Hey Louise, those are both great questions!

Information shared via infographics is much easier to digest, retain, and recall, than plain text.

In addition, infographics encourage your website's visitors to spend more time on your site, something that is a positive sign in the eyes of Google.

Plus, they can increase sales.

You can find all the benefits of using infographics on Google.

I really don't think that a logo on the very bottom of an infographic outweighs all the value said infographic could potentially bring to your content and visitors.

The URL is part of the sharing code... I've actually tried to remove the hyperlinking multiple times but once I update the post, it automatically generates a new one for some reason.

If you consider this spam, then please do what's "best" for this community and report it.

I just wanted to share a resource I know might be of value to many in here.

Best wishes,

Harry

Thank you, Harry.

I do understand the benefits of the infographic but can't get my head around having a "competitors" logo on my site (assuming you are also an affiliate for WA that is).

I also asked this question to bring awareness to newbies within WA who may not realize that they could inadvertently redirect potential referrals to your website.

I'm not looking to report your blog for spam but rather to get an understanding of why it would be okay for you to share information here that community members are discouraged from sharing.

Blessings
Louise

I completely understand :)

Best regards,

Harry

You make some very logical points, Jeannine.

Hey Jeannine, thanks a lot for letting me know about the release date of the new Awin report.

Amazon FBA translates to "Fulfilled by Amazon". What this means is that Amazon fulfills the orders of the sellers who have signed up for its FBA program.

Amazon stores all the products provided by its FBA sellers in fulfillment centers but doesn't actually own any of them.

If it did, it wouldn't charge their sellers with storage fees, return processing fees, and fulfillment fees.

In addition, FBA sellers are able to request a return of their inventory. If the products of each seller were owned by Amazon, this wouldn't be possible.

You said that "Most of the merchants on Amazon wouldn't qualify as a merchant anywhere else".

And yet, if you head over to a product that's being sold by a 3rd party merchant through the Amazon FBA program you'll see that on the right-hand side of the listing it says "Sold by -seller's name- and Fulfilled by Amazon."

If you click on the seller's name, you'll be able to see their company name, Trade Register Number, VAT number, and even their physical business address.

I never claimed or implied that Amazon is an affiliate network.

The comparisons I included in my article were automatically generated by Datanyze and Builtwith upon analyzing Amazon Associate's program.

Both of those platforms have listed Awin, Rakuten, VigLink, and all the other major affiliate networks as the top competitors of Amazon Associates.

If Amazon should never be confused or compared with an affiliate network then you should let both of those platforms know because those "deceiving" stats are being quoted by almost every single article that talks about affiliate marketing statistics.

All the best,

Harry

I'm completely familiar with the Amazon FBA program; I have friends who are quite successful with it. That still doesn't make those companies merchants. It's more like a drop-shipping arrangement.

I can't control what those platforms choose to do in terms of who they group together. I'd just be cautious in how I interpret the information from their sites, as I'm not sure they have quite as much insight into each company as they might lead you to believe.

I'm personally unfamiliar with a company that isn't a merchant of something, whether that is a product or a service.

According to the Cambridge dictionary, merchant = "a business that sells directly to the public either from a store or through the internet".

After analyzing the backlink profile of Datanyze, I've found that it has a DA of 57 and backlinks from websites inclusing Microsoft, New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, Huffington Post, etc.

BuiltWith has a DA of 75 and backlinks from Microsoft, CoudFlare, WordPress, Mozilla, etc.

Both of those platforms are extremely authoritative so I assume that they wouldn't publish stats about any given company haphazardly.

Having said all that, if you know a company that isn't a merchant or a more trustworthy source that I could use to draw those or similar stats, I'd be happy if you'd let me know.

Please note that I'm just questioning your claims in an attempt to understand whether I've actually missed something.

Harry

Bottom line, I only care about keeping things clear to WA members, especially when it comes to Awin and ShareASale. The dictionary definition could apply to any industry; it's so generic it basically barely applies to affiliate marketing. Backlinks, DA mean nothing as far as credibility. If you want to quote them, that's your prerogative.

My point is that Amazon IS the merchant. They may call the other companies that they work with "merchant" but in the world of affiliate marketing, many don't share their choice of labels.

Beyond that, it's semantics and do as you wish, but know that the definition on those sites of Amazon being the heavyweight when it comes to working with merchants is misleading, and as a result WA members could become confused into thinking Amazon is a good partner and ultimately be hurt. That's why I'm challenging this.

I strongly believe that you're negatively biased because as you mention, you're responsible for the Awin and ShareASale listings in the WA Affiliate Programs directory.

I couldn't agree more that Amazon is a merchant. But when I'm the one selling something through Amazon, I'm the merchant.

Even Amazon calls them merchants and sellers LOL.

Are you basically telling me that you know more about Amazon's 3rd-party merchants than Amazon itself?

If DA and backlinks mean nothing as far as credibility is concerned then why are they Google's second-best way to measuring credibility?

How do you suggest that we measure a website's credibility better?

How are your claims more credible than the stats published by large platforms that have been quoted by the most authoritative websites ever existed?

I totally respect the fact that you want to keep things clear to WA members.

However, I want to keep things clear to everyone!

Trying to discredit a statistic based on the fact that I used the word "merchant" instead of the word "Amazon FBA" which is basically one and the same is deceptive by itself.

Again, I'm not trying to defend Amazon... Truthfully, I couldn't care less about it.

But in my eyes, you're the one trying to confuse and deceive now. And that's why I'm challenging this.

Whatever.

Yeah... Nice conversation :)

See you around!

Harry

Hey Laurie, all those numbers are based on studies conducted no later than 2018.

This means that right now, they should have indeed skyrocketed.

Unfortunately, for the time being, there aren't any more recent studies available.

Harry

You're very welcome Jim :)

Best wishes,

Harry

BTW, I optimized the code because the previous one didn't work properly.

Harry

Hey Laurie, it's true that back in April 2020, Amazon slashed the commissions on some (not all) of their product categories.

I actually talk about that in the actual article I've published on my website (link at the footer of the infographic)

All the best,

Harry