As an affiliate marketer, I promote a lot of Amazon products in my blogs.

It’s true that Amazon’s commissions are measly. With about 4 percent commissions earned for products’ sales, you would have to sell a lot of products or sell very high-priced items in order to see significant income generated from the websites.

So why am I still at it – till today I am still promoting various products from Amazon.

My Two-Cents Worth

In the course of my research and trials, I found that for some products, you could get higher commissions joining a company’s affiliate program as compared to what you would get from Amazon.

This seems appealing of course and at first glance, you might be enticed to ditch the  Amazon network altogether.

There are some reasons as to why I still promote Amazon.

1. People trust Amazon and more likely to buy from the retail giant.
2. Amazon offers variety of products outside of those that I promote. As long as my website visitors browse and make purchases within 24 hours, I would earn the commissions.

Having said this however, I made some exceptions. I would consider joining individual company’s affiliate program and promoting its products (apart from those in Amazon) if …

1. The company offers commissions of 10 percent or more for the sale of its products (Illustration : For a $100 product, you would be making $10 instead of $4 in Amazon)
2. The products are highly-priced …. in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. Best yet, if the company offers commissions higher than Amazon’s. (Illustration : For a $500 item, say at 10 percent commission, you are looking at earning $50 for the sale of the product instead of $24 that you could earn at Amazon with a 4 percent commission)

Settling In

It’s certainly easy to just join the Amazon network and settle to promote products in the various niches there.

Particularly to those new to affiliate marketing, joining Amazon is hassle-free. As long as you work to make sales within 180 days of joining Amazon, the network won’t delete your affiliate account.

However, if you think about your affiliate marketing business as an evolving and progressive one, then you would certainly want to optimize your earnings.

You would want to look for affiliate programs that give you higher commissions so it makes all your hard work – creating websites, writing and optimizing content all the more worthwhile.

Moderation is Key

Apart from content, searching for and deciding on the affiliate programs to join are as important.

While I highlighted the benefits of being an Amazon affiliate, you have a choice of promoting products from other affiliate networks.

Through networks like Shareasale or Commission Junction, you might be able to get programs that offer higher commissions than Amazon.

As you look into optimizing sales from your websites, however, remember that ultimately you would also want to bring value to your visitors.

These are people who are most likely looking for information on products they intend to purchase.

You would want to give them as much information as you can that would eventually help them make an informed decision. You would want your website to be a ‘recommended’ platform for people to go to for solution(s) to a particular problem or uncertainties.

Thus, while we look to generate earnings, optimizing commissions using different network, we must be mindful of our readers.

We need to fulfill our readers’ needs without compromising on the quality of content provided to them!