hey what's going on
welcome to the Doug show my name is Doug
Pennington and in this episode we are
going to talk to Jesse Lakes from genius
link and we're going to talk about
Amazon best practices I think we did
like eight or nine maybe even ten but I
may have said 11 or something like that
during the interview here but we cover a
lot of stuff the cool thing is Jesse's
awesome right so we've talked we've
talked to him before check out the other
episode that I've done with Jesse if you
haven't heard it and Jesse does a good
intro about what genius link is and all
that stuff so I won't do it here one
thing I do need to note is that Jesse
and I were talking about what's called a
direct qualifying purchase versus a like
non qualifying purchase as it pertains
to the Amazon Associates program and
what the rules are and the commission
rates in the EU so we're getting I
realize we're getting very deep very
quick so I will explain what the direct
qualifying purchase and non qualifying
and all that stuff is at the end of the
interview so I'll just let it roll is
just a little minor thing that we didn't
know what we were talking about during
the conversation so I'll just I'll tell
you that we were we were we knew there
was something to it and later on Jesse
did the research sent me and the
information so I'll read that out at the
end of the interview if you're brand new
to the Doug show welcome I'm glad that
you're listening have a listen to a few
of the other episodes and if you'd like
it please subscribe it will be very
awesome and if you do happen to like
this episode you'll find that a lot of
the other episodes are pretty deep in
the weeds for Amazon associate marketing
affiliate marketing in general and every
now and then I go like really deep on
SEO as well or my guests do so
just check it out I think I think you
may like it so without further ado let's
send it over to the interview with
Jessie and be sure to check out genius
link as well hey what's going on
duck Huntington here from niche site
project and the Doug show and I'm
sitting with my friend Jesse Lakes from
genius link how are you today I am I'm
doing really well it is a wonderful
Thursday awesome yeah very close to
Friday we are recording this very close
to Labor Day as well so we got a long
weekend coming up do you have any big
plans this weekend now Labor Day might
be actual Labor Day for for my family so
lots of big plans coming up so yeah well
thank you very much for taking the time
out I know it's you're busy right now
for the people that don't know you can
you give a little intro and talk about
genius link just for a moment so people
know like where you're coming from
sure yeah I've been in the affiliate
world for quite quite some time now
started diving into it back in early
2000s but um along the way I found that
links traditionally send people to one
destination that wasn't always the best
case so kind of had this crazy route
with iTunes and then Amazon and
ultimately built this um platform called
genius link that's an intelligent
intelligent link management platform I
got to get that a little bit smoother
one of these days since I talked about
all the time but intelligent link
management essentially just means that
you can use a single link to help
monetize your whole list of audience
times when you build a website you're
getting people from the US or the UK but
that's usually a decent chunkier
property our decent chunk your audience
we're really I your properties being
appreciated by people all over the world
and we don't monetize that long tail of
your audience you really leaving money
on the table so genius link is a tool
for exactly that we we help our clients
our publishers influencers creators take
full advantage of the opportunity that's
presented with them with us this
community they've built and also helped
ensure a good buying experience for that
community as well so it kind of goes
hand in hand very good and if people
want to hear more about your origins
story we recorded another episode where
it was more
conversational the the quick hitter sort
of topic that we're doing today which is
the best practices for Amazon Associates
and we have a list of I believe nine
will see how we do here some of those
may turn into like two or three as we
dissect them so we're just kind of gonna
go back and forth and when I was
reviewing the list I could tell you
number one Jessie's very thorough he did
all this research for me you know the
credit thank you I'm not ashamed of that
you know you got to surround yourself
with smarter people than yourself so I
thought that's what I was doing hanging
out with you come on god I know so in
this case Jesse brought to the table a
lot and we're just gonna like go down
the list so number one we have make sure
you link to products not to search
results pages so I know I've done this
in the past where maybe I didn't quite
know where to send someone and I thought
hey if I just get them to Amazon that's
good enough so what do you think about
this Jesse well you know maybe we should
rephrase that slightly you know it's
okay to link to search results pages but
it's best to link to products and
there's kind of a a theoretical point of
view but there's also some concrete
stuff that's really starting to
materialize so the theoretical point of
view is that when you get someone
excited about a product and they have
that intent to purchase you want to get
them to that ability to purchase as
quickly as possible and it's easier to
buy from one of the product pages on
Amazon than it is from a category page
or a search results page even the home
page of Amazon so you know you talked
about this camera you talk about
whatever it may be people interested
click that button make it happen allow
that to happen
the second part of that though is we've
seen some new language introduced by
Amazon earlier this year and it's a
whole concept of what they call an
indirect qualifying purchase versus a
direct qualifying purchase and this the
showed up in the I believe the March 3rd
update to the Amazon European Terms of
Service and the gist was that they're
going to pay you out a commission rate
that's significantly higher for a direct
qualifying purchase
and significally lower for it indirect
so just some examples here I'll pull
this up but um if you are in the M in
the fashion area so clothing accessories
etc they're gonna pay you eleven or
twelve percent if you send the link
directly to the product page only gonna
pay 1.5 percent if you send it to a
search results and kind of something
happens along the way we often call a
kind of a halo purchase so yeah that's
that's obviously a significant
difference so if you're promoting
clothing accessories shoes handbags etc
don't use search results pages you know
really you want to focus in and send
people to to that specific product when
you can obviously you can't always do
that sometimes a search results page is
the perfect example of our sorry the
perfect destination for certain cases
but in general if you if you have the
choice you know go to that that specific
product where where the search is again
it's it's it's lazy it's sometimes and
that's why I've done the past is because
I was being lazy to find the right
product give a good recommendation send
them there and you should be rewarded
for a signet with a significantly higher
commission rate one quick go ahead well
I was gonna say just as an example for
when the search page may be more
relevant than some others is like if
you're just like mentioning an overall
brand for example where you know maybe
there's not a brand page for some reason
there probably should be like an overall
brand page but another place you may see
that is like if it's just the name of a
product type and you're not making a
recommendation so it would be like a
more general type of piece of content or
something like that
so yeah what were you gonna say oh so I
was just gonna take this one step
further where again this is you know in
the European fee statement appendix is
where this information is is listed out
it doesn't seem to have been applied yet
to the US amazon.com affiliate program
so obviously amazon.com is is typically
the biggest affiliate program and
typically the major moneymaker for for
most publishers however if you look
closely you won't see it in the Amazon
Associates dashboard but if you actually
download the reports you'll see that
there's a column now that will give you
the DQ P and the
i QP and that just tells you you know if
it's if it's a direct qualified person
indirect qualified purchase so i'm
reading tea leaves here you know take
this with a massive grain of salt but we
see it specifically outlined in UK
germany italy spain france we see the
reporting is there for the US I'm
assuming it's only a matter of time
again take that with a grain of salt do
with it what you will but in general I
definitely recommend your audience you
know linked to products when they can
and try not to to be lazy link to search
but again you make some great points
about when linking to search is you know
the best for the kind of that user
experience and quick we got to be
careful not to go too long and I'm
catching myself here I'm like the
qualifying versus non qualifying so if
someone were to link to a product and
then the person the the user follows the
link but they buy something else but
they they went through a direct link to
a product and they just happen to choose
a different one is that a qualified
purchase that's a great question and I'm
not qualified to answer that but the way
that I read the tea leaves here is that
the indirect qualifying is kind of that
halo effect right you promote a specific
TV they buy toilet paper right that
toilet paper you're now going to be at
that lower rate but that TV if they had
bought it that link they fall initially
you get the higher rate and I think it's
we've always known that that Amazon is
amazing for those those those halo
purchases right you can be recommending
again
TVs and be making a ton of money off of
toilet paper which which works out
really well and I think Amazon is is
really kind of wizened up to that and
and you know they still want to reward
you you know it's still sale you still
bring in a customer you deserve
something but maybe not that full amount
that they previously were so again to
restate I think that you know you link
to a specific product you'll get the
full Commission if that specific product
is bought but if it's a an ancillary
product or related product I'm guessing
not again I can't prove that I don't
have any specific numbers there but
that's that's how I'm seeing seeing
things written okay that makes sense
we will keep monitoring it all right
definitely moving on to the next one
here
this is sort of similar to Mike you know
be direct so this one you mentioned
don't direct or yeah don't link to them
is on homepage and you also mentioned
that you know Amazon's sort of cracking
down on this so what can you shed some
light on here
yeah so again we we see that it's often
worth your while from a fiscal
perspective to to send to a specific
product again kind of talking about the
direct qualifying indirect qualifying
we've also found that Amazon's
compliance team seems to be cracking
down again it's a little bit again of
reading tea leaves to try to understand
exactly what they were had concerns
about but we've we've seen some clients
come through that believed they were
getting the the letter of doom because
they were linking directly to the Amazon
homepage so take that one step further
Amazon wants you to promote products
Amazon doesn't want you to incentivize
clicks Amazon doesn't want you to kind
of mooch off their affiliate program you
need to be adding value I think they see
it again reading tea leaves they see it
as you just linking to the homepage is
you just trying to collect a commission
for being there you know the
incentivizing clicks asking for for
people to buy from your link you know
the amazon homepage link often
correlates very closely with that
behavior we're recommending a specific
product you know you're really doing the
job to promote that product talk about
the pros and the cons you know your your
insights into that specific product
versus just that homepage link okay so I
guess trying to understand why those
specific users maybe were I guess not
targeted but why they were you know had
an inquiry or whatever I guess they had
a high percentage of their clicks going
to the home page and Amazon was like hey
this is out of whack for like the
average site we have it they have a ton
of data so am i reading into that
properly do you think again you know I'm
have my I am not related to Amazon at
any any way okay a third-party company
that works a lot in the ecosystem but I
think you're you're probably reading
things correctly I have heard that
Amazon kind of has a scoring system for
for their associates you need to have
you know it's a lot of different factors
that go into it they won't explain it
at all you know it's kind of a hidden
thing but I'm assuming yeah the score
was high in the wrong areas are really
low because of this activity so yeah I'm
assuming that's some sort of behavior
some sort of incorrect ratio is kind of
what what flagged him but again this is
complete conjecture okay that makes
sense and yeah we put another disclaimer
at the top of this we are just a couple
people talking about this stuff and
consult your own lawyers and everything
like that or were hardly associated with
each other
but all right so the first few were sort
of slightly more negative so now we're
gonna be getting into some more
interesting stuff where it's like hey
give your users a bit more choice so the
next one coming up is to potentially
give your visitors a choice to like
let's see I lost my line there but give
your visitors a choice and have multiple
retailers so you know genius link works
with a lot of different companies and
you have a very good case study by
Armando so can you kind of just explain
what Armando did here just Cliff Notes
version yeah so the gist is we have this
this tool called a choice page the ideas
that you could promote a single product
but list multiple buy buttons and the
music industry this has become kind of a
de-facto for for marketing where though
you can listen to a song you can buy it
in iTunes to listen to it from Apple
music or you know Amazon's music
platform or Spotify etc so most
marketing for music these days happens
with these choice pages with this list
of different buy buttons we've seen the
book industry kind of follow along right
you can buy a book you can read a book
via Kindle you can also listen to it via
you know and audible or other audiobook
platforms but that whole concept of one
product one thing to be able to consume
in multiple places really plays well
with this whole concept of one product
be able to buy it multiple places so
we've we've had this tool for a while
here and it's
slowly been kind of catching on in the
in the product marketing space Armando
is a youtuber that's got a great channel
and he kind of saw this early on and
started to do Amazon buttons and B&H
photo video buttons for each of the
different products he recommended it's
been really interesting just kind of
hearing his story about once he started
doing that I started seeing immediate
results and over the last it's been just
shy of a year he's seen his Commission's
double not only on Amazon but he's also
become a top refer for for B&H which is
really interesting here if your traffic
is approximately the same you know not
only improving Amazon but also starting
to really see Commission's on bean h's
it's kind of the perfect answer so we
were really excited when Armando came to
us and and told us this story Wow yeah
that's pretty awesome because I you were
showing me the choice pages and it
seemed interesting but I wasn't quite
sure like the application or you know
many results so yeah it's money pretty
amazing
I'll link up for armando's case study
there maybe I'll try and talk to him as
well it sounds interesting so one quick
copy out here that I think your your
audience would be interested in knowing
is here now you've really focused down
you know niche niche science niche
websites um it should definitely be
these spit out that you know Armando is
more on the social media side more kind
of on the influencer side where you
don't really quite have the luxury to be
able to put the side by side table
comparisons or to be able to kind of do
more that long-form piece where you know
on a tweet or a youtube comment you
really only have space for a link or so
maybe a short call to action so I think
the I would love to experiment with
choice pages on websites as well but you
know this tool has primarily been more
towards kind of that social media
influence or sign but again if you're
doing niche sites you probably have a
social media play as well so there's
there's definitely some some crossover
there one other thing on might cut you
off one of the things I think is really
important I don't have the perfect
answer of why this worked out we're
still dig diving into we're doing a
bunch of different tasks we've got a
bunch of different clients they're
helping us out with this but I think
what we've seen and what we've kind of
started to unpack from this is just
allowing a shopper to be able to do some
quick research kind of on the fly right
here's here's this prod
we often see that Amazon has the lowest
price or quicker shipping etc but we
also know that this other two or three
retailers are are notable well-known
retailers if you can just click on the
link look at those other retailers and
and understand you know you know it's
out of stock at Target and it's yeah
five dollars cheaper at Walmart okay is
you know is that price difference worth
going to Walmart instead of Amazon etc
so it seems that allowing people to
click multiple affiliate links to do
this purchasing really kind of helps out
with that intent to purchase being much
quicker but also allows you to set that
affiliate cookie in multiple stores
which could be beneficial as well so
anyway you weren't asking I wanted to
throw that out there no that's perfect
like again super interesting cuz I like
I know B and H as well and have ordered
stuff from them for years so yeah I
think when I got my camera most recently
like I was gonna buy from Amazon cuz it
was just it was out of stock so I was
like ah shoot I think I bought it from
B&H or maybe I can't remember exactly
but it wasn't Amazon and that's where I
was like alright I'm gonna get it it'll
be here like tomorrow you know or
whatever and then yeah orders from
somewhere else had to wait a few days
but because you switched from you know
probably some some final review to
convince you to buy that camera that
sends you to Amazon Amazon didn't have
it and you jumped over to be an H the
person that made that referral doesn't
get credit if they had had beyond that
be an H button right there for you to
click they could have earned a
commission as well in theory yep
exactly exactly and yeah just to
emphasize that point again is probably
like the perfect tool for the social
media or youtuber and again I know a lot
of you know affiliate sites niche
website owners they are I mean they have
the keywords right there they can just
create other content that'll go on
YouTube and they work very well together
and help each other out so okay and
let's move on we'll talk about secondary
user access
and you had to know here that that could
be an issue so what's going on with that
and what is secondary user access so
secondary user access is something very
pretty deep in the Amazon associate
central dashboard but the gist is that
you can you can give other Amazon
accounts access into your dashboard and
it works really well for a variety of
reasons but um we have seen
unfortunately that you know Amazon has a
very strong confidentiality statement as
part of the Terms of Service and it
seems that they are really kind of
putting that confidentiality and the
secondary access they're starting to
butt heads so traditionally we've seen
people grant secondary access to tools
so they can go in and pull information
for them so they can build links etc so
they can do due diligence if they're
trying to sell the site or broker the
site for you unfortunately it seems that
this is not as appreciated by Amazon is
it is that once was it used to be that
secondary access was it was really easy
to grant and I have but we found that
there's been an increase in people
getting kicked out of the Associates
Program because they've been sharing
confidential information with with
people who don't have a confidentiality
agreement or or some degree of that so I
guess the lesson here that the best yeah
the best practice here is just be really
careful if you are granting secondary
access to a third party and make sure
that if you are doing it you're only
doing for a specific period of time in
which some tasks or something could be
happen make sure there's some sort of
agreement and then whether that's done
just cleanup you know closeout that that
access yeah it's it's your classic yeah
it's much easier to forget about
something and leave it open but you know
those those diligent business owners
know that you know that following up on
the task and doing the cleanup
afterwards this is a pretty important
piece of having a clean work environment
in the bigger picture got it and yeah I
did this when I've sold sites so you
know someone needs a broker for example
needs to verify the site due diligence
as you mentioned and then they check and
make sure that the reports are authentic
and that sort of thing and I'm pretty
sure I need to double-check now that
we're talking about it
I'm paranoid enough and I was like hey I
don't want them rooting around in my
account so I turn it off immediately but
I'll double check because you know
there's a long time we got people forget
like exactly exactly and it's you know
Amazon's built in some safeguards they
can't go in and play with where the
money is deposited and such but still
it's that information is valuable that's
important so there's there's no need to
to leave him open you know just just be
smarter about that and I think that was
a bit of a wake-up call for the
community but it makes sense yeah I
don't blame Amazon one bit for for
cracking down on that yeah and I think
you know it's important to know like
we're talking about Amazon cracking down
on certain things I mean it's really
it's not like Amazon's trying to be mean
to us specifically it's not at all you
know they're running a business there's
a lot of folks out there they're trying
to manage this whole affiliate sort of
population this collective and folks and
there's some you know bad players out
there or whatever so you know for Amazon
they want to have a good customer
experience that's why we buy from Amazon
we love I know I I love Amazon you love
Amazon right yeah so and that's on the
record so we can
yeah the customer trust is big and I
will let you intro this next one coming
up yeah so customer trust is um you know
we had the conversation during the last
podcast really kind of you know things
things to be wary of things things to
avoid and you know the Amazon operating
agreement their policies page no there's
so much thick documentation thick and in
a good way there's it they lay it out
for the most part pretty cleanly about
what isn't isn't okay and you know it's
really the rules of how to play the
Amazon affiliate game and you had that
audit you know you went you know went
through the experience you know it was
it was it was hard to sometimes kind of
decipher what is and what isn't okay
this is this is gray area yeah I could I
could see it being meaning two different
ways and I think this whole concept of
customer trust is really a good North
Star for navigating that right what what
is right what what helps the customer
feel like they
trust what you're putting in front of
them you know are you are you being
clean in your descriptions are you are
you being authentic are you misleading
are you defying when the when the
customers going to leave the site are
you are you telling them where they're
gonna go etc so just in our
conversations with with Amazon you know
customer trust comes up regularly and
it's I think just a really important
concept to remember that this is again
kind of that North Star that kind of
helps guide what is it isn't okay so yes
you could probably make a case for this
and that and you're gonna lose right
Amazon has their rules they're gonna
follow those rules so no matter how much
you try to convince yourself that what
you're doing is actually gray area legit
because you're rereading the rules in a
certain inflection I think the customer
trust really helps at least me
understand what that that intent is if
there's any gray area to kind of use
that one of the things I thought was
also kind of helpful of that is customer
trust is a great way to kind of review
your calls to action so one of the
things that we we saw that was kind of
interesting is you know playing with
your calls to action as you know can can
definitely mess with your click-through
rate and click-through rate really adds
a lot so you know we had a client that
kind of had it a little bit more of a
aggressive call to action and you know
we kind of looked at that a little bit
and kind of you know talked to the
client and did some research and and
Amazon's kind of came back and gave us
and gave us some feedback but one of the
things that we thought was really
interesting is this whole concept of of
weasel words you're using best or
discount or lowest or sale you know
words that kind of imply or push the the
consumer and not really kind of let them
make their own decision yeah that that
trust really really isn't there so no
hard and fast rules here for the
audience but just use that customer
trust as the North Star what what is the
best for that for the customer try to
avoid you know again incentivizing the
clicks pushing them being shady right yo
you as a customer you want to make that
decision when you make that decision
yeah you're probably gonna see good
results but if you're getting pushed
into something your conversion rates
probably not going to be what it should
be okay
and this I made those mistakes early on
where basically I was using a
superlative that I wasn't sure right
like there was no way that it could
always be accurate and you know going
back to the perfect customer experience
it's like expectations are set when I
before I click the link and then I see
what I expect to see on the other side
and then you know I buy something and I
get that thing so I think if you avoid
again the superlatives and that is like
lowest price or best price or biggest
discount or something like that and I'm
just making those up arbitrarily but I
think if you avoid those sort of things
that may be false then you're probably
in good shape so I think I would
completely agree with you you have to
remember to the amazon's marketplace is
crazy dynamic right what was lowest
price and there you go may not be lowest
price now those those prices are
fluctuation so again when you when you
say yeah the superlatives that may not
always be true you're violating that
customer trust so yeah you're absolutely
right and during the like audit
situation that we mentioned before like
I I thought maybe I had a couple
instances of that left over from way
back in the day and I did so I just did
like a global search all over my site
found the you know two or three and you
know removed them cleaned him up made
them you know more like customer centric
mhm
perfect and okay let's move on to like
the global links and the international
Amazon Associates program so I know I
actually the left money on the table for
a few years just because I wasn't paying
attention there wasn't a solution that I
was aware of I didn't know about genius
link yeah but once I did I started
earning more money so if you if you are
getting enough traffic then it's a good
way to you know make more money from the
existing traffic now Jesse you have some
recommendations on like the amount of
traffic than what that one needs to see
to kind of gauge whether it's going to
be worth
exactly so kind of general rule of thumb
is if you have at least 10% of your
traffic that's international
and ideally international for one of
Amazon's 15 different storefronts right
so I let's take a quick step back right
Amazon is not just amazon.com and was on
is 15 different storefronts around the
world so amazon.com it's just one
amazon.ca amazon.com DMX Amazon Co de UK
etc and each of those storefronts have
each except for Netherlands has its own
affiliate program so again most web
sites most social media you know post
etc have some sort of international
audience you know the Internet is global
so when you don't when you're sending
everyone to amazon.com even if they're
coming from Amazon de I'm sorry from
Germany they may not want to buy at
amazon.com because amazon.de is is
optimized specifically for them or
Amazon I aim for for people in India and
was on Etsy ojp for for the Japanese
population so by paying attention to
that that audience you can take you know
the ten thousand clicks a month that you
get and you can monetize a blush bigger
chunk of that instead of saying all to
amazon.com and really only be able to
monetize or efficiently monetize you
know half or three-quarters that you now
can make sure that each person goes to
the storefront and the product that
you're recommending in that local
storefront and then you can take
advantage of those affiliate programs as
well so taking that step back you know
10% hopefully from one of the countries
that have an Amazon store so if you see
you know five percent of your traffic
from from UK and three percent from
Germany and two percent from France
you're a perfect candidate for for you
know really paying attention to that
kind of long tail of affiliate links the
flip side of that and you know we had a
conversation about this a little bit ago
until you have you know there's a lot of
things to focus on there's a lot of
things you know when you're first
starting out that you really need to pay
attention to this is not one of them you
know you need to have a community make
sure that community that audience that
traffic is is really starting to grow so
while 10% is a good metric the other
side of it is you should probably have
at least a thousand clicks coming from
international as well if you're only
getting tens or hundreds yes you can
start to monetize it but making five
bucks in Germany every month doesn't
really matter right it's yeah when it's
getting to twenty fifty a month that's
when it start
to add up and that's when it's worth
your time but it's just kind of that low
low amount it often isn't you should
spend your time and other things are
gonna help boost that traffic help help
build the site you know help help grow
things this is definitely a mid to
latter site maturity optimization yep
totally agree I won't like repeat what
you said so you always do such a great
job taking my ten minutes of blah blah
blah arena do it really succinct
sentence though if you get enough
traffic go international for the win
again alright moving to the next one
we're talking about getting the right
kind of traffic so I know it's very easy
when you're when you're first starting
out you're just like any traffic's gonna
be great and maybe you build a site that
is not gonna have anyone interested in
spending money so no one's gonna buy
anything so it's very important to have
someone who's like thinking hey I'm I'm
researching a product that I'm probably
gonna buy in the next 24 hours or so and
that means you're probably looking for
you know keywords with the product
mentioned and potentially like I like
the keyword golden ratio and that that's
a concept where you can find like just
low-hanging fruit usually you can rank
these sort of keywords in these posts
really quickly usually within like a
couple days or something like that it's
more complex outside of the scope of
what we're talking about so I'll put a
link in the description but if you look
for I'll give you a format and then
hopefully people will find it helpful
but let's say ballpoint pens and like a
specific user type so like best
ballpoint pen for college students right
so it's someone is looking for something
for a specific application and they kind
of have an idea like what they're
looking for I mean at that point if you
can get someone on your site with that
sort of query like
they're interested in buying something
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