Amazon affiliate marketing commission rates have recently dropped as of April 2020. Commissions on furniture and home improvement products have fallen from 8% to 3%. And that of grocery products has changed from 5% to 1%.
Rates before Amazon commission rates dropped are shown in the image below:
Now look at the new rates according the the Amazon website commission tables:
Amazon Affiliate Marketing Commission
Amazon affiliate marketing commission rates have never been the best. Digital products have always paid far more than physical products. See affiliate marketing commission rates. But now Amazon seems to be shrinking rewards for those affiliates who sell fewer items too.
Have a look at the image below which shows Amazon’s commission rates (UK) as of June 16th 2021. The table shows that those affiliates who make the greater number of sales will earn larger commissions. But for those who are starting out as affiliates, it means their job will be more difficult if they are using Amazon.
So, should you become an affiliate for Amazon ?
Amazon does have some benefits of course. It’s huge product range means you can join as an affiliate and promote nearly anything. But at such low commissions it’s worth looking at how much you’ll earn according to what you promote. You’ll need to sell in bulk to make it worth your while! The other benefit of Amazon is its cookie policy. If you refer someone to a product on Amazon, and they add a bunch of items to their trolley at the same time, you’ll get the commission based on their purchases.
Here’s a bit about the cookie policies used on Amazon and what it means for affiliates.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing Commission Vs. Digital Products
Amazon’s commissions were pretty low before the commission price drop. Now they are terrible! You’ll have to be selling heaps of products in order for it to work. In a particular niche, Amazon can have its benefits. But there’s better and easier ways to benefit from affiliate marketing.
One of these is through using digital products instead of physical products. With physical products you have postage and manufacturing costs to consider. Hence why they offer some of the lowest rates of commission in the industry (from 1-11%).
Digital products are far better because they offer much larger commissions – typically 40-50% commissions. Downloadable products or products which are accessible online have a distinct advantage. They don’t require any postage or handing. This saving can be passed on to the affiliate.
Recurring Commissions & High Ticket
Recurring commission products are another game changer for affiliate marketers. They are things like software products and membership products. Hosting providers, autoresponders or products which help online businesses are all examples of products which can offer ongoing commissions, month after month. See recurring commission affiliate products for more on this.
With a recurring commission sale, you can earn commissions for the lifetime of the customer. So if you choose your products wisely, you’ll have lifetime commissions!
High ticket products are another consideration too for affiliate marketers. A high ticket product is one which has a much larger price tag than most products you’ll find on Amazon, for example. Here’s an example of a high ticket product you can find on the site Hammacher Schlemmer:
Hammacher Schlemmer pays 8% on sales affiliates make from the site. However, make a sale of one of these hovercrafts and you should expect a nice commission of $15,200!
Amazon Affiliate Commissions & Changing API’s
Many Amazon affiliates have spent years building content in order to benefit from Amazon’s affiliate program. And unless you keep abreast of the latest API’s and developments, your old operating systems can become redundant, stopping you from earning from Amazon.
This happened recently to a friend of mine who’s an affiliate for Amazon. His old operating systems stopped working as Amazon updated their systems. They made the old systems obsolete! This means all traffic generated from them would result in the referral losing their commission – even if their site referred the sale!
API means Application Programming Interface. It’s what many affiliates use to connect their content to Amazon’s products. If it breaks, or is updated and you’re not straight on it, you won’t get paid – even when your traffic makes the sale!
A cynical person might say this is a deliberate act by Amazon to reduce what they have to payout. No wonder Jeff Bezos is so wealthy!
Amazon Affiliate Marketing Commission – Summary
Amazon pays from 1-11% commission on their products depending on what category the product is in. So before rushing into the Amazon partner program, look carefully at what you’re going to be selling. It might not even be worth your while. Digital products pay far more – usually around 40% commissions. If you choose to use recurring commission affiliate products, and high ticket products, your time will be better spent in the long run.
Affiliate marketing takes time to learn. But if you start out with the right products, training and resources, you’ll be far ahead of the competition when those products start paying out. Checkout this free video series to learn more about the various affiliate marketing business models you can use as an affiliate.
