Why not just use Amazon Associates?

Amazon IS an 'affiliate network'. The low percentage commissions on Amazon to do not appeal to some affiliate marketers. There are countless threads about amazon affiliate accts on this forum. You can find them with forum search function.

One good benefit of Amazon,is that a customer that you put to Amazon through your link,may purchase a number of other items, which will boost your commission, also Amazon has great trust with buyers,so makes it easier to send people to Amazon.

Amazon's commision rate is very low and the paid traffic is not profitable. You need to use only SEO.

Amazon's affiliate network is news to me lol

I will check it out. Though from experience with other affiliate networks and the various differences, I can see the biggest flaw being low payouts.

Amazon works decent but the pay is typically lower than many affiliate offers. It's also a cps model compare to a cpa model of most affiliate networks.

It's just a different strategy, but can still be effective.

Also the cookie duration is low on amazon...I think 24 hours now. Meaning if you send someone to amazon and they don't buy today, but come back later and buy, you won't get credit for that sale.


Other sites have cookies that last 7, 14 even 30 days or more.

Amazon is good for adding affiliate links in a blog post and such.yopu can finds something to add in almost any post..On the other hand, ROI on time invested for building traffic to a site to me would be low if Amazon affiliate links were all I were doing. Adding it into the mix on the other hand is a good idea..to me anyway.

Hello Naum,
I'm am a freelancer over 4 years. In my startup I tried affiliates like Amazon but it won't help me to earn something special. It has very low commission rate with some restrictions

Amazon association is a difficult task since people directly buy it from the brand and not from 3rd person.

Me personaly i dont like because the commision its low and its more related to psihical things to sell so they dont fit to well on my niche .I prefer to use clickbank jvzoo because i can find a lot of digital products

The trick is learning how to make a sale online. Once you've mastered selling online, it doesn't really matter who's product you are selling, your own or some other product vendors' products. You can then decide your commission structure.

When you know how to make consistent sales online, you'd be able to list your own products for sale on Amazon and get other affiliates to sell your products for you.

You will have to start somewhere. If you don't have your own products to sell online, then by all means join an affiliate network and start selling other product vendor's products online, as you learn how to drive the sales online. Study how the product vendor is promoting their products. Do they offer email swipes, Facebook posts etc. to help you drive the online sales.

There's a massive learning curve to selling online, so you will have to test what works for you and what doesn't. Limiting yourself to promoting Amazon products only is not a viable online business option unless you selling high price point products that sells itself like a 80-inch Samsung plasma t.v.

It's better to own whatever you are selling online as a product vendor can remove a product that you are promoting from their sales funnel and it can heavily impact your monthly income online. When you own the product you're marketing online then your online business is more sustainable.

Amazon = low commission and very short cookie, YET, scores of people still promote them. Why? The brand 'Amazon' is super strong in terms of 'trust' hence conversion tends to be good. There are indeed very successful amazon affiliates. The other affiliate networks consists of vendors/merchants whose brand name might not be as strong yet hence the offer higher commission and longer cookie duration, but conversion might be tougher. There's always pros and cons to both.

Cheers!

Is there any way to spy on any amazon affiliate if you have their affiliate ID?

Any one answer to your question is incorrect.

The only way to get real answers is to test in practice . . . create content and test monetizing with Amazon and with other affiliate networks. Some work better for some approaches, some for other methods, or maybe both will work equally well for you. It depends on SO many factors than any attempt to give a definitive answer is going to be incorrect.

Chris

It looks like the answers given already cover most of the bases you need to know about.
I have several sites using Amazon Affiliate links and over time they earn a little income but not enough to be really useful.
Commissions are low but one good thing that Amazon does is keep a running total. Once you have the commission it stays in your account until you reach their payment threshold. $100 USD is the one on my account.
Native Ads are also useful for your site. These are served by Amazon once you put the appropriate code on your site. I have mine across the bottom of a number of pages.
As others have said you need to look further afield as well.
Don't rely solely on Amazon

After the commission drop, I wouldn't waste my time with Amazon. Truth is, they don't need affiliates anymore, they are too big to fail.