Making Sense of the Amazon Affiliate Landscape For Publishers

There’s no retailer with a more complex affiliate marketplace than Amazon. While most retailers run a single affiliate program on a single affiliate network, Amazon boasts several affiliate solutions, each with different commission structures, funding sources, and cookie behaviors. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the major categories of Amazon's affiliate solutions and provide tips on how and when to leverage each.

Amazon Associates

While many of Amazon’s affiliate solutions are relatively new, the Amazon Associates program launched in 1996, making it one of the oldest affiliate programs still operating today. Associates remains the backbone of many publishers’ affiliate strategies, often accounting for the majority of their affiliate earnings.

Advantages:

• Publishers can earn commissions on nearly any product on Amazon—essentially, any product that exists.
• Commissions apply to a customer’s full cart value, not just the directly linked product, as long as the purchase occurs within 24 hours and before the customer clicks a different Associates link.
• Amazon links typically have significantly higher conversion rates than links to other retailers, often exceeding 10%.
• The largest publishers may receive elevated rates and dedicated account managers, with opportunities for performance-based commission boosts and bonuses.

Drawbacks:

• Commission rates are generally very low, unless publishers have custom rate cards.
• The 24-hour attribution window is one of the shortest among major affiliate programs.

Amazon Creator Connections

Launched in 2022 as an invite-only supplement to Amazon Associates, Creator Connections allows Amazon sellers to offer additional commissions to publishers on sales of their products, supplementing standard Associates earnings.

Advantages:

• Publishers earn a minimum of 10% commissions on Creator Connections campaigns, significantly more than standard Associates rates.
• Since performance is tracked via Associates links, publishers can “double-dip”—earning both standard Associates commissions and additional brand-funded commissions.
• With over 60,000 active campaigns and commission boosts available on more than a million products, the platform is growing quickly.

Drawbacks:

• Publishers must manually opt into campaigns, which can be time-consuming.
• Campaigns have participation limits (800 affiliates) and budget caps, meaning latecomers may miss opportunities.
• Amazon requires publishers to submit content links at the campaign's conclusion; failure to do so may result in account penalties.

Amazon Attribution Seller Networks

Starting with the launch of Levanta in 2023, multiple third-party networks have emerged that allow brands to pay direct commissions to publishers via Amazon Attribution tracking. These networks use a different link structure than Associates or Creator Connections, offering potentially higher payouts.

Advantages:

• Brands often receive Amazon rebates for Attribution-tracked sales, affording them the margins to offer higher commission rates than they can through Creator Connections.
• The cookie duration for Amazon Attribution is 14 days, significantly longer than the 24-hour Associates cookie—a major advantage for high-consideration products that customers might not purchase immediately.
• Across the five major Attribution networks supported by Content Connections, publishers can earn commissions on over 750,000 Amazon products.

Drawbacks:

• Attribution tags cannot be combined with Associates tags in the same link, requiring publishers to choose between programs.
• Attribution cookies only apply to the specific product or brand linked, unlike Associates tags, which earn commissions on the full cart.
• Sales tracked through Attribution do not contribute to an Amazon Associates performance tier or custom rate card.
• The five major Attribution networks have separate product and offer catalogs, making it difficult to determine which network offers the best commission for a specific product.

How Publishers Can Maximize Their Amazon Earnings

The days of simply adding Associates tags to your links and calling it a day are over, at least for publishers that want to maximize their earnings. While the earning potential for Amazon affiliates is higher than ever, with millions of products offering brand-funded commissions, it comes at the cost of increased complexity. Every Amazon link now requires a series of micro-decisions:

• Will you earn more from an Associates tag or an Attribution tag for a given product, accounting for the different cookie behaviors and any custom Associates rates?
• Is the product available on Creator Connections? 
• Which networks offer commissions on the product, and which one provides the best offer?

That’s why we created Content Connections—a scalable, all-in-one solution that helps publishers maximize their Amazon affiliate earnings. Our lightweight JavaScript snippet automates campaign opt-ins and link management, ensuring every Amazon click is fully optimized. Publishers using Content Connections earn an average of 15% more from their existing Amazon content, no zero additional work required.

Want to see what Content Connections can do for your Amazon content? Get in touch for a free consultation, or give us a try today!

Main image courtesy of Vitaly Gariev/Unsplash