Why I Stopped Doing Amazon Associates Affiliate Program

I probably still have old links to Amazon products in old blog posts or old YouTube videos. I’ll have to take them down eventually because those links will no longer generate me any commissions.

The reason I stopped (or well, they cancelled) my Amazon Associates account is because they have a time limit for when you must refer your first sale. If you don’t generate a sale within the first 6 months, your account gets deactivated. Then, you have to sign up for a new account and replace all your old links with new ones associated with the new account. It’s so time-consuming for someone who places hundreds of links in different blog posts, YouTube videos, or wherever pretty much. At first, I had maybe 10 places with links, so I was able to replace those old links. I probably made a new account 3 times. But, I didn’t generate any sales with any of those accounts. (Otherwise, they’d still be active I think.) So, it was pointless.

I don’t generate a lot of traffic, but I thought someone would maybe at least search on Amazon some more if they clicked the link and would eventually buy something that I’d make a commission off of. Nope. Not that easy. Plus, their commission rates are super small. I believe it’s 10% for beauty products and less than that for other categories. So, you’re not making much money off it. Sure, it’s passive once you post the link. Well, assuming they don’t cancel your account for the lack of sales. To be honest, that’s the most frustrating part. If it weren’t for them deactivating accounts and therefore making old links useless, then it might be worthwhile because once you put up the links, you can forget about it. But the fact you have to keep track of whether your account is still active or not makes the whole program kind of annoying to use. It sucks because then, you’re promoting Amazon products without actually getting anything in return.

I haven’t tried any other affiliate programs. This was the first one I’ve tried. Some other bloggers have success with it because they have loads of traffic, and they’ve never had to worry about their accounts becoming deactivated. But even if I begin to generate a lot of traffic on my website, I doubt I’ll use it in the future.