Never knew I'd be so happy to remove all my Amazon links

The smile on my face got bigger and bigger with every Amazon affiliate link I just removed from my posts. It felt great. What felt even better was being able to swap most of those links with links to other merchants I'm an affiliate for. Are you wondering why I'm doing this? Read on and I'll tell you.

The dreaded 3 month warning

Three months ago I got the dreaded letter from Amazon, saying I better get my three sales or I'd be kicked of the affiliate program. It made me think long and hard about Amazon, about my niche, about my website, about my personality. I realized that the only thing I really liked about the affiliate links from Amazon, are the native ads. Those are the ones you put at the bottom of your posts and that automatically put in ads based on your text. So the products match the content of your posts. I liked those.

My dislikes about Amazon

But I never liked the ridiculously short Amazon cookie. Too many people do not buy within 24 hours, they want to think things over or buy later because they want to add more to their shopping basket in due time. I want longer cookies. Preferably cookies that last 30 or 60 days. Those make sense to me.

Then there was some ethical issues I have with Amazon. My website is all about sustainability and eco-friendly living. That's not what Amazon is famous for. They aren't paying the best of wages, they aren't paying enough attention to packaging waste, their supply chain isn't very green. To name a few. So my heart never fully belonged to Amazon.

The hesitation

And yet, it took me a while to let go completely. First of all, Amazon was easily accessible to affiliates. No questions asked, give it a 180-day try to see if you can make it work. That felt much less intimidating than the admission demands other affiliate programs seemed to have. At first, I wasn't confident they'd accept me. Turns out, they sure did. And even with my tiny website and few posts.

Final sprint with 2 sales

Still, I thought I'd take a last fast sprint to see if I could get any Amazon sales. So for the last 30 days, I (finally) put a bunch of relevant affiliate links on Twitter. And behold: the clicks rolled in and I even made 2 sales. YAY! That feels amazing by the way, because it shows that selling is something I can actually do. But 2 sales is 1 sale short. So Amazon shot me down and that's $2,95 I'm never gonna get, hahaha. Anyway...

Feeling of relief

Funny thing is, instead of being disappointed, I feel relieved. I'm not an Amazon kind of woman. My business is going to reflect who I am, therefor it's not going to be an Amazon kind of business. So today, I'm getting rid of everything Amazon on my site. And replace it with green, eco-friendly, sustainable brands that offer looooooooong cookies.

It means I have to make all new social media posts and even rewrite some old blogs to make them work without Amazon. But I already know it's going to be worth it. Because it feels good. And due to my 30 day Amazon sprint, I learned that my tone of voice was good enough for 2 sales. Did I mention I'm excited because I got my first 2 sales?!?!?!?! ;-)

In a nutshell: loosing Amazon feels like being catapulted into a better place. Here's to hoping it will work out like I think it will.