Amazon Removes Third-Party Vendors From Its Affiliate Program

Joeychgo

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Starting at the beginning of this month, affiliate networks such as Skimlinks, Sovrn (which acquired VigLink) and CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction) can no longer send traffic to Amazon and get a cut of transactions, according to sources at many affiliate networks and publishers.

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Jim McClain

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I was beginning to think that $1200.00 stimulus check was just going to be a nice bonus for me (I'm retired and get a military pension and Social Security, so that income isn't impacted by what's going on with the huge loss of jobs). But now it will have to help cover the losses I will have due to this action by Amazon.

Dumping Sovrn isn't a viable option because I still get commissions from other merchants, but Amazon represented about a third of that income. And I am aware that Sovrn has temporarily stopped providing commissions for merchants like Walmart and others during this virus crisis, so my income from Sovrn will likely drop precipitously in the coming months (commissions earned aren't paid for 90 days, so the drop will happen beginning July). Maybe if I can become an Amazon Associate I can mitigate the financial damage. That, however, means the job of webmaster just got harder - I won't have a tool like Sovrn to do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to creating and affiliating links to Amazon.
 

tropicalwebhost

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If you're on Xenforo you can use the Amazon/eBay URL parser by Snog. You'll have to sign up with Amazon Affiliates and the Ebay Partner Network yourself, but that way you get all of your earnings rather than giving a cut to Skimlinks and Viglink!
 

TheComputerGuy

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If you're on Xenforo you can use the Amazon/eBay URL parser by Snog. You'll have to sign up with Amazon Affiliates and the Ebay Partner Network yourself, but that way you get all of your earnings rather than giving a cut to Skimlinks and Viglink!
This has made the biggest impact for me as a forum owner.
 
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Joeychgo

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If you're on Xenforo you can use the Amazon/eBay URL parser by Snog. You'll have to sign up with Amazon Affiliates and the Ebay Partner Network yourself, but that way you get all of your earnings rather than giving a cut to Skimlinks and Viglink!

doesnt seem to be a working version for xf 1.5
 

Chris

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doesnt seem to be a working version for xf 1.5

These seemed to work for 1.5.x - however had some issues testing with things on 2.1
 

Kevin

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doesnt seem to be a working version for xf 1.5
The XF2 version was based on this XF1 release...
 

overcast

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I wonder what could be the reason behind that. Maybe they no longer needs any affiliate at all.
 

LeadCrow

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affiliate networks such as Skimlinks, Sovrn (which acquired VigLink) and CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction) can no longer send traffic to Amazon and get a cut of transactions
Isnt that actually a positive? While some of these networks enabled higher earnings for the webmasters least capable of negotiating higher cuts and lower fees through volume, surely any that are already seeing succesful amazon purchases would earn more per sale and without feeding their analytics into those middlemen services in favour of a direct relationship with amazon ?

I wonder what could be the reason behind that. Maybe they no longer needs any affiliate at all.
My reading is that affiliate services are growing into large data brokers amazon fears to enable much longer. Making the affiliation more direct between amazon and webmasters would ensure data flows freely to amazon instead of passing through middlemen for amazon to be unable to access.
'Selling data' doesnt occur the way people imagine - its the ability to hoard your audience's behavioural data close then sell the ability to target a part of that audience. Amazon cutting loose data brokers might indicate they're planning to take on google more agressively.
 

dvsDave

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These seemed to work for 1.5.x - however had some issues testing with things on 2.1
He has 2.1 versions of each here:
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/amazon-parser-all.6242/

Been using his Amazon parser for years. I get anywhere from $75 to $300 per month in Amazon affiliate money. One month it was like $800 and I looked at the report and someone bought $27000 worth of shop equipment that I got affiliate credit for!
 

shibby2

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This sucks! I just noticed it last night when I checked my Viglink (Sovrn) account and saw Amazon completely gone. I own vBulletin forums and have been making a lot from Amazon (through Viglink) the last couple months. It was all from forum member-posted links. My income was just cut in half basically. :(

I do have an Amazon Associates account, but never really did anything with it. I never wanted to run the ads on my forums. Can I still make money from Amazon through links that my members post on the forum? Is there a way to monetize all those links now? Any help would be great, I really looked forward to that income during these times, and now it's gone. :(
 

dvsDave

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This sucks! I just noticed it last night when I checked my Viglink (Sovrn) account and saw Amazon completely gone. I own vBulletin forums and have been making a lot from Amazon (through Viglink) the last couple months. It was all from forum member-posted links. My income was just cut in half basically. :(

I do have an Amazon Associates account, but never really did anything with it. I never wanted to run the ads on my forums. Can I still make money from Amazon through links that my members post on the forum? Is there a way to monetize all those links now? Any help would be great, I really looked forward to that income during these times, and now it's gone. :(
What version of vB you running?
 

overcast

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My reading is that affiliate services are growing into large data brokers amazon fears to enable much longer. Making the affiliation more direct between amazon and webmasters would ensure data flows freely to amazon instead of passing through middlemen for amazon to be unable to access.
Makes sense. Brokerage model under affiliate is kind of hurting webmasters too.
 
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