Amazon Associates Issues Custom Commission Tables to Some Affiliates

[Ryuzaki]

A couple days ago I received an email that starting October 1st, 2020, my account with Amazon Associates will receive custom commission rates. They will supersede the standard rates that "everyone else" gets.

I didn't want to brag because I figured it wasn't just me. I'm hearing talk that some others got the same lift in commissions, so I'm glad I don't look like a dummy!

Did you get this?

I think it's probably USA only. The changes include a switch back to the old style where you can earn your way up tiers to get higher percentages. Except this time it's not based on item volume but revenue volume. And the lowest tiers are incredibly easy to reach and tend to increment up by about 0.5% each tier.

One of my main categories has maybe 4 or 5 tiers that ultimately end up doubling your commissions. Others didn't change at all.

Anyways, it's nice to see this in effect and know that Amazon isn't quite as heartless as it seemed when they slashed commissions during the Corona stuff. I can see why they did it. I was making about twice as much during that time period before the slash, which now has me at about 90% of my pre-Corona earnings. I should at least bump back up to 100% with these new rate tables, if not higher over time (assuming they don't slash further).

As far as I can tell, they've lowered their rates to about industry standard across most of the categories I have intimate knowledge about, with one actually being about 50% of the standard rates (my main category...)

Anyways, did anyone else get this?

 

[janky]

I didn't get this, would have loved to get some commission bumps.

 

[CaptainHustle]

Anyways, did anyone else get this?

No, I didn't receive any email. Any idea how much sales you had to generate to get on the list? Also, there were some talks about it only being for the month of October.

On a different note, it appears that Amazon has made some changes to the operating agreement with respect to GDPR compliance and prominent affiliate disclosures. Have you made any changes to your site in this regard?

 

[JamaicanMoose]

I've received that a few times over the years. They tend to revert after a few months. Enjoy the income boost.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Any idea how much sales you had to generate to get on the list?

No clue. I don't do what I would call a substantial amount of revenue for them or profit for me. It's a nice added bonus on top of my other types of monetization, though. It's maybe 10% - 15% of my pie from one big project and less than that on another growing site. It's probably 2% - 3% of my total take home. I hope that can give you some insight without me needing to spill actual numbers.

I'd guess it has to do with sales revenue and age of the account without getting any marks against it. My account is pretty old and has consistently earned for most of that time. It's over 10 years old.

Also, there were some talks about it only being for the month of October.

Yeah, that would make sense and what I suspected. They have Prime Day coming up on October 13th through 14th.

On a different note, it appears that Amazon has made some changes to the operating agreement with respect to GDPR compliance and prominent affiliate disclosures. Have you made any changes to your site in this regard?

Not yet because all I've seen is their summary about what will go into effect on October 1st. They haven't rolled out the long-form version yet, so it's unclear what they want. Like this: Updated the associate identification requirement to clarify that your identification statement must be prominent. I don't know what that means yet since there's no details.

I haven't seen anything about GDPR yet but I also don't send traffic to the EU either. I'm USA only. Can you tell us more about that?

I've received that a few times over the years. They tend to revert after a few months. Enjoy the income boost.

Nice. That's an incentive to do better and send them more traffic. I know some people get special rates and some people get into a higher order affiliate program altogether with better rates and different rules. I don't see myself going that hard for Amazon since there's a clear pattern of lowering the rates, but perhaps people not on the basic rates table aren't complaining at all...

 

[JamaicanMoose]

Nice. That's an incentive to do better and send them more traffic. I know some people get special rates and some people get into a higher order affiliate program altogether with better rates and different rules. I don't see myself going that hard for Amazon since there's a clear pattern of lowering the rates, but perhaps people not on the basic rates table aren't complaining at all...

What's also interesting about these rate card changes is they only effect one storeID under your account. So if you have multiple stores, say one for each website (which I highly recommend everyone have), you'll only get the income increase on that one storeID/website.

This makes it makes it worth it to create new tags for each website under the storeID with the rate increase. Downside would be when it comes time to sell the website, you won't be able to tell differentiate international earnings during this period. Additionally you'd have to disclose the rate increase during those months to potential buyers. Usually is a worthwhile trade-off though. Money in the bank yo. Just revert the tags back after the rate increase ends.

 

[Ryuzaki]

What's also interesting about these rate card changes is they only effect one storeID under your account.

I'm trying to interpret it based on the email, but mine appears to affect my over-arching Store ID. I use different Tracking ID's for different websites "within" that main Store ID. So I'm thinking it applies to all of my Tracking ID's and thus all my websites.

This is what you're suggesting we do, and I agree after seeing that I got lucky with it. I didn't know you could have multiple store IDs. Had I known I'd probably have set things up differently and not gotten "account wide" access.

The only problem with this method is, if you want to do split testing with different Tracking ID's you can eventually run out of them. I don't know the maximum number but I think it's over 100 you can have. But still... you could accidentally run out. And now OneLink you can get all your split-testing data anyways... so I'd definitely recommend following @JamaicanMoose's advice here.

 

[CaptainHustle]

I haven't seen anything about GDPR yet but I also don't send traffic to the EU either. I'm USA only. Can you tell us more about that?

I don't remember what exactly they said but there was something about cookies. I assumed that had something to do with GDPR. I am not sure if it only applies if you are driving readers to Amazon EU. Logically, it should apply if you have visitors from EU, no?

Also, I don't know if we should just wait to take action because Amazon is notorious for being vague with their policies to only penalize hard later.

 

[JamaicanMoose]

I'm trying to interpret it based on the email, but mine appears to affect my over-arching Store ID. I use different Tracking ID's for different websites "within" that main Store ID. So I'm thinking it applies to all of my Tracking ID's and thus all my websites.

Yeah, you'll get it on all of your websites with this setup.

 

[DD1]

I received an email and I saw the table. My main category remained unchanged, and a secondary category was bumped.

The funny thing is that I went back to take a screenshot and post it here, and now Amazon's comparative table is gone. I went back to the email and clicked their link, but the landing page changed. Super weird, kind of like a glitch in the Matrix.

I also remember reading my imaginary landing page (LOL) clearly stating it was valid from Oct. 1st to the 31st.