10 Best Amazon Affiliate Program Alternatives

Amazon Associates makes up over 2 million active publishers which places it at the top of the world's largest e-commerce affiliate programs. This results from the fact that e-commerce has been obtaining momentum for a number of years. More and more people have started to shop online and use the reduced prices and two-day distribution that Amazon offers. The platform has a strong reputation and two decades of experience, so consumers depend on it and favor it. However, the following email notification on April 14th deprecated all of Amazon's associates when they were introduced to forthcoming adjustments to the terms of the affiliate program.

The news about reducing Amazon Associates compensation rates almost to 50%  increased the number of associates who started to search for alternative affiliate programs. Here we would like to provide you with comprehensive suggestions on exactly how to respond to this case together with over 19 of the best alternatives to Amazon Associates. We came up with a list of the top-earning alternates as we highly believe in the importance of being aware of all available possibilities for the affiliates as well as monetizing their web pages via other networks.

Amazon Payoff Rate Modifications

First, let's have a look at the actual changes that happened from the 21st of April. Amazon reduced significantly its payments on many niches such as:

The biggest declines have been in home, furniture, garden, pets and also kitchen products which commission rates accounted for 8% before the term changes and were considered to be  the most profitable niches for thousands of associates.

Amazon did something comparable back in March 2017 when they stopped their performance-based payment. This is when they paid leading affiliates 10% on everything that their website traffic acquired, if they overcame a certain variety of orders in the month. They additionally got rid of the high payment rates for electronics, slashing them down to just 3%. These changes back in 2017 triggered people to relocate their focus on products for home renovation, outdoors and pets as they could easily make an 8% payment on every product marketed. However, all the current modifications have made it impossible to get such high commission rates and as a consequence earnings opportunities have decreased heavily.

Yet that's not the full list of the changes, there are some more crucial amendments that worth to note:

• Connecting with publishers straight while extracting offers from associate networks (Skimlinks or Sovrn);
• Cutting a number of affiliate programs (BuzzFeed) which led to some advertisers suspending offers of their own accord as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Now let's move to Amazon Affiliate Program alternatives.

1. eBay Partner Network

According to the Statista analysis, eBay is known as the second leading online marketplace in the US after Amazon. That is a giant marketplace, which active buyers account for more than 180 million and its daily transactions reach around 2 billion. eBay is a strong brand which has already gained trust around the world in 25 years of operation.The network is open to beginners which makes it  easily accessible. Moreover, any membership fees are needed for premium services. Below we listed those niches which are considered to be the most profitable in the platform with their commission rates: 

 Features:

• Pay-out: the minimum payment threshold (10 units of local currency) is very low in comparison to other affiliate networks. As an example you can consider Amazon which has a 100-unit threshold.
• Provision: selling on eBay could be a good alternative to Amazon that you are looking for. There are a lot of experienced affiliates like Alexander Polish and ZIK Analytics who are sharing tips on how to make on average $11 000-$30 000 per month on eBay.

There is a high chance of a good profit even without inventory investment using eBay tools as dropshipping. According to the Ebay users, it is quite fast and easy to start earning income via the platform as it is easy to create an auction and cash in within a week. Another advantage is that it doesn’t cost much to set up shop and begin selling items in the network platform.

2. Walmart Affiliate Program

Walmart is a chain of departmental stores that offer everything you need, ranging from grocery items to lifestyle stuff. Currently, Walmart allows third-party sellers in 35+ product categories to offer their products on its Marketplace. Walmart’s affiliate program is the one that proposes greater benefits to its members. Especially keeping in mind the last news CNN published that Walmart unveiled a subscription service that will go toe-to-toe with Amazon Prime.

The $98-a-year Walmart+ membership plan includes free shipping on items $35 and over, including same-day deliveries on certain items from stores, such as groceries. In addition to that it has various toppings which can be very beneficial to its members.  The most important point is that you can earn as much as you want and the amount directly depends only on your effort and on how much people make purchases from Walmart.

Features:

• Pay-out: monthly pay-outs through PayPal or bank transfer. Below you can find the average commission rates categorized by sector.
• Provision: Three-day cookie lifetime on any purchase.

When the question comes to how much money you can make or if you can make $1 000 a month benchmark with Amazon Associates  the short answer is ‘yes, you can’. You can achieve such a threshold with the Walmart affiliate program. However, keep in mind that If you want to make $1 000 a month with any affiliate program that has low commission rates, then you need to have a website with a lot of traffic. Preferably, you should focus on products that are more expensive and fall into the 4% commission rate category.

For example, below you can track the results from the active promotion campaign of one of the Walmart Affiliates’ products. 

The product falls into the beauty category with 4% commission with the executive price  $105. You do not need to do complicated math to calculate that 4% of $105 = $4.2.  In order to earn $1 000 a month on this specific product, 238 people would have to buy it. With a 5% conversation rate, you would need around 4 800 people to read your product review each month. As it is seen from the table above the ad has reached almost 17K clicks which is the actual number of how many people actually read your ad. Thus, the aim has been reached within a month and it is quite possible to get paid $1 000  in a month.

3. Target Affiliate Program

Target affiliate program is highly distinguished by the point that it has a performance-based commission model. It means that marketer reward will depend on the number of sold items. The targeted audience is based in the United States. Below you can find detailed range of commission in regards to the niche (keep in mind that the affiliate program is most profitable for home goods and outdoor living products marketing):

Features:

• Pay-out: competitive commissions similar to Amazon: 1% to 8% through PayPal.
• Provision: Seven-day cookie lifetime on any purchase, not just the first one. Affiliate tools, over 150 options of banners, widgets.

4. CJ Affiliate

CJ (Commission Junction) Affiliate is placed among the world's leading affiliate networks with over twenty years of experience. It features over $1.8 billion worth of yearly publisher commissions and also 4.8 million yearly collaborations. Publishers can enroll in cost-free, but they are required to have an active site with a valid domain as well as have the basics of JavaScript or HTML to insert the CJ code into their systems.

Features:

• Pay-out: the min threshold is $50 minimum. The average payment rate is 7%. Payments can be settled via direct deposit, cheque, or online cash transfer via Payoneer.
• Provision: The considerable set of devices consists of collage, grid, slide show, deep hyperlink generator, as well as the automation tool (API).

You can find here a detailed article from Ravi who is a new joiner to CJ affiliate program. He says:

"...I am earning 250$ per month from CJ Affiliate on an average. I have not joined most of the affiliate partners and still, my main source of affiliate income is GoDaddy and NameCheap."  

$250 is quite good profit considering the minimum effort made to earn.

There is another review from Amy Copadys and this is what she is saying about this affiliate network:

"While joining the CJ Affiliate network can be a bit of a challenge, it’s ultimately worthwhile for affiliate marketers. The features that this program includes, as well as the incredible amount of top advertisers involved, give publishers ample reason to consider this network. Like any affiliate network, CJ Affiliate also has its faults. But that certainly doesn’t make it a scam. When used correctly, CJ Affiliate can bring you better conversions and higher earnings, all while giving you access to some of the biggest names in advertising".

5. ShareASale

ShareASale is a CPA associate network incorporated in the US with over 3 900 sellers and also 700 000 associates. Just like CJ Affiliate, ShareASale offers a variety of physical and digital items in a set of niches. Compensation rates differ for each marketer.

Features:

• Pay-out: The minimal threshold for payment is $50. Payments are made through direct deposit to an affiliate's bank account or by means of check (PayPal is not available).
• Provision: Real-time tracking. Tools consist of text web links, banners, customized web links, deals, promo codes, information feed and the Make-A-Page tool.

Above you can find earning reports of Jitendra Vaswani who made $1 400 in a month. He has shared his experience in the post describing all the pros and cons of ShareASale.

Founded in 2000, ShareASale is a famous affiliate marketing network based in Chicago, Illinois. ShareASale pays commissions to affiliates based on sales. As an affiliate marketer, you can choose from more than 4 500 programs that allow you to earn these commissions.

In addition to the network of affiliates, WordPress themes also operate a network of merchants. Shareasale is one of the trustworthy and reliable resources for affiliate marketers like me.

6. Skimlinks

Skimlinks is a leading web content monetization network with one decade of experience. Skimlinks provides accessibility to 48 500 advertisers and 50 affiliate networks as much as the number of active affiliates account for over 60 000. The network is in close collaboration with Conde Nast, Hearst, Yahoo!, Huffington Post, Trinity Mirror, as well as MailOnline. Another feature to point out is that Skimlinks prides itself on offering unique payment prices that are more than those of various other networks or direct partnerships.

Features:

• Pay-out: The payment limit is $65/€55/₤50 and can be sent out no earlier than 90 days after the initial sale. Settlement methods include direct deposit to your bank account or PayPal (depending upon your country of residence). A 25% fee is deducted from each affiliate's earnings.
• Provision: Associate tools include the rate comparison app, shopping gallery, Chrome Extension Toolbar, and a lot more.

Skimlinks is an affiliate network that is in use to automate the affiliate marketing process. It is much easier to explain with example, if you’re a blogger writing about your favorite book and you provide a link to a bookstore selling that book, Skimlinks helps you change your ordinary link into an affiliate link.

There are many bloggers who review you can check in order to understand how and how much you can earn with Skimlink. Here is the blog with the detailed review of the above mentioned. That is what affiliate users are saying about Skimlink:

"My first month with Skimlinks, I made $126.73—in ADDITION to the affiliate earnings my blog was already making. In about 16 months, I totaled more than $8,000 in Skimlinks payouts. And I didn’t have to do THING. In my most successful month, I earned nearly $2 000 from Skimlinks (I had about 100 000 monthly pageviews at that point)."

It doesn’t sound bad at all, especially keeping in mind the ease of the process to join this affiliate network. Although, it is worth to mention that the network also has some cons such as slow payments. First payments can take up to 92 days after the transaction is executed while seeing money in your bank account. Skimlinks takes 25% of your commissions. The last but not the least important point from the users review we noted is that the support group can be very slow to respond.

7. VigLink

VigLink distinguishes among other affiliate networks. VigLink automatically converts all your regular links into affiliate links by simply adding a line of JavaScript codes on your blogs. Thus, when actual start earnings occur there is no need to sign up for an individual affiliate account on each network. There are approximately 70 000 advertisers with highly known names such as eBay, Nike, Amazon, Target, Benefit, NordStrom, Uniqlo, TripAdvisor, and Walmart. Affiliate commissions vary for each program.

Features: 

• Pay-out: multiple payment methods, including PayPal.
• Provision: automatic monetization, progressive affiliate tools, including API and WordPress plugin.

There is an article on how to make $653 from VigLink in just 15k monthly traffic. VigLink is another alternative for SkimLink and works the same way. The major benefit is that all your affiliate network memberships are consolidated in one place, with a threshold of $25. So instead of having money sitting in various affiliate networks, waiting to reach payout threshold, all your commissions are pooled together and you'll get paid more frequently.

Some of the cons to mention is that the network makes it difficult to find merchants who fit your niche. The only way to find a merchant is to type their exact website address into their search box. Which means you have to know which merchant you want in the first place, and may miss out on products you haven't thought of. The 25% from your commissions is the cost of the use of VigLink functions.  

8. Awin

Awin is an additional major associate network, representing 16 500 advertisers throughout more than 70 niches and over 230 000 active publishers. The network is open to publishers, media associates, bloggers, vloggers, owners of social networks pages, as well as anyone who wishes to share content with an on-line target audience.

Features:

• Pay-out: The network's threshold for payouts is $20. Payment processing takes 30 to 45 days after the sale.
• Provision: The network's in-house devices include creatives, link contractor, web browser expansion, as well as WordPress plugin. Real-time data.

Based on an independent survey from Trustpilot  more than half (55%) of the active affiliates consider Awin affiliate network as an excellent platform, while 24% threshold was reached by those who had bad experience with a network.

Even though, Awin is still one of the best affiliate networks out there and has been in the game for a while. Working with them is a good move as the network comes with a range of benefits such as ease and free of usage and with great plug-in tools which are gold benchmarks for most of the rest affiliate networks. The Convert-A-Link plug-in is arguably their best tool. However, it isn’t the only one. The marketplace has a ‘create-a-feed’ tool that provides you with data on various advertisers, and what they are offering, which is very useful when you sign up there. Regarding the sign-up! Probably, that is the greatest con the network has, as it is Signing up is a hassle process. There are only 4 steps to the signing up process. You won’t be able to take part in their programs if your website doesn’t have a considerable audience.

All in all, Awin is one of the best affiliate networks out there. This is why they have a large network of advertisers to work with.

9. Clickbank

ClickBank is a well-known online retailer which has an in-house affiliate program built in its system. Daily sales generation can reach 30 000 transactions in more than 200 countries while the number of publishers is around 100 000. Commission rates start varying from 10% and can reach 70% and even higher.

Features:

• Pay-out: payment threshold is $10 and five different purchases. Payments are executed through bank checks, direct deposits, wire transfer and Payoneer.
• Provision: 60-day cookie lifetime.

There are a lot of step-by-step tutorial guides in the internet space  about how to make money with Clickbank as Stefan James uploaded to his Youtube channel. Below you can find his daily sales snapshot. The average daily earnings is accounted for $250.

Considering how popular the network is there is high competition among the affiliates.  It is really hard to tell what does well without investing traffic which leads to high costs associated with the e-commerce platform.

Otherwise, the network has highly paid offers (75% commission is common). Most importantly there is no limit in location and you can sell in most countries. ClickBank is a great, simple place to start replacing things such as Adsense or Amazon revenue for real sales. It tends to generate much more revenue if you manage to make it work.

10. Rakuten Advertising

Rakuten online marketing, formerly called LinkShare, is a prize-winning associate advertising network and part of the Rakuten Team, which represents over 70 companies and also 1.4 billion participants around the world. Rakuten supplies its 150 000 associates with a partnership with worldwide recognized  brand names such as June Jacobs, ECCO, Sixt, Jet Blue Vacations, DialogTech and Sephora. The partner companies account for over 1 000 sellers in the network. Rakuten, referred to as “Amazon of Japan,” is a B2B2C platform known as Rakuten Ichiba. It is the largest eCommerce marketplace in Japan, offering eCommerce, fin-tech, digital content, and communication services to over a billion active users. It also helps 44,000 sellers to sell on Rakuten across 30 countries and regions across the globe.

Features:

• Pay-out: Settlements offered in 25 various currencies. Payment process may extend over two months and transfer can be settled only through direct deposit or check.
• Provision: a broad set of marketing tools, including API for offer personalization. Educational support through webinars, video tutorials, and documents. Customer support via phone and email.

Rakuten has three types of seller fees:

1. Individual Listing Fee (99 cents for each listing)
2. Monthly account fee ($39/month)
3. Category-wise commission, as explained below:

Merchants are paid weekly for orders. All orders completed between Tuesday 0:00 AM (PT) to the next Monday at 11:59 PM (PT) will be paid the following day (Wednesday). Below you can find a snapshot from the network page of the commission rates there. The network has a very user-friendly interface that allows you to filter the offers by category, region and commission rate and tec.

Conclusion

We have listed 10 affiliate programs that can be a good replacement for Amazon. We also have a few more pieces of advice you might consider useful. Taking into account the current circumstances happening worldwide it is quite obvious that to persist a constant stream of earnings the key is to diversify your earning sources as much as you can.

To optimize your incomes, it makes a good sense to take a look at niches other than e-commerce. There was an increase in home office furniture sales as well as other associated things that turned out to be pertinent in the changed setting because of the lockdown and switching to the home office. However, this increase is already over and the marketplace will remain to experience a lasting decline. Other niches that experienced a spike when faced with the crisis will also progressively decrease. Thus, it is better to be in constant search and diversify your income sources rather than highly rely on only one niche.