How to Get YouTubers to Promote Your Product, and Build a Creator Media List That Works
A few years ago, getting your product in front of millions of people meant buying a TV spot. Today it can mean one video from the right YouTuber.
Shoppers have noticed. In research published by Think with Google, 33% of shoppers said they have bought a product they discovered on YouTube, and 68% said YouTube creators are more trustworthy than traditional celebrities. Brands have noticed too. Influencer marketing reached an estimated $32.55 billion in 2025, up from $24 billion the year before, according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s annual benchmark report.
The good news for smaller companies is that this is not only a game for big budgets. YouTube has creators of every size, in almost every niche, and many of them are looking for products their audience will love. The hard part is finding the right ones and reaching them. That is what a creator media list is for.
Key takeaways
- A creator media list is a short list of YouTubers, podcast hosts and newsletter writers who fit your product, with a business contact for each.
- 33% of shoppers have bought something they discovered on YouTube, according to Think with Google.
- Smaller, active channels in your niche often beat huge channels for a first campaign.
- Look for creators who post consistently. A channel that uploads every week has an audience that is paying attention.
- Ranked lists such as the Media List Awards can give you a starting shortlist in every category.
Sources are listed at the end of this article.
Why YouTube creators sell products
People watch YouTube to learn. They look up reviews before they buy a phone, tutorials before they try a new recipe, and unboxings before they order a gadget. When a creator they trust shows a product in a real setting, it answers questions an ad cannot.
That trust is the whole point. In the same Think with Google research, people said they were 98% more likely to trust recommendations from creators on YouTube than from creators on other social platforms. A good creator partnership feels less like advertising and more like advice from a friend who happens to know the category well.
It also lasts. A video stays on YouTube and keeps showing up in search for months or years, so one partnership can keep sending customers long after it is published.
Big creators or small creators?
The biggest channels are household names. In the Media List Awards ranking for Fall 2026, MrBeast leads YouTube with about 518 million subscribers, followed by T-Series and Cocomelon. Those channels are out of reach for most companies, and they are rarely the best fit anyway.
For a first campaign, smaller channels in your exact niche usually work better. A cooking channel with 40,000 loyal viewers who make every recipe can sell more kitchen tools than a general entertainment channel with millions of casual fans. Smaller creators are also easier to reach, more likely to reply, and more open to trying a product before talking about money.
The goal is fit, not fame. You want creators whose audience looks like your customer.
How to get YouTubers to promote your product in six steps
Step 1. Know exactly who your customer is
Write one sentence about who buys your product and why. “Home cooks who want to save time on weeknights” leads you to very different creators than “professional chefs.” That sentence tells you which niches to search, such as quick recipes, meal prep or kitchen gear reviews.
Step 2. Build a creator media list
A creator media list is a simple sheet with one row per creator. For each one, note the channel name, niche, subscriber count, how often they post, one recent video that fits your product, and a business email. Start with 30 to 50 creators. You will not hear back from all of them, and that is normal.
You can build this by hand by searching YouTube and checking each channel’s About page, but it takes hours. A media database speeds it up. Media List, for example, has business contacts for about 191,000 YouTube creators, along with podcast hosts, newsletter writers, bloggers and journalists, more than 1.5 million contacts in total.
Media List AI search finds YouTube creators by niche. Names are shortened in this example.
Step 3. Search by niche, not just by size
Searching by subscriber count alone gives you famous channels that do not fit. Search by what the creator actually talks about instead. On Media List’s Professional plan, you can type a plain request, such as “YouTube creators who review tech gadgets,” and the AI search builds the filters for you. In the example above, that one sentence returned 454 YouTube creators in the technology niche. From there you can save the results as a named list in one click.
Step 4. Check that the channel is active
Subscriber counts can be old. A channel with a million subscribers that has not posted in a year will not move your product. Open each channel and look at the last few uploads. Are they recent? Do the videos get views and comments? A creator who posts every week has an audience that is watching right now.
Step 5. Send a short, personal pitch
Creators get a lot of brand emails, and most of them are generic. Stand out by being specific. Mention a recent video you liked and explain in one or two sentences why your product fits their audience. Be clear about what you are offering, such as a free product to try, an affiliate commission, or a paid video. Keep the first email short and make it easy to say yes.
Step 6. Follow up, then measure
If you do not hear back, send one polite follow-up a week later. When a video goes live, track the results with a discount code or a tracked link, so you know which creators actually drive sales. Those are the partners to work with again.
Use ranked lists to build your shortlist faster
One of the quickest ways to start is with a ranked list of creators who already have engaged audiences. The Media List Awards rank creators each season in five categories, YouTube, podcasts, newsletters, blogs and TikTok. The top 100 in each category make the Media List 100, the next 400 the Media List 500, and the next 4,500 the Media List 5000, for 5,000 honorees per category.
The ranking looks at more than size. For YouTube and podcasts, 75% of the score comes from audience size and 25% from how consistently the creator posts, so channels that publish regularly rank higher. Nobody can buy a place on the list, and every honoree has a page that confirms the award.
The Media List Awards, Fall 2026 edition.
For a brand, that means a ready-made shortlist. Pick your category, scan the creators in your niche, and add the ones that fit to your creator media list.
Do not forget podcasts and newsletters
YouTube is not the only place creators sell products. Podcast Index lists more than 4.7 million podcasts, with 466,870 publishing new episodes in the last 90 days. Podcast hosts often read sponsor messages in their own voice, which listeners trust. Newsletter writers have something similar, a direct line to readers who chose to hear from them.
A good creator media list mixes all three. One product launch can reach a YouTube reviewer, a niche podcast and an industry newsletter, each speaking to the same customer in a different way.
A note on disclosure
When a creator is paid or receives free products to talk about your brand, the audience needs to know. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guides require clear disclosure of these relationships, and YouTube has its own paid promotion label. Ask every creator to disclose the partnership. It protects both of you and keeps the trust that makes creator marketing work.
Frequently asked questions
How do I contact a YouTuber for a promotion?
Most creators list a business email on their channel’s About page. A media database can also give you business contacts for many creators at once.
Do I need a big budget to work with YouTubers?
No. Many smaller creators are open to trying a free product or working on an affiliate commission, especially if the product truly fits their audience.
How many creators should I contact?
Start with 30 to 50 well-chosen creators in your niche. Expect to hear back from some, not all, and grow your list from the ones who reply.
What is a creator media list?
It is a list of YouTubers, podcast hosts and newsletter writers who fit your product, with their channel details and a business contact for each.
Where to start
If you take one thing from this guide, make it this. Find creators whose audience looks like your customer, check that they are active, and send a short, personal pitch. I used Media List for the examples above because it puts YouTube creators, podcast hosts, newsletter writers and journalists in one search, and it has a 3-day free trial, so you can build your first creator media list before you spend anything.
Media List. Find YouTube creators, podcast hosts, journalists and producers, and build your media list in minutes. Plans start at $99 a month, with a 3-day free trial. https://medialist.com
Sources
- Think with Google, YouTube shopping and creator research
- Influencer Marketing Hub, State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2025
- Podcast Index statistics, October 2026
- Media List Awards, Fall 2026 edition, ranked October 2, 2026
- Media List database counts, October 2026
- Federal Trade Commission, Endorsement Guides