routine — description, pinned comment, verbal mention — applies consistently across every format. What changes between formats is simply which specific tool or product you are linking to.

Find the exact tools referenced across this content cluster on our Tools and Resources page.

This has been article #5 in the YouTube Affiliate Marketing Cluster . You will find below the full listing of articles that you can follow and access the Pillar Post. for this cluster.

1.How to Set Up a YouTube Channel for Affiliate Marketing (Beginner’s Setup Guide)
2.Best YouTube Video Types for Affiliate Marketers (Reviews, Tutorials, Comparisons)
3.Your First 90 Days on YouTube: A Beginner’s Content Plan for Affiliate Marketers
4.YouTube SEO for Beginners: How to Get Your Videos Found in 2026
5.How to Place Affiliate Links on YouTube (Description, Pinned Comments, End Screens)
6.How to Start a Faceless YouTube Channel for Affiliate Marketing (No Camera Needed)
7.YouTube and Blogging Together: How to Build a Two-Platform Affiliate Strategy
8.Common YouTube Affiliate Marketing Mistakes Beginners Make (And How to Avoid Them)