project and I have a friend a live guest
over here Jessie Lakes from genius link
and there's Jessie there and I could put
his his name up if I could figure out
how to do it there's a lot going on
we're going to be struggling with
technology today so we certainly
appreciate your patience technology and
I think we got it straight now so the
reason why we're chatting today is of
course some of the dramatic changes that
came out with the Amazon associate
program and Amazon sent out an email on
Tuesday which I think was the 14th of
April notifying folks that in about a
week the rates are gonna change and I'm
gonna share my screen here hopefully
this works and if people want to get
this spreadsheet that I'm sharing right
now there's a link in the description
and I link to the original links that
Amazon shared with us but I sort of
broke out some of the specific
categories just so it's a little bit
easier to see I don't know if this is
100% accurate but from the data that we
had available at the time this is what
we have so you can kind of see the
percentage drop the before and after and
I've broken out certain areas like
groceries for example that those were at
5% and now they're at 1% this so that's
an 80% drop there so you can get to
those and before we move on I do also
want to plug just some of the stuff that
Jessi has going on as well so there's a
few links in the description some of the
topics that we're gonna be discussing
today quote you know time to leave
Amazon Associates question mark very
important and then Jessi wrote this
guide our discussion today I want to
thank everybody hopping on live because
I know this is you know a dramatic time
dramatic time out there and a lot of
changes a lot of things are going on you
know not only our affiliates impacted
but people like Jesse and his company
over a genius length those are impacted
there's a whole industry around
affiliate marketing whether it's SEO
agencies freelance writers there are
we're companies like genius link there
are plug-in makers there's hundreds and
I have no clue but there's a lot of
people that are impacted and a lot of us
are hit pretty hard now any any quick
thoughts Jesse before we kind of look at
some of the other details lots of
thoughts I don't think any of them are
quick I mean and I think that's
initially kind of the problem is that a
lot of the gut reaction is quick but
there's so many nuances here so I'm glad
we got some time to start to unpack some
of those but yeah no okay a lot of
people impacted so first thing I want to
point out is you know some people are
really upset and you know rightfully so
this kind of came out of nowhere it's a
pretty quick change
times are changing in the world anyway
but it's a very dramatic change and it
could have impact a lot of people their
livelihood their families and all that
stuff so one interesting thing is this
is not the first time the Amazon has
made changes before in fact there's
quite a history and I'm gonna Jesse I'm
gonna turn it over to you while I share
some of the documentation of the
historical changes over time if you just
want to talk generally about that yeah
so most the biggest I think impact
happened a few years ago in April of
2017 and then there was another sizable
impact that the following May but this
this kind of got me on a little bit of a
rant I started digging into it and
started using a tool called them the
archive.org the Wayback Machine and just
started to try to understand what what
is amazon doing with their affiliate
program is it is it going down everyone
knows it's going down but it comes back
up when no one's looking or is it just
going down and down and down so went on
a bit of a binge late last year and just
did a ton of research job look to I
found as much day as I could for the
last decade and found about 50 different
times
I just shy 50 different times that
Amazon has changed their commission
rates in the last decade and charged
those that well oil they're in a big
spreadsheet you cannot find from that
article as well but the gist is that
Amazon continues
you decrease their their commission
rates we found kind of this to this
overall metric that's kind of average
across all categories metric so we I
don't know if you want to show the the
screenshot or not the screenshot that
the graph I think that's relatively near
the top of the article but you can kind
of see that over time the number of
categories creeps up and then jumps way
up and then you can see the the line you
know is kind of slowly dropping there's
some pretty major drops as well over
over the time period and then obviously
most recently but there's kind of two
sides this yes you know it's a bummer
things are dropping but yeah if you're
reading the tea leaves it's it's um
something that was kind of foreseen
Amazon is kind of always constantly
adjusting things tweaking things running
experiments etc and it seems that April
to May time frame is when Amazon does
those things so this is horrible I don't
want to downplay that whatsoever
especially if one of your categories
went from something solid to one or two
or three percent it's a major bummer on
the flip side Amazon Amazon's affiliate
program is it's gonna be twenty four
years old in July it's a very mature
program it's a in general considered to
be one of the highest converting
affiliate programs though the affiliate
commission rates have always been pretty
pretty generous um you know not to I
think they they didn't do this the right
time I think the language could have
been there was a lot of things that
could have done better but it's it's not
surprising that it was done and I don't
think they're done doing it as well but
I do understand why they did it I don't
agree with it but I understand it sure
yeah and that's well well said and again
links are in the description so I do
want to point out people can dig into a
lot of the narrative and see how this
plays out and Jesse thanks for pulling
this data together I didn't realize you
I mean you're a hard worker so I'm not
surprised you did all the research and
stuff but I didn't know it was all there
and you know quick shout out I know a
lot of times when I do these live
streams I chat with people directly in
the chat I call them out I say
what's going on today we have a dear
friend of mine ty eise she's gonna be
moderating in the chat keeping order
over there so shout out to ty ease and
she's gonna help consolidate some of the
questions for us and it will just keep a
little bit more order so hopefully I
won't mess up the technology anymore
number one but number two we'll be able
to answer some of those questions that
people have so thanks a lot to Ty ease
and I think I'm gonna hop over to the
post where you know you tie to a time to
leave Amazon Associates which I
obviously stole for this live stream
title yeah that's a pretty good one why
do copy writing when someone else did it
for you
so the overall I mean a couple things to
point out Jesse and I are both
entrenched in the Amazon associate
program so I would say number one we're
not associated with Amazon at all so
we're not speaking for Amazon we don't
just legally we don't know anything
we're just a couple guys here for your
entertainment so hopefully it's a little
bit entertaining and the other thing is
yeah we're sort of entrenched so keep
that in mind we were trying to bring you
good information but at the same time
like this is part of our livelihood so
just be aware of that I think it's fair
for us to say and just he's nodding
people can't see him right now but he's
not and he agrees with me with the two
things so number one I just want to like
get right to the point
like should people like think hey I need
to leave Amazon I need to do something
else and if not why is Amazon still a
good option right now Jesse yeah so
there's two different sites right
there's your personal shopping buying
behavior and then there's your your work
behavior you're used to the Amazon
affiliate program and while we're
talking about affiliate stuff and that
definitely deserves that the bulk of it
you know you as a consumer you as a
shopper also needs to be considered to
some degree I know that our family we
have Amazon boxes on our front porch on
a pretty regular basis I don't
absolutely love the company but we have
a Prime membership and it makes shopping
really easy my wife doesn't awesome
and show that and she has my full
approval to to continue to shop at
Amazon but with that in mind putting on
your affiliate hat knowing that there is
over a hundred you know 100 million
Prime members in the US alone that
Amazon has I think it's 38 or 39 percent
u.s. ecommerce market share according to
eMarketer and the next biggest
competitor is Walmart with five percent
Amazon still is typically the dominant
shopping giant for for at least us here
in the US so there's two sides the
stories is an affiliate yes you can
abandon Amazon's affiliate program and
you have every right to do so this is
this was pretty crappy but at the end of
the day some percentage of your audience
will buy from the store you recommend
but that other percentage are gonna buy
the product where they would prefer to
buy it and that's kind of the hard
nuance here is just because Amazon's
dropping the affiliate rates doesn't
mean you should abandon especially if
your demographic has a higher percentage
of Prime membership or that Amazon
serves your your audience base
incredibly well yes you may be able to
get you know two or three acts more
Commission rate from another store but
if no one buys in that store your
conversion rate is going to be so low
that it doesn't matter your net revenue
likely will not change so when you put
the question on kind of either/or it's a
it's an impossible question days to
answer it's really hard to say I'm gonna
be a hundred percent Amazon or maybe 100
percent Walmart I'm just at Best Buy or
hundred percent you know Acme store Co
that has an awesome affiliate program
that pays me fifty percent commission
because the end of day it's it's really
what your shoppers where your shoppers
gonna buy your job as an affiliate
marker is to recommend the product and a
lot of people do a great job with that
but that last mile part is a real
challenge where are they gonna buy and
traditionally Amazon was was a win right
a good easy to use affiliate program
that had great conversion rates and
reasonable rates for Commission rates
with those Commission rates dropping
conversion rates probably aren't gonna
change so it's less revenue for us if we
stick with them but again is there more
revenue elsewhere is the buying behavior
there so again
yeah the either/or question is a really
really hard one and I just want to
highlight something again from from the
post that people can read a little bit
more deeply if they follow the link in
the description amazon has a 38 percent
market share and walmart is number two
is that right Jesse yes with like four
point something okay I was up to five I
think so seven and a half times more
market share if I'm doing the math right
so s e-commerce emarketer if you google
yeah Amazon market share u.s. emarketer
is the one that did that survey and I
think it's relatively new and it's
emarketer is a pretty well-known name in
the industry for for having good metrics
but that's another one going off of okay
very good so that's a huge difference so
even if another company is paying a much
larger percentage the math may still
work out for Amazon obviously Amazon's a
big company they have a little weight
they can throw around so they they have
leverage there's not a ton that we can
do so I know that we can do as
affiliates but again as a shopper if you
don't agree with Amazon stop buying on
Amazon sorry
no and that's it that's a great point I
was going to say because the the
shipping times have increased during
this you know these last few weeks
sometimes it's it is better to order
from somewhere else if it's going to
take longer or you know you can get a
you know product of American suburbs so
Walmart is a place that I go to anyway
it's familiar I I know we're all there
it's a mile away and they do curbside
pickup for us target has a great
affiliate program yep yeah so both of
those those are two you know completely
viable options to add to the mix
potentially and you know we're gonna get
into some of the details on that but I
want to talk just a little bit about
like other options that people may have
so I'm gonna jump in and say display ads
are another option for people so there's
a lot I mean there's Adsense or Zee zoic
there's a lot of other companies out
there and if you have content on your
site that is prior
merely review based maybe you're still
going to be better off directing people
to an affiliate program because you're
reviewing products it's all about buyer
intent it's all about like the visitor
on their site and how you solve the
problem for them by helping them
hopefully make a decision sometimes you
may have a lot of informational content
how-to content and in that case what's a
no-brainer there's probably a good
chance you're gonna make more money with
display ads because you know the way the
world works now I know there's a whole
other argument around display ads ad
revenue ad spend right now is declining
things are shifting but you have options
you definitely have options so those are
a couple ideas just without even adding
other affiliate programs but Jesse do
you have any I mean you're you've been
in the affiliate game for how long I
started in 99 2000 yeah I hated I hated
affiliate marketing initially but that's
another story
it was the only option after the the.com
crash so I guess maybe was 2001 yeah is
when I dope into him so yeah banner ads
were no longer an option so my first
websites I had to do affiliate marketing
in it I was horrible at it didn't
convert and I hated affiliate marketing
but yeah again that's another story for
another day it's been a wild ride it's
been an absolutely wild ride okay in but
just a if I can back up just a sorry
interrupt you jack
as far as different business models go
as well you have an expertise if you're
you know writing content you know can
can you sell an informational product
can you teach a class can you you know
not only the the ads on your site but
does a youtube channel doing reviews you
know as video are those options as well
can you can you diversify your revenue
channels can you actually take your
lessons from selling a specific category
of products and enter that into a
product yourself granted you know supply
chain is a bit of a mess at the moment
but if you are the absolute expert at
widgets because you've been an affiliate
for widgets for last five years you know
how a better widget should be built FBA
when it's working is an incredible
opportunity as well so yeah I feel yet I
feel like is is
a gateway drug once once you get it
affiliate you have so many other
opportunities that that are not too far
away that you can take a lot of the
skillsets that you've had and it kind of
pivot not saying that you should just
just want to throw that out there as you
were saying earlier and I think you're
right people develop skills in so many
different areas whether it's like web
design copywriting content marketing in
general I personally branched out to
video which eventually you know I got a
what did they say a face for radio but
if you put enough lighting on on
somebody they look alright you know I
probably should dress better but you
know you can't win them all so the point
is you develop other skills I have a
podcast as well there's a lot of skills
that you end up just picking up and just
you started a software company you ended
up working for some pretty cool places
so let's talk about the potential of
adding or working with other affiliate
marketplaces or companies that I know
Commission Junction is a big one
ShareASale is another one some companies
have their own in-house affiliate
program and you cut out the middleman
whatever it may be and you could work
with them directly so just any broad
broad thoughts on that yeah it's theirs
affiliate marketing is is everywhere for
for better or worse a lot of people and
especially the audience here you know
and know Amazon well which is why
they're here because we're talking about
the massive black eye they gave us but
so many different retailers and brands
have their own affiliate program so you
know it kind of goes back to what what
is your specific industry where's your
specific niche what are you promoting um
if you're pushing a lot of running shoes
well Nike has its own affiliate program
you don't have to Nike is a bad example
because of the Amazon thing but you know
New Balance has its own affiliate
program you just has its own affiliate
program you know so each of those use
different affiliate networks so kind of
you know back to what you were saying CJ
versus a win versus impact versus
Rakuten etc yeah I see that kind of as a
by-product but I think really kind of
narrowing in where does your audience by
or where would your audience like to buy
right again it's wearing shoes well
they're probably going to trust Amazon
you know Foot Locker is pretty well
known at least here in the US
and they probably will need to buy
directly from the store because the
brand name is huge so right there
there's three great opportunities to
promote your product two of them outside
of Amazon
we're to sell that product via affiliate
very good and for the people that are
just hopping in because I know people
hop on and they hop hop off Jesse and I
are talking about the Commission rate
changes that are gonna go in place April
21st
Jesse's from genius link and we are
gonna hit some questions towards the
tail end and maybe we'll just tell
stories to each other also Jesse if we
don't get any questions I think we may
have a few we may have questions and
just quick note everyone I got to plug
our stuff so number one if you do want
to see some of the work that jesse has
been doing and while just blogging and
information there are two links in the
description highlighting a lot of the
details we're talking about today one of
them is choice page pages which we're
going to show a demo in a few minutes
fingers crossed that I can make the
technology work the other is I put
together a spreadsheet very simple
spreadsheet just showing you the before
and the after of these Commission rate
changes based on the information that we
have right now today so there's a link
in the description you'll have to enter
your name and email you join my email
list and i'll send you a bunch of cool
stuff you can unsubscribe after words if
you don't want to but i'm gonna be
talking about this sort of thing often
and just in general Jesse can you just
give like the one sentence summary of
genius link just so people know you know
what you guys do
yeah so for the audience here a lot of
Amazon affiliate users we help make your
links work globally we are a premium
version of the one link tool one link
was was kind of modeled after the
technology we built out so making sure
you're not leaving money on the table
internationally cool and it works for
some other programs as well if you would
just want to mention that I know we we
have a lot of Amazon affiliate folks
here but I mean it's a pretty robust
product
to be exactly started with iTunes that
was that was my background Amazon was
next we also helped Microsoft affiliate
eco ecosystem but in the last few years
we've really opened it up to be a lot
more affiliate program agnostic so you
can use our tools with with any any link
in the affiliate link we support a good
number of the most popular affiliate
programs we also support big link and
Skimlinks our sovereign Commerce's are
known now and Skimlinks so you can drop
in one of you know tens of thousands of
different links to different retailers
and we can make sure that was our
affiliated I think the real value is
what we're going to be getting to here
in a few is instead of having to answer
that either/or question what about
having multiple buy buttons for a single
product recommendation I think that's
really one of the technologies were most
excited about and we're really starting
to shine and what seems to be most
applicable to today's unfortunate
situation is how to how to take those
lemons and make some lemonade
very cool so yeah we're gonna hop to the
choice pages in just a second so Jesse
before I start sharing your screen over
there if you want to pull up what you
need to pull up and then I'm just gonna
hide all the other stuff you mean yeah
whatever you got to do whatever you and
I will mention so like I talked about
you could sign up for the email list for
a niche site project I talked a lot
about affiliate marketing we'll just
generalize it at this point and if you
have not hit the thumbs up they'll like
button it will help other people find
this video they tell me that everyone
says like the video comment so if you're
watching this later leave a comment let
let us know we can subscribe you should
subscribe
yes subscribe to the channel hit the
thumbs up I do live streams like every
week I'm doing another one tomorrow I'm
going to talk about some alternatives
ideas things that you can do potentially
because of this Amazon affiliate
Commission rate change so just subscribe
like the video I appreciate it there's
there's a lot of people here and I
appreciate everyone hopping on with us
live today so I just you can share your
screen with every whenever you want
we're gonna go over choice pages a
little bit
and I will hopefully be able to send it
to Jesse in a second and then we're
gonna answer questions so thanks for all
of the people asking questions all the
activity in the chat and thanks to my
friend tyese who I pinged her earlier
and I was like hey we got an emergency
situation over here do you think you can
moderate the chat for me because I'm
probably gonna forget some stuff on a
live stream which I did no one could
hear Jesse at the beginning so thank you
to tie yees and she is feeding me some
questions so I'm gonna send it over to
Jesse now and he's gonna show us choice
pages which is kinda it's gonna be an
option for us moving forward so let's
get the lowdown here sure we good we
live yep you're good to go
awesome so yeah we call these these
choice pages and the gist is that
they're their landing pages the landing
page is where you can promote just a
single product and have multiple
different retailers so you'll notice
that Amazon is a pretty common common
option here so the idea again is that
you don't have to decide is it Amazon or
Walmart Amazon or Best Buy it can be it
can be multiple ones choice pages were
originally built out for the music
industry where music streaming music -
is bit of a commodity we found that our
audience specifically in the book space
was also really appreciated but then we
had a handful of um different creators
that were starting to use choice pages
to promote camera gear and uh had some
some huge successes uh Armando fury from
mondo bytes is kind of the poster child
here because his success was just such a
run away but he more than doubled his
Amazon commissions and became a top
affiliate for B&H photo video another
major retailer in the video area just by
starting to use toys patients that have
direct Amazon links so let me actually
just kind of walk you through what that
looks like so again here what a choice
page looks like all said and done is
again simple simple landing page with
your multiple buttons some sort of art
description call-to-action you have your
disclosures your FTC disclosure your
amazon disclosure is here etc so it's
really kind of packaged and built
specifically for
affiliate link so the way we build it
again is coming from the genius link
dashboard we jump in you can just do a
new choice page you can do some
organization pieces but the gist is
you're probably starting with it with an
Amazon link so here's an Amazon Amazon
product I'm using right now if you can
hear me okay then I'm recommending it we
just go ahead and grab that link jump
over to the dashboard we'll just go
ahead and drop that in and so what we're
doing is we're parsing this link real
quick we figured out the what the
product art is we we grab the title
we've got a call to action there we'll
mess that in a minute but we also just
released this new feature called
suggestions and the idea is that again
Amazon is one retailer Amazon is loading
their Commission's we can do better so
let's just see these suggestions real
quick so B&H the the retailer I
mentioned before is a great place to buy
so I want that one included and then
Walmart I also have my affiliate
tracking information saved for so I can
drop that in if you have your sovereign
commerce or your skim links API added in
to genius link it's likely you'll have
affiliate options for these ones as well
but we've got those let me go ahead back
one of the calls to action I think is
really helpful especially this this time
is a find the best price below we have
two different themes I think the product
looks best on the white we got a couple
different options so now we're just
gonna go ahead and save and now we have
this this link so this link now if we
drop that into a new browser and we have
our Amazon button for those that are
gonna buy on Amazon we've got B&H and
Walmart and we can find the best price
below so B&H looks like it is being ages
a little slow at the moment but got a
bunch of different options and it's
perfect okay and then we can jump back
we can we can check Walmart price and we
can look at Amazon price so by looking
and doing that price comparison right
there kind of on the fly I just actually
set affiliate cookies in three different
retailers I also know that Amazon is the
best price and so I'm gonna go ahead and
move forward with Amazon so my
conversion rate
we found the conversion rate from using
choice pages actually higher because of
this action right here people clicking
doing that price comparison looking for
the best price it it kind of adds what
we call micro conversion so people get
more and more incentivized to actually
go through and finish that buying
process because they've already done
their price comparison they're confident
that Amazon is the best place to buy
they can move forward but in this may
have been B&H or may have been Walmart
Amazon does not always have the lowest
price some people again don't shop at
Amazon my wife has Prime so so we shop
at Amazon regularly but if I don't have
Prime then it may be worth a little bit
more to to buy from another place etc
yes that was my quick demo what else can
I show you cool answer for you that
looks that looks pretty amazing overall
and I was gonna say just in general I'm
trying to imagine the use case right so
someone would so the use case is
basically someone would click on the
link and then they land on the choice
page where an image is shown and then
you see options whether it's a B and H
which funny story the camera right here
that I purchased I ended up buying from
B&H it's hard to point behind you in
Reverse so I bought it from B&H because
availability in the price and I actually
love being H have you ever been there
Jesse the New York store it's crazy all
the conveyor belts so cool pH has there
they're just good people too it's really
fun to work with them in the shop in
their affiliate program etc anyway I
interrupted you yeah no no that I mean
that I was just you know total tangent
yeah it's a good shop and I know there
are some other just big retailers like
that so and you mentioned all the ones
that genius link will work with for
choice pages and it seems like a good
use case so quick I'll just repeat it
again so everyone kind of follows along
and just you could correct me if I'm
wrong but there's a link it's it's the
link that goes to the choice page
someone then can click on affiliate
links from various different affiliate
programs right exactly promoting one
product let the last mile kind of be
tackled by the user the user can decide
where to go you don't have to decide
where to go
your compliance stuff is there to keep
you out of trouble with the Amazon yeah
we're trying to make it as easy as
possible to monetize Amazon as well as
the others booster Amazon commercial
conversion rates which hopefully helps
make up for this drop but also yeah
become diversify your revenue by using
these other programs okay and to be
devil's advocate just a bit of course
from my perspective you know more clicks
usually is a bad thing right so someone
has to click over to the choice page and
then they have to make another click now
I know you mentioned some of those the
the micro conversions it's like the yes
ladder where you keep going a little bit
further and once you've made it to the
choice page you may as well and look and
see what's the best price but do you do
you have any specific cases where you're
like this person is actually doing
better because there is a choice page so
we have been doing some testing we were
getting close to statistical
significance and the testing but before
we really come out and publish numbers
we want to make sure that they're
they're rock solid but there are some
instances where it's it's not converting
higher it converts about the same so in
some places it's a slam dunk in some
places it's it's not as much I haven't
put my finger on specifically what those
are and if it's the call to action if
the number of buttons if it's the
industry etc so I'll be completely
honest there is still a lot of
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