Amazon or Independent?
When promoting products on your website, are big market companies like Amazon, Ebay, etc. better than going with an affiliate program through an independent company? Say I'm going to do a website based on the niche of fishing. Would it be more favorable to use an affiliate program through places such as Bass Pro Shops, Dick's Sporting Goods, etc.? Or is Amazon still the better choice of products and affiliates?
Another thing. Do you get commission for promoting items that are vended through Amazon but from a third party seller?
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I am an Amazon Affiliate and I am looking for better. I am trying Bass Pro and a few others. Amazon is not what it is cracked up to be, and their rules are outrageous. I like linkshare and make more through them.
Hi, John,
That's a difficult one to answer and I'm sure you'll get differing points of view. I guess the choice is yours and what your goal is. Look at each and see which appears to be the better option for you - do they pay you on time? is one commission substantially better than the other? do they take care of their customers? what is their reach - are they very local or do they ship nationally/globally? what are their shipping terms - I was watching a training session by Jay and he would have bought a t-shirt right there while training us but the shipping to Canada was practically the price of the shirt so he didn't get it. Just a case in point.
I don't think it makes a huge difference but it's good to have options.
Regarding your question on commission from Amazon if the product is bought through a third party vendor - yes you would still get the commission. There are thousands of sellers on Amazon now so it gives the buyer the choice of where to go. It also doesn't matter what they add to cart when you send them there. You'll get a commission paid on everything (category dependent of course).
Hope that helps but see what others say. I'm happy to be wrong.
Gary
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I tend to lean away from using Amazon with most of my promotions because they are on the lower end of the commission scale and they only have 24 hour cookies, which is very low compared to industry standard.
Insane in their affiliate program can be very lucrative, and they have hundreds of millions of products that you can promote from within it. It certainly is not the be-all and all and there are A LOT of Amazon as an affiliate.
Here is some training on how you can go about finding affiliate programs in your respective niche: How to Find Relevant Affiliate Programs When I create my content and I am integrating affiliate products and services, I do so based on what is the most relevant to the context of my actual content, and went will lead to the most conversions overall as a result. Never confine yourself to one particular affiliate program.
Plain and simple, there is a lot of opportunity out there in the affiliate marketing space and this is only continuing to increase as more and more affiliate programs adopt affiliate programs and put large investments into them.