Here are some reasons why some people thinks that Amazon Affiliate Program is not good as it used to be:
1. Late last year, they dropped the cookie lifetime from 30 days to 1 day.
2. The starting affiliate pay is only 4% (although that can be increased to 6.5% based on how many sales volume you can generate for them).
3. There is no one central affiliate portal where you can promote products for other countries. That is, if you singup for amazon associates US (you will know that when you have an id ending with -20), you won’t get any product details from the UK).
What if you were to promote products for the UK market? Well, you would have to signup for amazon associates UK. Not only will you get a different ID, but also different payment structure.
Point 1 is probably the main issue for affiliates. Most affiliate programs pay at least 10% with a cookie of 30 days. Many of our earnings in affiliate programs are going to be made from purchases 10 or 30 days down the line after a user has clicked the link. So cookies are an important part keeping track who refered customers to the merchant, so affiliates can be paid for referring customers to their site.
sanimoyo says
they should really consolidate their vairous affiliate programs. Easier to be on the UK program if you live in England, but most of the online consumers are American and want to see their prices in dollars not pounds.
Inlinelink says
their “help” is not help at all. I sent a question one day ago and still have not received any reply. no phone or chat support.
David says
You usually won’t get any replies from any big companies in a day anyway.
Affiliate Tips says
Yes, I had Amazon affiliate links on one of my sites which gets traffic from UK as well as USA. It is very difficult to display different links without using a complex script using geo-targeting.
Tom says
It’s been quite a time, sales aren’t bad, but compared to other affiliate programs the 24h cookie really makes a huge difference, especially when selling high priced goods.
tony says
Fact is, Amazon no longer need us, guys!
David says
Yeah, and I can see why they are doing that. If I have a good website with lots of affiliates promoting my products already and sales are constantly improving (with or without affiliates), it makes sense to keep more of the revenue to myself then to pay take a cut and pay affiliates for sales sent from them.
Jacob says
While the cookie life does suck. A counter to this is the low price of the items. Often times free shipping, GREAT up sells and to top it off those who buy one thing often times buy other products at the same time. I’m getting commissions on all kinds of products that I have no affiliate links for. The customer simply purchased multiple items. This in my mind does help to make up for the short cookie life.
David says
Jacob, thanks for the input.
I do agree with your comments. Amazon can rarely be beaten in terms of prices and people do trust them when buying their stuffs.
Now, let’s imagine if the cookie life lasts a little bit longer, ex. 10 days, that would really make lots of affiliates happy 🙂
John B says
Sorry to bump, but I just wanted to offer a buyer’s take on this, as the whole affiliate thing has perplexed me over the years.
From my perspective, I know of at least two different sites that I visit that use the Affiliate program with Amazon. One is a huge site that, even at only 4%, likely makes a few thousand dollars a day off of their relationship with Amazon. The other is a small one-person blog that I read on a daily basis.
As a consumer, if I know that a particular site participates in Amazon’s affiliate program, I like to be able to “spread the wealth” around as much as possible, or, at the very least, be able to know which site is getting “credit” for my sale. In fact, I purposely go to the small blog’s site when I want to purchase something through Amazon, with the hopes that they will receive the affiliate cut for the sale, even if they aren’t advertising the item I want.
With 24-hour cookies, I can be reasonably assured that, at the very least, avoiding the affiliate sites for a couple of days will clear those sites out of my history, and give me a chance to go through another to get to Amazon for my purchases. With a 30-day cookie, even with the best intentions, I haven’t the slightest clue who my hard-earned money is being shared with, and that bothers me as a consumer.
David says
Hi John, thanks for your input, it’s nice to see things from a consumer perspective as well. FYI, affiliate cookies are “last come first serve”, the affiliate who’s the most recent person (not the first) to refer you (by getting you to click) to their site gets your cut when you buy something.
chris says
I’ve only been in the program for past 6 months and I didn’t know that it was only 24 hours. Explains a lot now, I was sure I should have been selling more. Thanks for the post mate. I don’t believe Amazon is too big that they don’t need affiliates they still do.
David says
amazon still makes me some good money every month even though their cookie is only 24 hours. If only the cookie last longer, i’m sure everyone can earn more from driving traffic to their site.
Camie Roncskevitz says
Attraction Marketing is so fundamental to success in the New School’ way of doing businessthat if you don’t understand these principles you’re going to have to work your BUTT off to create halfwhat I can do with way less effort!
Darragh McCurragh says
While you are technically correct that an Amazon cookie lasts only for 24 hours or one day, there is a (legal!) way around it: use a shopping cart button and if the user puts the item into his/her shopping cart this will last for 90 (ninety!) days, i.e. just like with many affiliate programs.
thai money says
Hi David,
Do Amazon pay by cheque only still? That is, if you are outside the USA.
David says
The official answer is yes, international associates can only get paid by cheques or gift cards, according to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/t3/a3?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_i=assoc_help_t3&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_r=&pf_rd_s=assoc-center-2&pf_rd_t=501&ref_=amb_link_125387_3
However, here’s a tip, apply for a payoneer card here (so you get a us bank account number, sort of) and you can get paid through direct debit.