Would you like to make $1,000’s of dollars with the amazon affiliate program?
Is The Amazon Affiliate Program A Scam OR Can you make a full-time income from the comfort of your own home?
As I opened my computer and took a sip of my tee I could see it clear as daylight on my screen...A headline reading “Amazon will be cutting their commissions!”
Say what, is this some trickery, I thought? The premise of this post will be around what that’s about and why it happened as well where else you can turn to but I want to answer your question, NO the amazon affiliate program is NOT a scam.
Although Amazon’s affiliate program is not a scam, let me ask you something, do you want to ONLY rely on amazon commissions to help you with your side-hustle, part-time, and or full-time internet marketing career?
I wouldn’t and I “Michael Granados” an amazon affiliate STILL who’s made $1,000’s+ per month with it(and other affiliate networks) will share with you the advantages and disadvantages of using Amazon's Affiliate Program and the shocking commission rates you’re going to want to stay until the very end to know about!
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Let’s get started.
What Is The Amazon Affiliate Program?
One of the largest affiliate marketing programs in the world, The Amazon Associates Program(which I also wrote a review about here) helps you as the content creator, publishers, and bloggers monetize their traffic and with millions of products and programs available on Amazon…
It makes it easier for you to use link-building tools, to direct your audience to Amazon so they can make a purchase and you make a commission!
Why I Don’t Recommend You JUST Use Amazon(Fat Commission Cut!)
Sure, the Amazon Associates program is popular and can lure many beginners because of ALL the hype that goes on the internet like…
- It’s easy to sign up
- You get LOADS of products in every category to select from
- Amazon gets a lot of people(traffic) visiting them
- Amazon is trusted more than other retailers so it’s easier to convince someone to buy from them
- And the list goes on!
But is this enough to get started with them?
Yes and No, and here’s why. Not too long ago on(date) at the beginning of the Corona Virus, Amazon made an announcement that they would be slashing their affiliate commission rates, and as seen on CNBC, saying that affiliate rates are being cut for members of many affiliate product categories…
For example:
The affiliate cut from purchases of furniture and home improvement products has fallen from 8% to 3%, while the commission's rate for grocery products has gone down from 5% to 1%, according to a document gathered at CNBC.
Here are the rates for product categories before the change:
And here’s what happened after April 21st:
A pretty huge drop? Do you also want to see a huge drop in what you can potentially be making?
No, I didn’t think so either. Here’s what Amazon was telling its members of the associate's program:
Who’s Been Affected The Most?
EVERYONE, especially bloggers and online businesses have been voicing their opinions and frustrations about the cuts on places like:
People have stated that this is ridiculous(as so I) and together with the outlook of the recession, Search Engine Optimization(SEO)/ affiliate outlook is uncertain OR is it?
Alternative Amazon Affiliate Programs
Look, you can still use Amazon as just ONE of your affiliate networks if you find it reasonable for your sanity and your income but let me share with you your BETTER alternative options.
Did you know you could find the same products on Amazon with the Main Supplier of that product?
Yep, here’s what I mean. Let’s say you wanted to promote a Columbia Sportsmen Jacket but you don’t want to use Amazon’s affiliate program, You can instead go directly to Columbia themselves and sign up directly through their website!
PLUS, the direct owner of the product can pay more than what Amazon offers for your category. What about trust?
People will Trust buying from Columbia just as much from Amazon if not more because they are getting it through the supplier and not a secondary party.
Here are some alternative options:
#1 Shareasale
Shareasale offers you TONS of products in every niche imaginable and unlike Amazon where you go directly through them, with Shareasale they pair you up with companies. What do I mean?
Take this picture as an example:
As shown in the image above you can search for your product(s) and then you’ll get a whole list of options with different companies you can partner with. What is the advantage to this?
It’s kind of like window shopping, you get to see the best commission rates, the value of the company, and so much more before you decide to partner up.
#2 Awin
The global affiliate marketing network and one of the OG’S(Orignal) affiliate networks will empower you to grow your business online with solutions for both advertisers and publishers
Like Shareasale, you can select from 1,000’s of companies to partner with like:
- Under armor
- Groupon
- AliExprerss
- Buzzfeed
- And many more
Both Awin and Shareasale have been voted as the BEST CPS networks:
#3 Target
Yes, even a huge retailer like Target has their own direct affiliate program where you can earn up to 8% when people buy. Plus, you get:
- A 7 day cookie
- Weekly newsletter with updates on:
- Promotions
- Contests and
- Sales opportunities
#4 Walmart
Who hasn’t been to Walmart, right? One of the most popular retailers for ANYTHING has an exceptional affiliate program where you can earn straight out the gate:
You can sign up in three steps:
STEP 1: Apply through the online secure form
STEP 2: Wait for approval(24 hours)
STEP 3: Generate your ads and start your campaign!
#5 Impact
Do you want a partner solution that’ll handle your nuanced program requirements and evolve with the times?
Then look no further than Impact’s affiliate program. With impact you get:
- Instant access to performance metrics and actionable insights and
- The tools to identify and block fraudulent partners. Plus…
- Custom tracking solutions to meet YOUR unique needs!
#6 Clickbank
Clickbank is like the Mecha of affiliate marketing because it’s the most popular network beginners and even experienced affiliate marketers flood to, and here’s why.
Clickbank is the global leading retailer and affiliate marketplace that’ll allow you to grow at an unlimited scale. You get a marketplace of Informational products that can pay you the BIG BUCKS.
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I made a video you can check out about earning with Clickbank here:
#7 Clickfunnels
Every smart affiliate marketer knows they need a mix of low-ticket(small cost) products and higher-priced backend products (High ticket) and Clickfunnels the best of both worlds so you can earn A LOT more money...and from the same person over and over again.
Owner Russell Brunson is like the head honcho of affiliate marketing and understands how affiliates operate so he made sure to create information products for you like:
- Books
- Software
- Downloadable worksheets
- Templates
- And so much more
If I were to start all over again, I’d focus on Clickfunnels first and then branch off to a few others.
These are just some of the many affiliate programs you can join and I actually put together a list of the 50+ BEST Affiliate programs for beginners and experts right here you can click to check out.
How To Market Your Affiliate Product(s)(Faster And Making More Money)
Most beginners make this ONE mistakes I’m about to share with you that sets them back YEARS and they never go anywhere and don’t get the freedom they want…
And it’s link barfing! What is link barfing?
It’s kind of like going to a party, getting hammered and then opening up to every one person and those you don’t know too, and telling them about how you have this awesome product that will do this and that for them…
And they are looking back at you like Who the heck does this person think they are? Now you find yourself at the edge of a toilet seat barfing the alcohol away. Similarly, this is what link barfing is…
You will go to the “social media party”, tell people all about your product and how great it is, and wait for people to click on your “pretty little affiliate link” and buy from you. Doesn’t sound pleasing, right?
So what should you do to ensure you can:
- Get results
- Get people positioned to buy from you(and every time)
- Make enough money to do this full-time?
CREATE CONTENT!
If you want people to come to you “Naturally” and without any barriers up, then you need to be focusing on creating what’s called value...and value doesn’t mean money here, let me tell you.
Value means how much content can you give to someone where they feel:
- Educated
- Informed
- Helped
- Entertained
By YOU with Free content to the point where they are like “Damn, this person helped solve my problem(s)!”
You must help people first before You can expect anything in return like a sale. You do this in 4-5 simple PROVEN steps:
- Select A Product
- Select A Niche
- Choose A Platform To Create Content On
- Bring in the people(Traffic)
- Earn Money!
Sounds good, but where can you get started? Let me show you the platforms, and these all work but you have to stay focused on just ONE and go hard...and I mean hard for months, and months, and years, you got it?
#1 Blog
Would you like to get FREE Organic Search traffic through engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo?
What if you could get UNLIMITED Traffic For Life, meaning more people seeing your content and clicking your affiliate link to guy purchase?
After the mistake of “link barfing” on social media, I quickly realized I needed to change my approach, and so I pivoted to writing content with a blogging website, with NO writing experience other than the fact I could write essays and college papers, without having ANY experience and having the “why would I want to write if blogs are for bums mentality?”
Yeah, I quickly had a change of perspective. Once I figured out HOW to form together the right knowledge AND skills to write in a persuasive more casual communication, then my life changed and I never looked back!
My point being, this can happen to YOU too, but you have to be willing to give it a chance and keep the end goal in mind which is enriching yourself mentally as well physically, and professionally, as one of my mentors Jeff Lerner would say.
How to get started Fast…
You’re going to need the RIGHT training and community to be there in your journey and where you can rest your head at the end of the day and know your back is taken care of…
And the place that has these two and abundance of resources is called Wealthy Affiliate. Here you can learn step-by-step how to put a blog website together from scratch without having to be technical or know how to code…
Plus, you get access to the training for FREE to start. In fact, you don’t have to start with a paid website at all, you can get started with their FREE sub-domain called Siterubix.
Alternatively, if you want to challenge yourself, I created the BEST 30-day blogging challenge where I hold you by the hand and show you step-by-step with video and free resources how to successfully build a highly profitable blog in 90 days or less!
#2 YouTube Channel
Do you prefer to be in front of a camera showing your face(or not)?
Having a YouTube channel these days will be a huge advantage for you because you and I are both visual by nature, all people are, wouldn’t you agree?
We like to see what we’re getting before we buy something and here’s something I want you to burn in your head…
YOU are the product!
What do I mean? People buy from people, most of the time they don’t buy the product for what it offers them but because YOU helped them, YOU made it easier for them, and they began to develop a relationship with you where when you recommend ANYTHING, they are more likely to buy again.
With YouTube by your side, you can direct people to the description where you can add your affiliate link and tell people in your video to specifically click there.
Here’s an example of a YouTube video I have:
#3 Facebook
But you said no Social Media Barfing Michael! Yes I did, but did I say you couldn’t use social media?
Facebook has BILLIONS of people scrolling, searching, and doing Who knows what but the point is you can reach your dream customers here!
They are congregating in Facebook groups, in your newsfeed, they know when you’re awake, then know if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness….OOPS, I went too far.
You get the point, right? Your dream customers are just waiting to be helped and it’s your responsibility to help them and you can do it with:
- Contributing to other relevant Facebook groups to your niche
- Creating your own Facebook group
- Personalizing Your profile to convert visitors
- Placing a Business page
- Posting on your newsfeed
- Posting on your Facebook stories
- And so much more!
You get A LOT of different options with Facebook, and I’m on there with my Facebook group called The Affiliate Marketing with SEO Mastermind Group you can visit here.
#4 Podcast
Can you see yourself speaking on the radio?
With a podcast you can broadcast your sound to your audience and share like you would through a radio, and the benefits are tremendous:
- You get to share yours and other people’s experiences in your industry
- You get to connect with people in a stronger way because you will be listened to on the go
- You have the power to get people to take an action based on how you format your message.
Top Entrepreneurs like Pat Flynn who began with a blog is now doing podcasting because supposedly it's the “new blogging”.
#5 Instagram
Do you want to connect with your audience on a more visual level?
The thing I love about Instagram is it’s a multi-media channel where you can share:
- Your photos
- Stories
- IG TV
- Direct Message
- And so much more!
Your audience will connect with unique images you post and draws their attention to your products and services as well you get to build your brand at the same time!
The cool part is you can customize your bio with a clickable link and people can go visit your:
- Store
- Website
- Funnel
- Etc.
For example, you can follow my Instagram handle @viral_michael to see what I’m doing and how to model after me.
#6 Pinterest
What do Pinterest and Instagram have in common?
They are both visual picture platforms! Every blogger uses Pinterest these days as so do YouTubers now and many others as a means to grab their audiences attention from scrolling, get them to click their picture, then the link over to their:
- Site
- Video
- Podcast
- Social media
- Funnel
- And way more!
#7 Twitter
Twitter is a great social media platform to find people who’d be interested in your brand, products, and services...when you play it right.
Rather than linking people directly to your product(s), you can instead send them to your:
- Blog Reviews
- YouTube Reviews
- Funnels
- And many more!
Just like any social media channel, your goal is to connect with people(be social, right?) and of course your objective is to get sales but YOU have to build the know, like, and trust factor like I’ve said many times before.
Final Verdict: Is The Amazon Affiliate Program A REAL Scam?
No, it’s not but I’ll tell you what is. The fact that they cut down commission rates to the point where you can’t just rely on Amazon to make a living with and it’s so low it’s disgusting, is. But you have options…
Ones that will Pay you what YOU’RE worth, give you the upper hand to make more money than you could have ever imagined, and to be truly happy and fulfilled with the business you wanted to have….
And you say evidence of that today. So if you want to have more time, energy, and freedom to work from your home(and anywhere in the world) without a boss and want to get it right the first time without mistakes…
Then go on and click the button below to get started with my #1 recommended training.
