Working with the Amazon Associate Program with a Startup Site

byTheOldSilly

2.3K followers

Updated 9 years ago

I have read lots of people's blogs here on WA, lamenting about how Amazon has cancelled their Associate Program agreement with them. Or blogs about worrying over having received a warning from Amazon that they will be soon cancelled, if no referrals/sales are generated from their sites within X amount of days/weeks/months hence.

I also received this warning, 60 days after joining and using the Amazon program to offer products on my niche site. My warning stated that if, after 90 days, my site had not generated any referral sales, my Associate agreement would be terminated. I would, they said, have to option of re-applying later, (I believe they said 6 months) after the termination date.

The notice went on to say that their Associates program is intended for sites with high traffic volumes, which will generate a substantial amount of daily product clicks and a steady flow of referral sales. "Please feel free, if you are terminated, to re-apply when your site meets these qualifications." (I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist of the content)

I freaked out!

WTF?! My site was only about 75 days old at the time, still being filled out with content, still in the getting SEO'd stages. I was getting maybe 5 or 6 unique visitors and a total of 9 or 10 visitors daily - that was all - and product clicks were few and far between, and the odds of a "steady flow of referral sales" happening within the next 30 days were about that of finding a mountain of snowballs in the depths of Dante's Inferno!

Here's what I did. I resorted to desperate measures.

Yes, I admit it.

I was not about to have 2 months of hard work go down the drain, have all my links (hundreds of them!) become useless on my site, and be left with the bleak prospect of having to find any other program - or probably a few dozen of them, combined - that could possibly even begin to fill the void left by the absence of the vast product offerings Amazon has that are perfect for my niche.

So I explained my situation to a good friend, got his permission, and went on his computer. I set up an Amazon customer account for him, then logged onto my niche site as a visitor, clicked on a product, and went to Amazon and ordered it for (and "as") him.

Sneaky, and certainly a little white lie sort of "cheating", I know, but ...

I make no apologies.

I needed TIME and resources to get to where my site would fit what Amazon (and I) wanted.

And it worked. I got a notification of "Congratulations" from Amazon 2 days later, saying that my Associates Agreement had qualified, and they looked forward to doing much more business with me for a very long time.

Now, about 4 months later, since the scare and desperate measures in order to survive, my site is doing very well, thank you very much. Daily visitors are averaging 100+ and growing, product clicks are in the double-digits and growing, and referral sales are starting to trickle in. I am sure, within a good year's time from now, my site will have thousands of visitors daily, and the sales will be a substantial and steady flow.

Amazon has no understanding of, or patience with, "startup" sites. They want results NOW. I think it's kind of odd they would even accept an agreement with a startup, given their requirements for continued association. But hey - it is what it is, and I am just sharing what worked for me.

Call me a cheater if you want, but in this case I definitely feel that "the end justified the means" because in the end it is a win-win for me and Amazon, hmm?