2020年亚马逊联盟佣金断崖式下降，还值得做吗？

2020年亚马逊联盟佣金断崖式下降，还值得做吗？多年来，亚马逊在网上购物中无处不在。大多数人拥有一个Amazon帐户，并且大多数人在一年中通过Amazon进行了多次购买。实际上，去年亚马逊的销售额为2805.2亿美元，其中大部分是由其在线购物平台驱动的。

但是要了解亚马逊的成功，您还需要了解他们如何到达那里，特别是世界卫生组织帮助他们取得成功。

亚马逊是会员营销（联盟营销）驱动的购物平台。他们有超过一百万个会员，就其佣金结构以及会员计划的发展方式而言，它们多年来一直是高级会员计划之一。

不幸的是，他们经营着利润率低，高企成本的业务，而领导层似乎只在乎投资者及其底线，不记得是什么原因使他们处于自己的位置。

亚马逊最新变化的部分

亚马逊最新的佣金变化非常剧烈，几乎对每个亚马逊会员都有负面影响。在介绍新更新之前，让我们看一下在此之前亚马逊联盟佣金比例结构。

尽管这些佣金仍然处于较低的水平，但由于您可以在亚马逊上推广的产品数量众多以及亚马逊客户的购买习惯（他们往往会快速购买并挑选其它商品，而这些额外购买产生的佣金都归你拥有）。

到2020年4月21日，这些亚马逊联盟佣金断崖式下降将会影响所有联盟营销会员。会员将在没有太多警告和没有理由的情况下，将其会员佣金至少降低50％。让我们看一下新汇率。

如果您之前曾推广过家具，您将获得8％的佣金。这意味着，如果您卖出了一张价值1,000美元的沙发椅，您的帐户中就会看到80美元的佣金。现在，通过您的会员链接销售同一把椅子将只为您赚取30美元。您的佣金和收入减少了62.5％！

这是多年来我们从亚马逊引擎中看到的最激进，最不道德的举动之一。曾经是世界上最好，最赚钱的会员计划之一，它们的发展方向是无法为在线业务所有者所信任，因为您永远不知道他们的“下一个目标”来自何处。

但这一段时间以来，亚马逊的情况一直不好，这是我们建议人们在我们的培训中多年不要把所有鸡蛋都放在亚马逊篮子里的主要原因之一。Amazon Associates计划存在许多缺陷，我认为这是最近的“动摇”举动，这是利用其计划中其他问题的好机会。

Amazon Associates中的明显缺点

除了亚马逊联盟所做的明显“吸引人”行为外，会员营销社区内部对亚马逊协会计划的各个方面都存在持续的抱怨和沮丧。

我想解析一下亚马逊的一些缺陷，如果他们希望重新获得会​​员的信任，我相信他们需要做一些事情。

极短生命的Cookie

亚马逊联盟的Cookie有效时间为24小时，这意味着，如果您通过会员链接将某人发送到亚马逊，然后在24小时内不购买商品，那么您将不会获得任何佣金。不管您为“获得销售”或帮助该客户付出多少努力，Amazon本质上都会在这个小窗口之外带走您的受众并从中整体获利。24小时cookie是我在行业中意识到的最糟糕的情况，与之相比，我们在Wealthy Affiliate的会员计划提供了永久Cookie。

假评论或伪造评论的问题

亚马逊在产品所有者发布或采购虚假评论方面一直存在问题。亚马逊一直在积极应对，但是根据您在亚马逊内部获得的评论的质量，通常很难从“单行”评论中获得任何表示产品质量的实质。这是一个持续存在的问题，将很难缓解，但同时也损害了基于其高星级评价购买产品/服务的客户，而实际上这些产品的质量很低。

削减会员佣金

这并不是亚马逊第一次以削减会员佣金的方式调整收费表。几年前发生了这种情况，因此这已成为其Associates计划中所有情况的普遍现象。他们做出的每一个大刀阔斧基本上都是在剥夺会员的辛劳，以实现他们的辛勤工作。

家人和朋友购买没有佣金

亚马逊没有花费时间来改善他们的会员工具并专注于他们，而是利用了很多资源来寻找防止会员赚取佣金的方法。会员计划，实质上是一个推荐计划。如果您负责为公司带来收入，您将获得报酬。这就是会员计划的工作方式。他们不在亚马逊世界中，而是拥有完善的跟踪功能，以确保您不会从朋友或家人那里得到佣金。即家人和朋友从你的链接购买是不会有佣金的。

产品图片禁令

亚马逊要求您使用其产品小部件，即使您正在推广它们。与会员之间的争执已经有一段时间了。我的意思是说真的，您想推广Vitamix，并且无法在产品/评论或发布说明的任何地方使用Vitamix图像？对于联属会员而言，这已成为现实，而联属会员因使用图片而被禁止。

亚马逊在许多情况下都被高估了

人们现在使用Amazon Prime来完成所有事情，但是为了保持体面和可操作的利润（即，不亏本），亚马逊被迫抬高价格。在大多数情况下，您去当地的杂货店买东西要好得多，而在一年的时间里，这样做可以节省很多钱。亚马逊当前的业务是依靠人们“懒惰”，而不是在购买之前就仔细检查价格，这仅仅是因为它可以方便地在亚马逊上购买。前几天，我在亚马逊上为我们的小孩子寻找零食，而在亚马逊上，它们的价格比当地杂货店贵10倍。不是开玩笑。

通过亚马逊物流计划，那里有许多低质量的产品

现在，基本上任何人现在都可以从中国采购并给自己的品牌/产品贴上白色标签。您可能会在没有任何经验的情况下（甚至在健康补品/维生素世界中）没有任何经验的人来创建产品。这导致了许多低质量的产品，甚至是不安全的产品。

帐户关闭

• 许多会员营销商都认为他们遭到了不正确的帐户关闭。没有机会进行反驳。在某些情况下，亚马逊有一项政策，如果您在开设Associates帐户的前三个月内没有进行销售，那么您的帐户将被暂停。

我确信其他人在使用Amazon之外会有其他问题或沮丧，如果可以的话，请在下面的评论中随意分享。
基于历史和亚马逊内部会员条件似乎正在恶化的事实，我怀疑会员的情况会好得多。如果您把所有的鸡蛋都放在亚马逊的篮子里，那他们的决策权将会消亡，佣金可能还会下滑。

我相信他们的最新更新已经超越了道德规范的鸿沟，他们要么陷入财务困境，要么利润太低，无法正常支付会员费用，或者他们希望削减成本并为华尔街增加收入（或两者皆有）。无论哪种方式，他们的分支机构都处于困境。

这次他们不应该通过。

发生的事情是亚马逊利用这个时机提出了他们是好撒玛利亚人的想法。一方面，他们已转向库存和销售诸如杂货店之类的主要必需品，以帮助全球范围内的封锁和社会疏离措施；另一方面，他们有效地杀死了许多在亚马逊上出售产品的商家（帐单）和也有帐单的会员。

我知道有一些会员公司是通过亚马逊合作伙伴计划（他们的会员计划）进行销售的，而这些公司实际上将看到他们的销售总额增长，并且他们的整体收入在一夜之间减少了一半甚至四分之一。

如果您查看图表，就会发现有人在销售健康与个人护理业务中的物品。这是此更广泛类别中子类别的屏幕截图。

如果您作为会员销售这些类别中的任何一个产品，则您的会员佣金一夜之间下降了78％。这不是要传递的最佳消息，特别是当您一直提倡亚马逊并帮助推动他们的业务时……但是，他们有胆量在没有充分通知的情况下没有任何理由削减您的佣金。

那导致我…

如何绕开Amazon Associates。

如果您在整个网站上都有亚马逊广告，并且最终将整个业务与亚马逊的合作伙伴计划绑定在一起，您会怎么知道？

好吧，世界还没有结束。我首先想让您意识到这一点。如果您继续为亚马逊吸引流量，您仍将通过亚马逊赚取佣金，具体取决于您要推广的产品/服务类型。但是，这可能是寻找替代会员计划和网络的好机会，并且在某些情况下，可以决定通过促销来选择与您的受众群体保持一致的其他产品。

现实是，尽管亚马逊是在线购物的代名词，但它们并不总是最便宜的。通常情况并非如此。就cookie寿命，运输成本和整体客户服务而言，它并不总是最好的。

亚马逊有很多可行的选择，几乎世界上所有最大的公司和最小的公司都有会员计划。您可以在Wealthy Affiliate 的“ 会员计划”搜索中找到一些替代方案和会员计划，其中包括以下内容。

• Awin
• ShareASale
• CJ.com
• Rakuten
• Clickbank (Digital)
• Independent Affiliate Programs (there are 1,000’s)

在进行会员计划研究时，您应该调查这些网络并寻找可以提供更健康的会员佣金同时还提供优质产品/服务的会员计划。大多数公司都提供了非常好的客户服务，良好的运输（免费），而且在许多情况下，从其实际网站上购买品牌更具成本效益。

这样，您将获得更多收入，仍在推广真正高质量的产品，并且不支持亚马逊近年来表现出的不道德行为。

为什么这对会员是个好消息

尽管这听起来像是坏消息，但该消息对会员的影响比您想象的要小。我们一直在这里教会员向其受众介绍最相关的产品/服务，并利用提供这些产品/服务的会员计划。在大多数情况下，这与亚马逊无关。

现实情况是，对于许多会员而言，仅依靠亚马逊实在是太“容易”了。他们的网站上有很大一部分产品，只需要人们加入联盟计划即可。

但是您需要记住您在这里经营业务。大多数联盟计划提供10％以上的佣金，许多联盟计划为其产品/服务提供30-50％的佣金。这些佣金可以迅速加起来，而在新收费表下，亚马逊的许多类别中的佣金仅为1％。我不了解您，但我宁愿赚10％而不是1％。一个简单的经济决策。

必要时，您仍然可以使用Amazon的会员计划。您仍然可以通过他们的平台赚取佣金，并且仍然可以潜在地赚取全职收入。但现在，您比以往任何时候都应该寻求替代方案，并推广具有可比性（但可能是不同品牌）的产品/服务，或者通过自己的会员计划销售产品，而不是在亚马逊上出售产品。

在这个主题上，您可以在亚马逊上建立数以亿计的产品，从而获得“更好的”评价。您可以在一天结束时宣传自己喜欢的产品，例如为您的受众提供最好的产品/服务。最近写了一篇很好的文章，关于这一主题，它会给你的角度上真正显著契机，在“审查”的空间和展示你和你的专业知识是多么重要的是，当涉及到帮助消费者做出购买决定。你可以看看他的博客文章在这里。

伤害将不会与会员，而是亚马逊。

我认为这句话非常相关：“ 如果您不知道自己来自哪里，就不知道要去哪里。 ”

我认为多年来，亚马逊已经忘记了它们的来源。他们在很大程度上建立在会员的基础上，并通过在某个时间点拥有更好的会员工具子集之一来建立自己的业务。近年来，他们迷失了方向。最终，由于完全不尊重对待联盟会员而产生的真正的HURT将会是更少的联盟会员，更少的拥护其网站的网站以及更少的消费者。

会员的机会从未如此广泛，会员忠诚度需要数年的时间才能建立，但可能在一夜之间消失。我有很多人联系我，表示他们因此失去了对亚马逊的所有尊重，他们将抵制他们的前进。

坦白说，这绝对是您的权利，当您通过亚马逊以外的其他网站进行购买时，您正在帮助其他分支机构，并整体上帮助互联网经济。当像亚马逊这样的公司觉得对帮助他们到达那里的人们来说太好了时，他们就真正地忽略了他们的未来和前进的方向。

这些是我对情况的看法，我很想听听您在评论，关注中的反馈，或者在下面分享您的经验。

本文来源于WA，即wealthy affiliate会员中心。

Over the years, Amazon has become ubiquitous with online shopping. Most people have an Amazon account, and most people make more than one purchase through Amazon through the course of a year. In fact, last year Amazon had $280.52 billion in sales, most of which was driven by their online shopping platform.

But to understand the success of Amazon, you also need to understand how they got there and specifically, WHO helped them get there.

Amazon is an affiliate driven shopping platform. They have over a million affiliates, and they have also been one of the premium affiliate programs over the years in terms of their commission structure, and the way they have evolved the affiliate programs.

Unfortunately, they are running a low margin, high octane business with leadership that seems to care only about investors and their bottom line, not remember what got them where they are at.

The Breakdown of Amazons Latest Changes

The latest commission changes are pretty drastic and impact almost every Amazon affiliate negatively. Before I get into the new updates, lets look at the “PRE April 21st” commission structure that Affiliates got to benefit from. It is as follows.

Although these commissions were still on the lower end of the spectrum, there were still acceptable because of the sheer number of products that you can promote on Amazon and the purchasing habits of Amazon customers (they tend to buy quick, and fill up their carts with other items that you got credit for).

On April 21st, 2020 these commissions, known as their fee structure, are radically changing for the worse. Affiliates are going to be getting a minimum of a 50% cut in their affiliate commissions without much warning and without reasons. Let’s have a look at the new rates.

If you were promoting Furniture before, you earned 8% commissions. This means that if you sold a sofa chair that cost $1,000 you were going to see an $80 commission in your account. Now, selling that very same chair through your affiliate links will only earn you $30. That is a 62.5% cut in your commissions and revenue!

This is one of the most radical and unethical moves we have seen out of the Amazon engine in many years. Once one of the best and most lucrative affiliate programs in the world, they are moving in a direction where they cannot be trusted for online business owners because you never known where their “next cut” will come from.

But all hasn’t been good with Amazon for some time, and this is one of the key reasons we have recommended people do not put all their eggs within the Amazon basket for many years within our training. There are many flaws to the Amazon Associates program, and this recent “shifty” move I think it is a good opportunity to exploit the other problems with their program.

The Glaring Faults in Amazon Associates

Outside of the obvious “rug pulling” antics that Amazon has been doing to their affiliate commissions, there have been ongoing complaints and frustration within the affiliate marketing community about various aspects of the Amazon Associations program.

I want to break down a few of the faults in Amazon, and a few of the things I believe they NEED to work on if they look to regain the trust of affiliates moving forward.

• Incredibly Short Cookie Life. Amazon has a 24-hour cookie, which means that if you send someone to Amazon through your affiliate links and then don’t purchase within 24 hours, you don’t get any credit at all. It doesn’t matter about the effort you put into “getting the sale” or helping this customer, Amazon in essence takes your audience and profits off of them in totality outside of this tiny window. 24 hour cookies are the worst that I am aware of in the industry, and as a comparison our Affiliate Program here at Wealthy Affiliate offers LIFETIME cookies.
  
• Issues with Fake Reviews, or Fabricated Reviews. Amazon has had ongoing issues with product owners publishing out or sourcing out fake reviews. This is something that Amazon has been proactive about dealing with, but based on the quality of the reviews that you get within Amazon, it is often times very difficult to get any substance from the “one line” reviews that say the product is great. This is an ongoing issue that will be difficult to mitigate, but it also hurts the customer whom buy products/services based on their high star rating, when in reality the products are low quality.
  
• Slashing Affiliate Commissions. This is not the first time that Amazon has adjusted their fee schedule in a way that has hurt affiliates. This happened a few years back, so this is becoming an all-to-common of an occurrence within their Associates program. Every slash they make is basically robbing affiliates out of commissions they worked hard to achieve.
  
• No Commissions for Friends/Family. Instead of spending time on improving their affiliate tools and making that their focus, Amazon has utilized a lot of their resources to figure out ways to prevent affiliates from earning commissions An affiliate program, is in essence a referral program. If you are responsible for driving revenue to a company, you get paid. That is how affiliate programs work. Not in Amazon’s world, they have sophisticated tracking in place to make sure you don’t get commissions from friends or family members.
• Product Image Bans. Amazon requires you to use their product widgets, even if you are promoting them. This has been a bone of contention for some time with affiliates. I mean really, you want to promote a Vitamix and you can’t use the Vitamix image anywhere within your product/review or your post explaining it? That has been the stark reality for affiliates and affiliates have gotten banned for using images.
• Amazon is Overpriced in Many Cases. People use Amazon Prime for everything now, but in order to retain decent and operational margins (IE, not losing money), Amazon has been forced to inflate their prices. You in most cases are much better off to go to your local grocery store to buy items and through the course of a year you will save a lot of money doing so. Amazon’s current business is relying on people being “lazy” and not double checking prices before purchasing just because it is convenient to purchase on Amazon. I was looking for some snacks for our little ones the other day on Amazon and they were 10x more expensive on Amazon than the local grocery store. No joke.
  
• Lots of low quality products on there through their FBA program. Basically anyone can now source out and white label their own brand/product from China these days. You have people creating and products without any experience (sometimes even in the health supplement/vitamin world) without any knowledge. This has lead to a lot of low quality products, and even unsafe products.
  
• Account Closures. Lots of affiliate marketers have felt they have been subject to wrongful account closures. with no opportunity for rebuttal. There is also the scenario where Amazon has a policy if you don’t make a sale within the first 3 months of opening your Associates account, you will have your account suspended.

I’m sure others will have other issues or frustrations outside of this with Amazon, and if so feel free to share them below int the comments.

I believe they have crossed the ethics chasm

This Time They Shouldn’t Get a Pass.

What is happening here is Amazon has used this timing to pitch the idea that they are the good Samaritan. On one hand, they have moved to stocking and selling primary essentials like grocery items to help with the worldwide lock downs and social distancing measures, on the other hand they have effectively killed a lot of businesses for those selling their products on Amazon (that have bills to pay) and affiliates that also have bills to pay.

I known affiliates that have built their businesses around selling through the Amazon Associates Program (their affiliate program) that are literally going to see their gross sales increase, and their overall revenue split in half or even in a quarter overnight.

If you look at the charts, someone that was selling items in the Health & Personal Care business. Here is a screenshot of the sub-categories within this broader category.

If you were selling products within any of these categories as an affiliate, you have just experienced a 78% decline in your affiliate commissions overnight. Not the best news to be handed, in particular when you have been advocating Amazon and being helping drive their business…yet they have the audacity to cut your commissions without adequate notice, and without reason.

And that leads me to…

How to Pivot Away From Amazon Associates.

What do you do known if you have Amazon ads all over your website and have ultimately tied your entire business to Amazon’s Associate program?

Well, the world isn’t over. I first want to make you aware of that. You are still going to earn commissions through Amazon if you continue driving traffic to them, it just may be less depending on what type of products/services you are promoting. It however may be a good opportunity to seek out alternative affiliate programs and networks, and in some cases, deciding on different products to align with your audience through your promotions.

The reality is, as much as Amazon is synonymous with online shopping, they aren’t always the cheapest. Often times this is not the case. It isn’t always the best in terms of cookie life, shipping costs, and the overall customer service.

There are plenty of viable alternatives to Amazon, almost all the biggest companies and smallest companies in the world have affiliate programs. Some alternatives and affiliate programs that you can find within the Affiliate Programs search here at Wealthy Affiliate include the following.

• Awin
• ShareASale
• CJ.com
• Rakuten
• Clickbank (Digital)
• Independent Affiliate Programs (there are 1,000’s)

When doing your affiliate program research, you should be looking into these networks and seeking out affiliate programs that offer healthier affiliate commissions while also offering great products/services. Most companies are offering really good customer service, great shipping (and free), and in many cases it is much more cost-efficient to buy a brand from their actual website.

This way you are going to earn more revenue, you are still promoting really high quality products, and you are not supporting the unethical behavior that Amazon has been exhibiting in recent years.

Why This is Good News for Affiliates

As much as this may feel like bad news, this news is impacting a smaller percentage of affiliates than you make think. We have always taught members here to promote the most relevant products/services to their audience, and to leverage affiliate programs that are offering these products/services. In most cases this does not need to have anything to do with Amazon.

The reality is that it was just too “easy” for many affiliates to just rely on Amazon. They have a large subset of products on their website, and it only required to people to join on affiliate program.

But you need to remember you are running a business here. Most affiliate programs are offering 10%+ commissions, with many offering 30-50% commissions on their product/services. These commissions can add up quickly versus earning 1% within many of Amazon’s categories under their new fee schedule. I don’t known about you, but I would rather earn 10% on something than 1%. A simple economic decision.

You can still use Amazon’s affiliate program when you have to. You can still earn commissions through their platform, and you can still potentially earn a full time income. BUT, now more than ever you should seek alternatives and promote products/services that are comparable (but may be a different brand), or sell products through their own affiliate program versus selling them on Amazon.

While on this topic, there are 100’s of millions of products on Amazon that you can create a “better’ review. You can promote what you like at the end of the day, as in, the best products/services for your audience. Nathaniell recently wrote an excellent article on this topic and it will give you perspective on a really significant opportunity in the “review” space and showcase just how important YOU and your expertise is when it comes to helping consumers make educated purchasing decisions. You can check out his blog post here.

The Hurt Will Not Be With Affiliates, Rather Amazon.

There is a quote that I think is very relevant here, “If you don’t known where you’ve come from, you don’t known where you’re going.

I think that over the years Amazon has forgotten where they have come from. They built their business largely based on affiliates and through having at a point in time, one of the better subset of affiliate tools. Somewhere in recent years they have lost their way and ultimately the real HURT resulting from treating affiliates with such utter disrespect is going to be Fewer affiliates, fewer websites advocating their website, and less consumers.

The affiliate opportunities have never been so vast and affiliate loyalty takes years to build, but can vanish overnight. I have had many people contact me indicating they have lost all respect for Amazon as a result of this, and they will be boycotting them moving forward.

That is absolutely your right, and to be honest, when you buy through other websites outside of Amazon you are helping other affiliates, and helping the Internet economy as a whole. When a company like Amazon feels they are too good for the people that helped get them there, they have truly lost sight of their future and where they are going.

These are my thoughts on the situation and I would love to hear your feedback in the comments, concerns, or share your experiences below.