Alternatives to Amazon Affiliate Marketing in 2022

Contrary to what you may generally hear, Amazon Affiliate is not the ultimate solution in affiliate marketing.

Yes, you have access to the largest database in terms of product, yes, Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world, yes, the affiliate program is reliable and proven, but let me stop you right there, the Amazon affiliate program is the poor man’s affiliate program.

In this article, I’m going to show you several alternatives to Amazon affiliate program, and you’ll see, Amazon’s 3% commission will going to look pretty lame after that.

What is Amazon Affiliate Marketing?

No need to introduce you to Amazon here, it is the largest online marketplace in the world. What we are interested in here is their affiliate program.

The Amazon affiliate program allows you to do affiliation with their entire catalog, which is very interesting because it can give you ideas for new niches, but the advantage ends there.

They have commissions ranging from 1% to 20% at the moment and where they are smart is that the 20% commission is on Amazon Games products only, so with an average price, relatively low. The most important thing to remember about the displayed commissions is that on average, you will receive 3% commission on each sale, all categories included.

Concretely, a product that costs $1000 will bring you $30.

Why choose an alternative to Amazon affiliate marketing?

I could have stopped there, but we will detail a little more the negative points of the Amazon affiliation.

First of all, the duration of the cookie is very low, 24 hours, unless the person adds the product to his cart or there, we go to 90 days. It’s very clever of them because it pushes you to bring qualified and committed traffic, but we, it doesn’t suit us too much.

Then, still related to the cookie, you should know that Amazon does not practice “First Click”. That is to say that you can be stolen by another Amazon affiliate, quite simply.

Let me explain, let’s say you are promoting a great product from your site, a user walks by and clicks on your affiliate link. They then go to Amazon, and add the product to the cart.

Great, you’ve “cooked” the person for 90 days. Except that the person decides to pause their purchase and do something else.

3 days later, they decide to type the name of the product on Google to get other reviews, and there, it’s the drama, they use the affiliate link of one of your competitors. At that point, it’s your competitor who takes over the sale and you’ve lost it.

Affiliate platforms, a good alternative to Amazon affiliation?

If you have been in the affiliate world for a while, you know that there are affiliate platforms for all tastes.

The best known is certainly Awin (affiliate link), with make 14 billions per year, has more than 100,000 publishers, 13,000 advertisers and a presence in over 180 countries.

The advantage of using an affiliation platform

Going through an affiliate platform is a solution that offers some peace of mind. Just like the Amazon affiliate program, it’s very simple.

All you have to do is register, fill in a couple of details and voilà, the platform will offer you an incredible list of affiliate programs that are likely to match your preferences.

On top of that, it acts as a trusted intermediary between you (publisher) and the advertiser. You are therefore sure to be paid (normally) and the platforms generally propose a rich dashboard that will allow you to follow your performance in real time.

The disadvantage of using an affiliate platform

But of course, all this comes at a price. Affiliation platforms generally pay themselves on the side of the advertisers with whom they negotiate a percentage on each sale (it can go up to 20% at Awin).

One could say that this does not impact us, the publishers, but in fact, it is quite the opposite. Indeed, it’s mathematical, if the person must already give 20% of each sale to the platform, then it will inevitably reduce the commission that it will offer you in the end. But I reassure you, it will always be above what the amazon affiliation can offer.

Conclusion on affiliate platforms

Compared to the Amazon affiliate program, going through a platform is definitely a better choice and on Affilisting, you will find many programs from these platforms.

Especially since in the example above, I took the case of Awin which is the most popular and not necessarily the most reliable, but there are very interesting platforms that are much more remunerative than Awin such as Affilae or Effiliation (affiliate link).

Live affiliate programs, the best alternative to Amazon affiliate program

If you want to make a lot of money with affiliation, you can do it with affiliation platforms, but you will have to prefer “direct” programs with merchants (advertisers) to get there more easily.

The problem is that this is much harder to find. That’s where Affilisting comes in, offering you thousands of live merchant programs for only $99. This saves you time, and you can focus on building your site, etc…

The risk with live programs

It is simple, you will have to trust the merchant and vice versa. Indeed, here, no trusted intermediary, everything is done directly and you will have no security in case of failure of the program or if the latter changes the stats to pay you less commission.

However, some programs use trusted intermediaries other than an affiliate platform. This is for example our case.

Indeed, we offer an affiliate program that offers a 50% commission on each Affilisting sale and all the affiliation part is managed by Gumroad which is also our official reseller. So here, you are sure to be paid.

The benefits of a live affiliate program

The first one is simple, they are often the most profitable and it is explained by what I explain just above, namely, no intermediaries.

Secondly, as there is no middleman, it is much easier for you to negotiate tailor-made deals and build a long-term partnership.

Finally, the payment terms are generally shorter, and this is a point not to be underestimated when you know that the payment term on an affiliate platform can sometimes take several months.

Conclusion

To conclude this article, no matter what solution you use to make money via affiliate marketing, you should always be aware of the latest programs available in your niches. This will allow you to optimize the monetization of your sites and thus increase your profits.

Amazon affiliation is easy, but I absolutely do not recommend it. Instead, redirect yourself to an affiliation platform such as Effiliation (affiliate link) or to a direct program that is a little riskier, but much more profitable. And if you want to save time in your research, don’t hesitate to take your Affilisting license in order to find, as quickly as possible, the best programs according to your niches.

Finally, don’t forget to aim for “revshare” or “recurring” type affiliate programs as I advise you in this article.