February 11, 2012

Amazon Axes Affiliate PPC Payouts

Let’s say you have arguably the largest catalog of products online. You pioneered ecommerce while enduring years of losses. You have thousands of affiliates driving traffic to your website through every means possible, including PPC. You make millions of dollars. You are Amazon

Load Gun, Shoot Self in Foot

When life is good what better thing to do that shoot yourself in the foot. Amazon did this by announcing that they will no longer pay affiliate commissions on traffic sent directly from PPC advertisements. This applies only to US and Canadian affiliates for now, but what a boneheaded move.

If I could corner the executive who green-lighted this policy I would ask one question: Why would you tell an army of competent PPC managers, all of which are sending traffic to YOUR site to get YOU sales, that you don’t want their services? Do you really want to manage all that PPC yourself? Because even if you try you’ll never do a better job. You had hundreds if not thousands of people experimenting and optimizing every day for your benefit. Why Amazon? Why?

About Robert

Conversion rate optimization and PPC wizard. If I'm not out playing ultimate frisbee or golf you may find me hiking, skiing or mountain biking.