Last updated on October 4th, 2018 at 05:04 am
Interested in making money with your blog? If you’re looking for Amazon Affiliate Alternatives, you’re in the right place. Today, we’ll be taking a look at 9 other networks you might want to consider.
Should You Become An Amazon Associate?
Personally, I am a huge fan of diversifying my income and if you can join the Amazon Associates program I personally don’t see why you wouldn’t.
Yes, the commissions are not that great, but the conversion rates are amazing. You don’t have to set up an Amazon affiliate store, but it can easily link to popular products in your post, there’s a good chance that you’ll make money.
Find the right affiliate marketing training course to help you make the most of your efforts. It’s important to have a strategy in place to make the most of your time.
Most people never make any money from their efforts because they don’t know how to do it.
Huge Selection of Products
Regardless of what niche market you’re in, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find something in their large database of products.
If you can’t find the product on Amazon, there’s a good chance it’s not sold. (well not really, but I always find everything I need on Amazon.)
You’ll find products that are sold directly from Amazon and products that are sold by third-party sellers. This course will help you learn how to become an Amazon seller.
Free to Sign Up
The sign-up process is extremely easy. In fact, once you sign up, you should be able to start promoting products right away.
Affiliate programs other than Amazon require you to jump through hoops and wait for your site to be reviewed before you can start promoting products.
Reports
Once you get approved, you’ll get access to daily reports where you can see how many times people clicked your links and what products sold.
Just remember, you won’t be paid a commission until the product actually ships to the buyer.
The Downside
Most bloggers who start the program struggle with the required 3 sales. As a new affiliate, you’ll be required to make 3 sales in the first 90 days.
If you don’t make the sale, you’ll have to reapply and change out all those old links. So it definitely sucks if you don’t make those first 3 sales.
Once you make those first 3 sales, you’ll never have to worry about being kicked out of the program.
24 Hour Cookies
Unfortunately, you only make commissions on products people buy through your link for 24 hours. If someone clicks on your link at 4:00 PM but doesn’t make a purchase until the following day at 6:00 PM.
Unfortunately, you don’t get credited with the sale.
This sucks because most other affiliate programs have at least a 30 day cookie period and some even have a lifetime cookie period.
Earn Commissions from Products You Don’t Promote
If you have a water filter site and someone visits Amazon through your link, you’ll get a commission on anything they purchase in the next 24 hours. Even if they purchase something totally different than what you promoted.
Seasonal Sales
It’s not uncommon to see seasonal sales and holiday spikes in sales that can help you increase your online income. People look forward to the Black Friday and Christmas deals so they can shop online. As an affiliate, you just need to get your traffic to their website.
Reasons Amazon Might Not Be For You
One of the main reasons that a lot of bigger bloggers hate Amazon’s affiliate program is because of the low commissions.
The newer bloggers tend to associate affiliate marketing with Amazon because they are not sure of any other high paying affiliate programs.
When they realize how much work goes into blogging and they’re making peanuts with Amazon, they decide they’re not cut out to be an affiliate marketer.
Yes, some people make great money with Amazon niche sites. But if you’re in a niche that doesn’t do well for Amazon, read my post on 13 High Paying Affiliate Programs That Will Make You Money.
The Commissions Are Poor
While the commissions are not totally bad, they aren’t very good.
When you first start out, you’ll be making a whopping 4% on anything you sell. If you become a great seller, you could eventually make up to 9% of commissions.
If you promote technology products, you’ll always get a flat rate of 4% regardless of how many sales you make.
If you compare this to other digital products you can sell online, where the commission is around 30 – 40%. It kind of makes you wonder why so many people choose Amazon to start with.
To be fair, it’s a lot easier to make Amazon sales than it is to make sales from some digital products. This doesn’t mean that you can’t do both.
9 Amazon Affiliate Alternatives That Will Make You More
Here are some affiliate programs other than Amazon that you can consider joining. Join some of them and test them out to see if they are good alternatives and make you more money.
They are not in any particular order of importance, so make sure you do your due diligence.
#1 ShareASale
I personally love the ShareASale network because they have something for every niche. Check out my ShareASale review blog post to find out everything you need to know about this network. Once you sign up, you’ll be able to find a large selection of different vendors, that offer digital products and physical products.
You’ll also get all the information about cookie duration and everything you need to know inside of your dashboard.
#2 Clickbank
One of the oldest affiliate networks that offer digital goods in various niches. They have a huge database of digital goods you can promote on your blog. The downside is that this network won’t work with every blog.
Most of the products offer a 30-day cookie with commissions ranging from 10-50%.
#3 Target
The Target is one of the major competitors of both Walmart and Amazon in the US. They offer competitive commissions for their affiliates, based on how many sales you make per month.
You’ll start out making around 5% commissions and peak around 8% depending on your monthly sales and the sales category. Here’s a snapshot of their commission structure.
Unfortunately, the Target affiliate program is not suitable for all niches. If you look at the commission table, you’ll notice that the commissions for Health & Beauty are extremely low.
If you had a fitness niche blog, you probably would want to promote Amazon instead. However, if you had a Home & Outdoor living blog, you could make some great commissions.
#4 Skimlinks / Infolinks / Viglinks
These networks kind of remind me of Google Adsense. The companies place inline text links inside of your content and when someone mouses over the links, a popup opens up.
They say these types of links get more clicks than the typical Adsense ads. I’m not really sure how good the commissions are, because I’ve never used them before.
If you do decide to use them, make sure you read how the commission structure works.
#5 Walmart
While you won’t find as many products to promote as you can on Amazon. This can be a great program to join if you reside in the USA, Canada or Mexico. Walmart is famous because of their low prices, so you shouldn’t expect huge commissions.
Their commission rate is around 1% and 4%. Some categories will pay out 4% commissions.
If I was in the home and garden niche or a lifestyle niche, I would probably join this program to supplement my online income. I personally wouldn’t use them as my main affiliate program.
The cookie duration is only 3 days, which is terrible.
#6 eBay Partner Network
eBay just like Amazon has a ton of different products you can choose from, except that they are second-hand products. It’s kind of like shopping at a garage sale online.
While I’ve never been an affiliate for them, I have made several purchases from the site. Plus, I’ve also sold some unused items on the site.
Just like Amazon, it’s a trusted site that can help you make sales as an affiliate.
After doing some research, I found out that the commission structure kind of sucks. Instead of earning a percentage of the product sold or a flat fee, you earn a commission for what eBay makes on the auction.
The cookie length for eBay is only 24 hours.
#7 Etsy
Etsy has become a huge marketplace for people who sell handmade and vintage goods. You can find all kinds of cool things in the Etsy marketplace. Some of the popular items you can sell as an Etsy affiliate are; jewelry, clothing, toys, arts, crafts, toys and etc.
If you have a lifestyle blog or a beauty blog, you might be able to make some decent money with this program.
The cookie duration is 30 days and the commissions is 4% and will be based on the price of the product sold.
#8 Best Buy
Best Buy is one of the biggest retailers of electronic and tech products. If you have a technology blog, you can find all kinds of products you can promote on your blog.
If your target audience is in the United States, Canada, or Mexico, you might want to consider signing up as an affiliate.
The downside is their commission structure sucks. You make a lousy 1% for specific categories. The popular categories like laptops, Tablets, Desktops, Video Game Hardware (including Virtual Reality Hardware) have a commission rate of 0.0%
They do offer a $5 bounty if someone signs up for a cell phone service plan. (excluding iPhone plans)
Personally, I’d recommend sticking with Amazon instead of joining this program.
#9 CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction)
Commission Junction is a popular physical product affiliate platform that can be suitable for several niches. For example, let’s say that you have a Home and Garden blog.
You could sign up to promote products from Home Depot. If someone bought a tankless water heater or an outdoor fireplace, you’ll make a commission from those sales.
Every vendor has different commission rates and cookie lengths. You can find out what they are when you sign up with different vendors.
It’s Up To You
Now that you’ve seen some alternatives to Amazon you can also see that a lot of them don’t pay very well. I haven’t tried all the programs listed above.
It’s up to you to test them out and see if they convert better and make you more money. Personally, the only ones that I would join would be ShareASale and CJ if I was looking for some new networks.
I personally think you can make more money with Amazon if you’re promoting the right things. Remember, it takes time to actually make money with your blog, so keep putting one foot in front of the other and take care of your Amazon account so you don’t get banned.
Final Take Away
Amazon is not your only option when it comes to monetizing your blog. That being said, it’s possible to create a site that earns decent money. If you’re looking to make 5 and 6 figures, you will want to join other programs.
If you don’t have a lot of experience with affiliate marketing, this course can help you take your income to the next level. Learn how to make the most of your popular blog posts and how to make money with and without your blog.
Affiliate marketing can be extremely lucrative if you know how to implement it. You won’t make money overnight, but if you put in the work today, it will become profitable later on down the road.
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Are you planning on joining any of these Amazon alternatives? Do you have any experience with them? If so then be sure to let us know below.
