Hey HPD members,
As you know, there's been major changes in the Amazon affiliate program lately and although we heard rumours prior to the official change – we were all a bit concerned because we weren't sure what to expect.
You might say we were left in the dark with these changes.
Amazon has no responsibility to warn us of the changes they make to their affiliate program, but here's an opportunity to shift that…
One of the leaders within Amazon's affiliate program has reached out to us and asked, “what's wrong with the Amazon Associates program?”
We've given our opinion, but they said they would welcome comments from our community too.
You have the ear of someone who is able to guide Amazon's affiliate program from this point forward. Feel free to tell them what you like, don't like, and want to see changed.
The insight and experiences you provide will be used to make crucial decisions in the future.
A Screenshot from a successful member of the HPD community – Read more here.
Take yourself back to when you were frustrated with them, either technically or otherwise. Whatever problem that made your life difficult as an Amazon affiliate. Our contact is open to everything as long as the comments are in the scope of what's described below..
To participate, please leave a comment at the bottom and answer these three questions:
- What's the problem with Amazon associates?
- How is it today?
- How should it be?
Thanks,
Bryon Brewer
I had affiliate links for books listed on my resource page. I also had a small bit of text in the footer of my home page that said that I donate 10% of my income to a specific charity. The footer note and the resource links were on separate pages and in no way conceptually linked by any stretch of the imagination. I got permanently banned with no opportunity to fix the “issue” though I still have some difficulty understanding how my explaining my lifestyle choice (donating to a charity) should result in a permanent ban. When I submitted a form asking for an appeal, I got a form email stating that there are no appeals. When I called customer service, they were polite but couldn’t do anything.
It is cumbersome to use at times. I am a recipe blogger and find myself using certain products frequently in my posts but always have to search to find them. It would be a huge time saver to have a list of frequently used product links easily accessible.
It would also be helpful to see what is being paid in a month (unless I’m just not seeing it) in addition to what is earned that month. I can never remember how far out the payments are for earnings. Maybe not a big deal for big earners, but for smaller bloggers who depend on Amazon earnings to cover expenses it’s nice to see at a glance what you’ll be paid that month.
Thank you
1. More payment options for non-us associates
2. Clearer OA and warning before ban.
3. Longer cookies (7 days)
4. Higher comm. for associates who did higher sale vol/amount
As a new Amazon affiliate I will do a few “product comparison” lists, it looks good and
users appreciate that and subsequently hopefully Google “search results” too.
Q: but if Amazon improves their search result strategy and sooner or later they will do, then this “product comparison” model is obsolete. I wonder how Amazon will help Affiliates take off this worry?
Q: Amazon does not allow the plugin Pretty links – but instead one can use Amazon Site Stripe – I can use them instead – but am I allowed to use them all over the social web – open up the affiliate program to social media users would be great
Q: No wins yet – living outside of the US I am forced to receive payment by cheque, which I am charged €25,- to deposit – then it is put on hold for 3 months!! Not a good deal – in this day and age, why can’t Amazon make the deposit direct into my bank account
For me it’s too main issues:
1. This is the absolute most serious one: I feel that I cannot trust the Amazon Associates program as a source of income. Not because I think the Amazon Associates program is going away, but because they ban people for the slightest mistake and then refuse to ever open up the account again or even talk to you. This has happened to tons of people. What this causes is that the associates, including myself, do not want to invest to heavily in only Amazon Associates, and it’s for us to get investors to trust our companies, which means even less money can be invested into our businesses. The result is that we drive much less traffic to the Amazon Associates program than we could do if we fully trusted it. I understand that Amazon has to be strict on rules and might not have time to talk to all associates that get banned, but at the same time, it could be done in a much better way. What I am proposing is that larger affiliates, especially those who have been with you for a number of years, should be given some consideration when you want to ban them. If they have only made a minor mistake, it should be enough to give them a warning. If they keep making multiple mistakes, then you can ban them. But for a small issue you should be considerate for someone who’s making Amazon tons of money in sales. For larger clear violations you can still ban them right away. However, you should also clarify your rules in terms of exactly what is allowed and what is not allowed, and you should send a message to all that were banned with a reason why.
2. I wish you would pay affiliates outside of the US with direct deposits. Doing checks takes endless months for the check to come, for it to be sent back and forth by the bank. My bank also charges a percentage to deposit the check (banks in the EU haven’t seen checks in decades). It’s a pain. Payoneer is an option, but they also charge a ton of fees in currency exchange (my accounts are in US dollars since that’s the currency that my company operates in, but Payoneer only allows it to be exachanged to Euro and then my bank would exchange it back to dollars, with a total cost of about 5% (2.5% at each exchange)).
For me it would allow more flexible tracking so we can see where the sales are being made in detail. I do use specific tracking ids for my sites. I was thinking of something simple with a subid1 and subid2 that we could use like we do with other affiliate programs.
1. Make a Quick Start Guide that quickly guides new affiliates (and those who are confused) through the basics…include a copy/paste of the specific language that Amazon requires to be used on the webpage/disclaimer/terms of service, etc.
2. For bloggers who use text links, or who share recipes- it would be SO fantastic if there was a widget that I could use at the bottom of a post that autofilled with the items that I’ve linked to in the post. Kind of a final, “don’t forget to add these to your cart” type thing.
3. In addition to the above widget, I’d love to have an “add all to cart” option, or check boxes that people can opt in and add all of their selections to the cart at once.
4. If possible, it would be lovely to have checkout on a pop up screen, so the person could continue to read/interact on my site.
Great suggestions Gwen!
Watch this comedy unfold. People are clearly asking Amazon to simplify their OA in the comments below.
Now take this. Just 2 months ago Amazon did us all a “favor” by changing the rates because they “listened” to complaints and they changed it to simplify it for everyone. That’s their way of making things simple. You can go read their forums how simple it is now.
Do you want the OA to become that simple? Me neither.
It’s so simple that it’s really damn hard to know for certain which category a certain product will fall into. Their support has answers for that, yet they are wrong and the forum has clear examples posted of that and despite suggested improvements for all this category greatness really and actually becoming simplified were not addressed to this day.
So, why bother giving them “confirmations” here when they don’t react to complaints delivered to their doorstep and when they do, they mess it up and will not admit it or address it.
As for OA, I get 99% of it. I play on the safe side. I see sites breaking the Amazon’s OA all the time. They are ranking for years and nothing happens. I see it on big sites, small sites. Yet I don’t dare to do it on my sites because of the inconsistency of imposing the ban hammer. Some will get banned for offenses so minor it’s ridiculous to a point where you honestly start to believe the compliance department really works against the affiliate program and has no clue about its damaging effects long term and doesn’t realize where to draw the line to make it reasonable or consistent. It seems they have an agenda of their own.
Oh, I could go on, but it’s here where I stop. I’ll leave others to ask them to “simplify” things.
Now you can jump in to defend them if you wish.
I’m not here to defend Amazon. I’ve published your comments because it’s good to read everyone’s thoughts and sentiments, but I’m not really interested in trying to get into an argument over whether or not Amazon are company to be liked or disliked.
I echo the sentiments of others when it comes to making the program more humane. I have never been banned but it feels slightly nerve-wrecking that I COULD be and I would not get a clear answer of what the problem is. If a site is spammy and obviously breaking every rule in the book – fine outright ban. However, if you have done your best to follow the rules that can be a bit hard to fully understand in places, then a warning should be given like others have said.
I do think it would be much nicer if their employees had knowledge on the program and help those who maybe be erring just outside of the terms and conditions instead of giving unhelpful answers. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in that position like many others have – it would feel like I had been screwed over.
I had a phone convo with one of my affiliate programs the other day. There was an issue with tracking and he arranged to call me to discuss it. I am not saying they have to go to that level but better email communication for when things go wrong would be best.
Of course, like others, I would also like to see the commissions go up and a longer cookie but I don’t see that changing!
As with most people I was very disappointed when Amazon changed their payment structure – the rates were low enough to begin with then they made them even lower – depending on the category!!!
The cookie period should also be longer too!!
My other MAJOR gripe is, living outside of the US I am forced to receive payment by cheque, which I am charged AU$18 to deposit – then it is put on hold for 3 months!! Plus more and more banks are refusing to even accept these cheques…. Is it so hard to direct deposit into a non US account – I can do it – why can’t Amazon???
1. A much clearer TOS with a list of things that affiliates CAN and CAN’T do.
2. In the event of an affiliate site not being complaint to the TOS, a warning with a quick list of the spotted mistakes and a deadline for second and final review from Amazon where the Ban or Not Ban shall happen.
Cookies: Currently 24 hours. I’d like to see it increased to a minimum of 7 days.
TOS Violation: Currently there’s no warning before banning an affiliate. Personally I’ve never been banned but I think it would be nice if Amazon gave an affiliate a heads up that they will be banned if they don’t fix whatever TOS violation they are committing within X amount of time.
Amazon EU needs to launch Native Ads widget like what is in the US. It’s long overdue.
My biggest peeve too – traffic is global but not having these make it really hard to do.
Also i agree they need to look hard at their ban policy and process
Two essential features would make the Amazon affiliate program much much more attractive:
1. Higher payout (8% to 15%)
2. Longer cookies (30 days instead of 24 hours)
This is what matters the most in my opinion. All the rest is nice to have .
Unless you do your homework as an affiliate, a marketer, or just about anyone else working online, you are going to fail. You have to go through the process. You have to read, listen and learn. Newbies come to the forums to ask simple questions when all they needed was to Google the damn thing. Take a couple of hours and find a lot more than forum members have to offer.
So, if Amazon has to ask us what the problem is I have little confidence they will do something about it, because it shows clearly they have no clue how to tackle it, heck, even how to use the darn internet to investigate what is wrong with them. It’s all out there! Sit down and read!
To me, these questions were like “Are you kidding me?”
These guys run a thing they were never a part of. They have no clue how it is to be on the other side of the fence. They have no one in-house that knows. They are so big and yet so small.
They have their own help forum, yet they don’t participate in order to understand what the problems are. They are clueless, really. Their support is clueless. There is just so much to change, that asking us what the problem is feels like adding an insult to injury. It’s like committing rape and then asking a victim how to improve the sexual relationship.
What Amazon will get back from these questions is just a ton of noise. Just info they could otherwise get if they just went through their own help forums, just info they would get if they did their homework. Not willing to take the time for the homework is a signal to me that whoever was appointed to fix the program isn’t fit for the job.
I’ll give you my 2 cents, though.
The thing that everyone misses the most is communication. Representatives. People that know what they talk about. No, your phone support is too often clueless. We need no PR BS. We need real people, that understand exactly what we are talking about. No prudes. No folks living in denial, defending Amazon like their lives depended on it. Webmasters. Former affiliates. Someone that has pushed Amazon as an affiliate for a living. Someone that will come to the forum and answer questions. Someone that will offer support. There is so much fog surrounding the program and so many uncertainties and recently rate cuts that many people would leave in a heartbeat if they found a similar paying program – simply because there’s no communication – no one to contact to when things hit the fan.
Right now you behave like Gestapo, KGB, CIA, [you enter your preferred dictatorship secret police in here] where your agenda is to shoot first, not even give a chance to communicate a thing. It feels like communicating with you is something we should count as a privilege rather than your duty. And we are your partners? It doesn’t feel that way at all. Not even close. The only reason why we stick around is because buyers sent to your store buy all the other stuff next to what we sent them to the store for and that increases our bottom line. That’s the only benefit. Other than that I would change you in a heartbeat. Simply because you have no clue and offer almost no support (the one that you do is too often clueless or too vague) and there’s no clear communication.
It’s unbelievable that on your help forum there’s a community of Amazon associates doing the work for you. They are trying their best to guess what needs to be done on a website to follow all the rules that you’ve set up. It seems that some of them could be employed by you to offer just support and they’d probably be better off, not to mention you would be, too.
It’s lack of support or poor existing support that is the first problem that would need to be addressed. If I were you I’d find affiliates that are willing to help for a good payment and I’d set up ticketing support and employ people that know what they are talking about, that understand how to employ OA not just in theory, that are not only trained to give scripted answers.
Yet when I come to think about it… why do I have to explain this to you? It feels like another joke.
I agree with your points about communication. I think you’ve missed the point about doing research though. Amazon aren’t saying “We’ve got zero idea how to improve it”, that’s just your interpretation based on your existing opinion about Amazon. Confirmation bias is a thing.
No company does major changes without first doing research and more importantly, confirming that research. Amazon already has focus groups, people actively making suggestions and testing new ideas (a lot of it behind NDA’s). However, there’s nothing wrong with reaching out to the wider community to see if there are any other hidden gems or suggestions that they hadn’t thought of, and to confirm their existing research. It also lets them get a pulse for what the most important issues are, without having to wade through forums. Besides, they value the opinion of the HPD audience higher than others, so they want to see if what we are saying confirms the wider audience.
No need to defend them. They asked for it, they need to swallow the bitterness they created through the years.
Affiliate programs often ask us affiliates how they can improve. Mostly these are small players that simply don’t have enough data online. Amazon, on the contrary, has thousands of miles of opinions about them available to go through. If they don’t have the time to wade through forums, will they have the time to wade through all the noise below?
There’s no confirmation needed. It’s not like they have the speculative data that needs confirmation. They have all the real-time research readily available to them on their own forum. Someone says something stinks and they have to ask a bunch of people what stinks only to get 1 person telling them this same thing stinks and that’s now a valid positive? Like they couldn’t evaluate the one from the forum as valid or false. Usually, the forum will not contain only 1 person complaining about that 1 thing. It’s always multiple.
The way they acted just this year, just 2 months ago, the BS they sent out was an indication they are clearly out of touch and clearly their support was clueless afterward, too. I am talking about the rate cuts. It’s not the extent of the cuts, it’s the reason given for them and sticking to their guns when we proved them numerous times they are just dead wrong and stupid up to a point where it felt like an insult coming from them.
They are just as hated as Adsense and it’s all for one reason: automation and cost cutting at the expense of affiliates… But I guess that’s not a surprise given the fact how they treated their own employees. It seems, though that both Adsense and Amazon are slowly realizing they need to put more effort and resources into their programs and into people, which is about time.
Yet, they have a lot to fix before we can honestly start saying good things about them. Until then all the praise is just bias for obvious reasons.
Here is my take on Amazon Affiliate program:
1- Wish if they notify/warn affiliates if there is something wrong with the website, rather than banning them for life and even confiscating all funds in the account. Worst case, if an account is banned, all pending earnings should be paid to the affiliate.
2- pay the member all his sell a lot of big earning are not paid to the affiliate as their system most of the time say it for relative or things that they do not pay it for even if they are no connection between the buyer and the affiliate and we are losing a lot of the money for that reason.
3- TOS should be clear for the affiliate as sometimes even Amazon representative he does not understand it will.
4- Also, Cookies should be at least 3 to 7 days a lot of people will search for the product especially the higher price product and will come back after two to three days to buy it, and you lose the commission because of cookies duration.
5-the category structure does not motivate affiliate to work more as did the flat base. you can go back to the flat with a decrease of a percentage paid to affiliate better than the category way
What they can improve is:
1. Cookie length to 7 days to capture repeat customers
2. There are few days once in a while observed to have unnaturally no sales (observed across forums) while the traffic was same. Would be a good idea if Amazon can be transparent on their server / tracking down times.
3. ToS is no fun to read. It would be great if it done simpler to follow and adhere such as a checklist, Do’s & Don’ts
I second clearer TOS, a warning before banning, customer service reps that can work with you to become compliant without providing canned responses. Maybe I am missing something but I would like to be able to track which pages are related to which sales and be able to track how many click vs conversio s I get on a page or link basis. Then I could work to improve content that is not performing well.
The affiliate website (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com) could be better.
* It’s painfully slow
* I get logged out constantly, and when I sign in again often times the page redirects to blank
* Better reporting of daily performance. On a given day, how many items sold and for how much? Ideally we could also have access to quantity and price numbers for items that were added to shopping carts with our code. As it stands it’s very hard to optimize referral strategies because the feedback signal isn’t great.
* Some way to connect referral conversion tracking to amazon’s system. Did the referral result in a sale, item added to card or abandonment? Of course this wouldn’t include all eligible purchases since some might occur later, but any feedback signal would be better than none.
I am going to be direct. Your affiliate program sucks. Remove the stupid 180 day period to get a sale. It promotes spamming, forcing the affiliate to get a sale through spammy methods. And why do you require affiliates to sign up with a new email after their account has been closed for not generating a sale?? Why not just deactivate. Increase the cookie tracking to 180 days. Dont be stingy. Introduce payment by wire transfer to international affiliates. As a big company, you are getting so stupid with your stupid rules.
First, I’m a huge Amazon fan. I’ve been a prime member for 18 years! We live very rural so Amazon has been my go-to “mall” for almost two decades!
There seems to be a major push right now from Amazon for us to place native and search ads on our websites versus using direct links. But some of our businesses are geared toward other avenues of advertising. So direct links are being penalized instead of rewarded. We use a combination of both, but I would love to see some initiatives where direct links are rewarded too.
And speaking of rewards, the new fee structure does not make any of us feel like partners. I never thought the number of units sold was the best way to reward your affiliates… but maybe amount of revenue an affiliate brings in could be. And along that same thought – wow, you really cut percentages! We understand that some categories have bigger markup and therefore you can reward higher, but cutting a category more than 50% is rough. Literally, our income dropped to 1/3 of our previous income. I will admit, we have started hunting and marketing other affiliate links to use. I think most of us would have appreciated a staggered drop. An opportunity for us to really rethink our Amazon strategy and how we would make up that income gap.
And finally, start asking us for our opinions. Reach out to your affiliates. Do surveys. Partner with us. Most of us have loved Amazon for a lot longer than we have been affiliates. Yes, we are some of their most loyal customers too. They go above and beyond to take care of the customers and earn their trust. How can we, the affiliates, become a valued partner and advertising avenue for Amazon?
Just three off the top of my head:
Increase cookie length from 24 hrs to 7 days… at a minimum.
Clearly state program rules in plain English without all the legal jargon that no one without a law degree can even begin to understand.
Update system to provide real-time reporting stats for affiliates.
Most other affiliate programs have a much better pay out. Amazon thanked us by totally cutting what we did get. It is ridiculous to have the commissions be based on departments instead of how they were before, a flat rate that was increased by more sales. So now the more sales we refer, we are not rewarded for that hard work. I think the percentage to begin with was too low, now it is almost laughable. A fair amount would be 10% commission and it to increase the more you refer. Also, I think it is ridiculous to not allow multiple purchases. If a person clicks through my link regardless of who they are (family, friend, or whoever) I should get the credit. Why do they punish an affiliate if it is “friends or family?” It is still a referral. No other affiliate does that either. Clear rules need to be stated. Can you put links in emails? Can you put links in ebooks? Notifying affiliates ahead of daily deals and promotions would be helpful or having a section we can easily pull them from daily. I have been seeking out other avenues of income because I lost so much last month due to the changes in amazon’s commission. It is a shame they didn’t ask these questions before now! I saw another comment and I agree, notifications to associates in addition to being emailed should be kept in a message center in the affiliate portal. I also have saw a lot of affiliates be banned lately without warning. Why? Give them a reason and a warning. Then ban if they can’t comply. There should be time to be compliant if they violated anything. I also agree that if an affiliate has made money and IS banned, they should be paid out if banning becomes necessary.
Most other affiliate programs have a much better pay out. Amazon thanked us by totally cutting what we did get. It is ridiculous to have the commissions be based on departments instead of how they were before, a flat rate that was increased by more sales. So now the more sales we refer, we are not rewarded for that hard work. I think the percentage to begin with was too low, now it is almost laughable. A fair amount would be 10% commission and it to increase the more you refer. Also, I think it is ridiculous to not allow multiple purchases. If a person clicks through my link regardless of who they are (family, friend, or whoever) I should get the credit. Why do they punish an affiliate if it is “friends or family?” It is still a referral. No other affiliate does that either. Clear rules need to be stated. Can you put links in emails? Can you put links in ebooks? Notifying affiliates ahead of daily deals and promotions would be helpful or having a section we can easily pull them from daily. I have been seeking out other avenues of income because I lost so much last month due to the changes in amazon’s commission. It is a shame they didn’t ask these questions before now! I saw another comment and I agree, notifications to associates in addition to being emailed should be kept in a message center in the affiliate portal. I also have saw a lot of affiliates be banned lately without warning. Why? Give them a reason and a warning. Then ban if they can’t comply. There should be time to be compliant if they violated anything. I also agree that if an affiliate has made money and IS banned, they should be paid out if banning becomes necessary.
Hi, Bryon!
I have honestly just not experienced some of the great benefits that others have when using Amazon associates and inserting their links. Perhaps, a longer day cookie period would help. Actually, I know it would help but I simply do not seem to experience the residual benefits that others have by using them and prefer more privatized affiliate programs or other networks that give credit longer than a 24-hour time period.
I understand that you have the benefit of someone possibly buying other items when visiting through your link but in my experience, it has been very minimal. Perhaps, I will give it another try in the future to see if there is a greater benefit. I don’t know what the “secret sauce” may be or if you simply need to have a heck of a lot more Amazon affiliate links scattered throughout the site to see the potential benefit. It would be great if they would even extend the cookie period to a week but I doubt that will happen.
My other problem is the incredibly low percentage that they pay out for items purchased. I have had people purchase items upwards of $700 through some of my links and the return is very minimal for such a big sale. It would be nice if they would offer a standard 10% or something that would make the promotion of more pricey products a little more intriguing to the seller.
Thanks
When I waas trying to get my account approved they rejected me three times and no one in Amazon could tell me why. The customer service people don’t seem to know much.
1-Time to make the first sale should be much longer, a new site takes time to have enough traffic or to make that first sale, there is nothing wrong really giving new affiliates more time to make that first sale. I know how being kicked out messed with my site which was promoting only Amazon products.
2-Nothing to say here
3-The 24 hour cookie time is terrible, it`s like telling readers to buy now please or else……….
Mine would be, don’t cut my earnings on half and make years of my work worthless. And why didn’t you ask these questions before you destroyed my business?
I’m new to Amazon Associates, so here’s my feedback. If it’s not correct just let me know.
1. So I have a 90-day requirement to have a completed sale/payment or I’ll lose my AA account? This seems to cause a problem as getting an affiliate site to its first sale (get traffic and conversions) could take longer as I understand it.
2. (n/a)
3. Some way to restart the 90-day time period by requiring a proactive response from the applicant or something similar, or some type of proof that the applicant is actively engaged and traffic/sales should come reasonably soon.
Thanks!
Maybe buy a product through your link near the 90 day expiry date?
Won’t work. Amazon can detect self-purchases or “friend” purchases pretty well.
I would like them to stop rejecting an affiliate website that hasn’t produced a sale within the initial 90-day period. Whilst I understand that they have to cull dormant accounts and abandoned applications, I think the 90 days should be extended as serious, non-spammy websites can easily take a lot longer than that before a sale is made.
Great point, I think 180 days might be better.
Yes, given what HPD tells you about getting started, this is a serious concern. It leaves you with only the option of “going around” the problem by either purchasing via your own affiliate link using a fake account or getting a friend or family to use your link.
1) I have held back because it feels to me like Amazon seems to shut down accounts on a whim. The rules are not easy to understand and affiliates make honest mistakes which gets them shut down and they lose all the money that they worked hard to earn. I am scared that I will miss one of the rules and end up losing everything.
2) Today – As it stands now, I feel that the affiliate rates are too low so I only link to an Amazon product if I cannot find the product elsewhere
3) Rules need to be laid out a lot simpler and clearer. Affiliate rates need to be higher to make it worth our while to promote the products. It would also be great if payments could be made into Paypal accounts. I live in South Africa so checks are not an option for me
Wow, I thought Amazon does a wired transfer as an option to those living outside the United States? If not is something they really need to consider. And google has goten that right a longtime, they really have a get a flexible payment options that is universal.
It would be nice if they were a little more visually explicit in their operating agreement. I worked with a lot of brands as a bag designer for the last 10 years and have read a lot of brand guidelines (from Nautica to Levi’s to DVF and Samsonite), and they have detailed logo usage guidelines/images. 1) If they could provide some copy and paste approved “Buy on Amazon” buttons to click over to Amazon with, that would clear up some confusion. 2) if they could be clearer with some “do this” and “don’t do this” visual examples based on their experiences reviewing sites that break guidelines and lose out on profits. Contrast those “bad” examples with approved/compliant examples, this would help NEW affiliates out. 3) Is it OK to email affiliate links to your list? What I’ve seen people do (inemails I subscribe to) and what I think their Guidelines say are two different things. What’s the story on emailing product recommendations? Still unclear!
Overall, it’s a great program. When I do have some questions, I go to Wirecutter to see what they are doing most of the time to make sure that my reviews are structured similarly so that I don’t break any obvious rules. And, Amy Lyn Andrews has a good post or two on how to work with Amazon and what their deal breakers are when it comes to keeping or losing commissions.
I’d like to see an option to have an option where you can get periodic emails (able to set the period to daily/weekly/monthly) that give you the data you can get when you log in to check earnings.
Also, a very clear and SHORT guide outlining TOS. There are a lot of uncertainties and rumors circulating, like:
“Can I put my affiliate links in Emails?”
“Can I share affiliate links on social media?”
Answer can be either YES or NO, doesn’t need to be long.
Also, something like: “Use this exact disclaimer to be sure you are abiding by all of our TOS: …”
They should go back to the old commission structure or at least reward marketers that sell a certain amount. It doesn’t have to be number of products sold but maybe a certain amount of revenue that you bring to Amazon. For example, if you sell $30,000 in a month you get a percent more of the cut.
I know the second they changed the commission structure I started looking into different affiliate programs.
Hey Bryon,
Thank YOU for the opportunity to add my comments.
The story I hear more times than I care to is: “Amazon just closed my account“, which continues to be the prominent issue so far this year. If Amazon would setup a more user-friendly (newbie-friendly) application form, I think they may find less of this story being told, going forward.
During signing up to become an affiliate there should be a step where a new affiliate needs to verify their email address before going forward. In this way, affiliates will be more apt to receive any emailed warnings issued by Amazon in hope of resolving any infraction, rather than simply shutting an affiliate out without explanation.
Also, there should be some record of any warnings sent by Amazon kept within the associate’s account on Amazon’s server. This way too, Amazon associate (or tech) support would not be asked over and over again for information they cannot supply … AND, affiliates would be less likely to share bad experiences they’ve suffered with Amazon, like this one (linked above), around the internet for the world to see.
1. Wish if they notify/warn affiliates if there is something wrong with the website, rather than banning them for life and even confiscating all funds in the account. Worst case, if an account is banned, all pending earnings should be paid to affiliate.
2. Let non-US people choose direct deposit as a payment method by linking their Payoneer bank accounts. I am aware a lot of people are doing that already and its working well, but its not an official withdrawal method which means there is no support from Amazon if there is a problem with a payment sent to Payoneer. They probably wont help track payments in that case since Payoneer is not an official withdrawal method.
3. It will be good to know the commission category of products so its easy for affiliates to pick the right product.
I support your comments, that’s one thing that scares me because I’m a non US resident. Its already taking me time to confirm PayPal from my local bank. I think they should really do something about countries with PayPal at cheque difficulties.
A bit more time when starting out to sell your first 6 items before they cancel you from being an affiliate. That is the only issue I have with the program.
They should not shut down any affiliate account without any warning.This is the biggest problem with amazon.
Maybe, Bryon, I should qualify my response some more. I am an old fogy and not your average Internet Marketer. People like myself do also need some exposure to Internet Marketing to supplement our much non-existing pensions and maybe make a few extra bucks. I tried it and failed because I am diametrically opposed to all the bureaucracy the Amazon Associate Program “demands”. There could be a much simpler way of accommodating people who are less inclined to deal with all this kerfuffle the Amazon Programs represent and are necessary right now and who are small fish in a large pond.
There is nothing wrong with the Amazon Associates but with the Amazon Employees who have come up with the conundrum, they call an Amazon Associate Program. The bureaucracy is absolutely beyond comprehension and a total jungle, impossible to negotiate with someone less inclined to bureaucracy. I have quit even talking to these overblown so-called “service” reps and canceled my account! These so-called, whatever you want to call them, have no clue what they are doing, or causing.
I have no idea how they are doing today and do not even want to either!
Make the “system” more humane and simpler, kicking anyone who does not comply with a simple set of rules out. I, for one, will never ever use the Amazon Affiliate Program again! End of!
Hi Bryon,
I actually think Amazon associates program is very good, here are my 2 cents:
It would have been good if Amazon would have an app for associates like it has for sellers (Seller Central App)? It might be useful to have an app and not log in the regular site (from phone) like I do nearly every day.
I would have like Amazon to make it easy for us to sign up into all the Local Amazon sites at one place, with ‘one stop shop’ signup and management.
In a perfect world – a customer clicks a link and is directed to the item at their LOCAL Amazon. And if the item is not listed at their local Amazon store, they are sent to the category page so the they will have a chance to buy a similar/other item.
At the current situation I find myself targeting ONLY USA customers, and skipping UK, India, EU customers for example, because I do not want to add too many affiliate links per page and manage numerous Tracking links on each local store site.
Looking forward reading what others have in mind…
Regarding the Amazon Associates program: I would like to see referral fee payment options other than payment by cheque, such as Paypal or Payoneer. Banks (here in South Africa) charge heavy fees for accepting foreign cheque deposits. That’s my only gripe with Amazon, thank you.
Barry,
You can get payments via Payoneer if you live in South Africa. I live in SA and use Payoneer to receive my Amazon and Clickbank payments. Just open an account and apply for a card on their website. Do the ID checks and they’ll send you a card which you activate inside your account.
The downside is you pay a heavy fee if you draw cash at an ATM but you can swipe your card and pay for anything where Mastercard is accepted.
1. I don’t know if their is a problem per se. Like anything their might be a problem I don’t necessarily know about but also you need to be informed before you can say it is a problem. I think they should open up the affiliate program to social media users. I know when I first looked into this they said they weren’t allowing it.
2. It is a program that allows people to market in different ways that were previously not able to before. I personally like it.
3. It should be a way for everyone to compete on a level playing field.
Thanks Jake, good feedback. Can you explain what you mean about point 3?