End Of Amazon Affiliate Marketing

Igor Kheifets:
I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The List Building Lifestyle, a podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list, working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, then this podcast is for you. I also invite you to attend the free workshop at Igor.ac, where I’m teaching how I made $21,779 and 45 cents in affiliate commissions by sending just 481 clicks to my affiliate link in one day. I’m also explaining why I walked away from ClickBank and I don’t promote ClickBank offers anymore, as well as the five things I look for in the perfect affiliate offer.

I’m even going to show you the one page website that I used to make over half a million dollars in affiliate commissions this year, and I’ll even bribe you to attend this workshop by giving you a $497 value course that shows you how to cherry pick high converting affiliate offers for your next affiliate promotion. In addition, I’ll even give you the three offers I’m promoting right now that are making me money as we speak. All of that and at Igor.ac. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

Terrance Lackey:
Welcome, list builders, to another edition of The List Building Lifestyle. I am Terrance Lackey, and I’m here with the chieftain of list building himself, one of the coolest guys I know on the planet, Mr. Igor Kheifets. How you doing today, Igor?

Igor Kheifets:
Rocking it, as usual.

Terrance Lackey:
Hey, look, I got to tell you something. Since this whole COVID locked down thing has happened, I look out on the street in my neighborhood on trash day and I’m seeing Amazon boxes everywhere. I look at my newsfeed here recently, and I see that they have dramatically cut their commissions for affiliate marketing. Do you know anything about that?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes I think that COVID-19 was invented by Amazon just so they can take everyone else out of business, but all jokes aside, yeah, there’s been some news. About a month ago, they published an article, The Verge published an article in announcing that Amazon, that wasn’t really paying great commissions to begin with, are really cutting down on partner commissions for no good reason. I’m not really sure why.

I mean, here’s an example, and this is directly from the article on The Verge, theverge.com. “Commission rates under the categories home improvement, furniture, lawn and garden and pet products will see a commission rate of 8%,” Like I said, they weren’t paying much, “per sale drop down to just 3%. for headphones, beauty products and musical instruments, commission rates will go from 6% to 3%. many other categories, including grocery, sports, baby products and outdoors and tools are all dropping down to 3 or 1%, CNBC reports, from 4% or higher.” So I mean, how are you supposed to make money that way? Why would anyone promote Amazon products any more?

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah, I mean, that’s the equivalent of someone dropping your business or your profits over 50%. 50 to 60%. And if you’re not making that much at all to begin with, then that’s a huge impact on those people who have built their business on Amazon affiliate. Man, so they’ve done that. What are the alternatives?

Igor Kheifets:
I don’t see any other alternatives besides to either sell your own stuff on Shopify, like start your own Shopify store and drop ship from somewhere without being an affiliate for Amazon, but then you’re losing all this traffic because Amazon is the second, I think the third or second largest search engine now in the States, and they’re responsible for I think 50% of all e-commerce or retail, or something in the States right now. Especially during the quarantine, because nobody is going anywhere now. I think there’s only just Walmart and Amazon. That’s it. Everyone else has been forced to shut down. The other alternative though is to get into a different space, still being an affiliate marketer, but get into the digital affiliate marketing, because the profits are so much better.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. So when we’re talking about a physical product that’s delivered over a period of time, and although Amazon has a great logistics network, nothing beats an immediate download or an immediate password into a digital product. And as a matter of fact, just because people are on quarantine, I think that that space would be on an uptrend because there’s more people at home, more people that are exploring the internet and looking for opportunities, with 30 million people out of work these days. Right?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, absolutely, and this market is beyond just make money. Financial market, I actually purchased two products in the financial market, digital products myself. Memberships for $90 a year each, and I’m certain someone got 50% of that. But in the digital space, in the digital marketing space, when you’re selling information, coaching services, software products, you’re usually getting a lot more money. For example, I’ve built about a thousand dollars per month income stream in roughly two months by promoting a software product, a landing page builder. That’s a digital product that costs the software company to maintain and host. They provide a service for people who want to promote and market stuff on the internet, and they are giving 30%.

Now, 30% compared to 50% doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you really think about it, they’re paying say something like 47 bucks and I’m getting 15 for each and every member every month, then it adds up over time. And as long as my stick rate is there, I can be making money over and over and over again from just one sale continuously for years to come. Again, depending on whether my referrals will stick, which I know they will because I’m working closely with them and always supporting them through the work, plus giving them templates and stuff like that. So do I want to promote a software that pays 15 bucks per month, or do I want to promote a garden hose that pays me 20 cents? Is there even a debate?

Terrance Lackey:
Is there a debate? I think you’re the one I heard say that it takes the same amount of energy to market a really inexpensive, low profit margin item as it does something that’s higher ticket, you know? And so it just makes business sense I think to go where the money is, and if the money’s not in Amazon right now, that might not be where you want to be.

Igor Kheifets:
Oh, I’m sure there’s some money in Amazon. I’m sure some people make money on Amazon, and I’m guessing those are the people who are sourcing products from China for really, really low, low price and then they sell it on Amazon, but they’re not affiliates. For affiliate marketers promoting Amazon products, like you know how people tend to get on YouTube, for example, and review electronics and they link to Amazon stores where you can buy those electronics? Well, I’m sure that they think that they’ll make money, but the reality is even if you refer me to a thousand dollar lens, like a lens for photography, I’m pretty sure you’re not making a lot out of that thousand dollars sale. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. But at the same time, you promote a $97 ebook or video course or software, you walk away with 50 bucks.

And yes, you’re absolutely correct when you say that it takes just as much effort to sell a hundred dollar item as it does a thousand dollar item, and almost as much as it does a $5,000 item, because the process of gaining attention, attracting the customer, running the ad, overcoming objections, getting them to pull out their credit card and enter the credit card information, all of that, it’s always the same effort. It’s always the same amount of time, effort, and energy that goes into that, and there’s not much more resistance. Because usually, a product that costs 5,000 is attracting a buyer who’s willing to pay 5,000.

Yo, it’s Igor. If you’re loving the content, hop on over to listbuildinglifestyleshow.com for more free training and a free transcript of this episode. Oh, and I’d really appreciate if you logged into iTunes and rated the show, it really helps. Thanks.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. My granddad always used to say, you’ve got to fish where the fishing is good. So if you have a limited number of hours in the day and a limited number of resources to fish, you definitely want to go where they’re biting and where you’re going to eat the biggest haul for your efforts. Especially with list builders, with people that might be new into the marketing space, you definitely want to focus on something that’s going to give you a reasonable income and not have you struggle and scrape and claw your way to a 3% profit margin, where you can get a lot more for the same amount of effort.

Man, that’s a crazy development. I wonder if they’re going to keep it. You think, what does your crystal ball tell you about Amazon? You think they’re going to keep that for a while, or are they capitalizing on this current trend?

Igor Kheifets:
Well, what I can say is that Amazon is probably not very concerned with affiliates, because their brand power is so strong now that people go on Amazon just to search for stuff. So even if they depended on affiliates in the early days, I don’t think they depend on affiliates anymore. I think what they do is they just focus on the products and the distribution, because they know if anyone wants to buy anything today, even if they can buy it somewhere else, if people can find the same product on Amazon, they’ll get it on Amazon just for the peace of mind and brand identity.

Like if I can buy a Canon lens in some local store here in Toronto, when they’re open obviously, because recently there’s been a store chain that sells photography equipment that actually shut down because of COVID-19 quarantine, they just went out of business. But if I can find the same equipment on Amazon, first off, I don’t have to go anywhere. I know it’s going to come to me and it’s probably going to take a day or two. And second, I know that if I don’t like it, I can return it.

Now, even if I can do the same thing with that other store, my brand affinity to Amazon is so much more powerful. So again, Amazon does not really care about affiliates anymore, so I think they will continue to cut those commissions as much as possible, because I don’t think they just want to waste the resources to manage that program. Plus, when other people sell stuff outside of the platform, it may create liability, because they may over promise things or whatever. That’s the reason, for example, why MLM companies, network marketing companies, they don’t allow you to build your own sales funnel.

One thing that you’ll notice is that if you want to promote an MLM and you built your own sales funnel and you started recruiting people, and you even give them your own sales funnel, you say, “Okay, you join my team, you get my funnel,” which is one of the most proven ways to promote an MLM on the internet. Way more effective than cold prospecting. If the MLM company finds out, they shut you down. They freeze your account, they kick you out because you’re a liability that may get them in trouble with the FTC. They want to fully control the narrative. They want to control everything.

So that could also be one of the reasons, but in any case, enough about Amazon, because you’re not going to make any money there. If you want to make money as an affiliate marketer, you have to promote products that pay you big commissions. And one of the ways that I’ve been very successfully doing that, making thousands of dollars a week, is I’ve been focusing on promoting high ticket, quote unquote, off market programs, affiliate programs. And I tell you more about that on the free webinar I’m hosting this week at Igor.ac. So if you go to Igor.ac, you can register for the webinar, it’s absolutely free, and find out how I’ve been making as much as $29,000 in a single day promoting this one type of affiliate products that pay ridiculously high commissions and convert really, really well for their respective niche market.

Terrance Lackey:
Well, there you have it. Thanks, Igor, for your insight into the current events with regard to Amazon, and you actually laid out a course of action if someone’s interested in getting into something that’s a little bit more lucrative. So any last words, Igor, before we wrap this one up?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah. I think your granddad is, or was, a really smart guy, because I see so many people apply themselves and work really hard in an environment that simply does not offer them a chance to succeed. I got a friend, he owns a store. He owns a story in a really small town and he sells to people who don’t make a lot of money. So he’s working really hard every day to sell to people who are penny pinching him and who are complaining to him for overcharging them two cents compared to his competitors. And he’s a really smart guy and really just an incredible entrepreneur, far more entrepreneurial than I ever was or ever will be. He will take bigger risks, he will do daring things, and he will risk it all if needed. His balls are literally 10 times the size of mine when it comes to business.

And yet I out earn him Why? Because I promote to a market that’s willing to spend more money with less resistance, and I do it efficiently with systems. He’s doing it through manual labor, you can say, and in a market where they’re not willing to pay a lot of money. Where every sale is almost like a fight. So yeah, I agree with your granddad, go fishing where the fishing is good. And if you’re applying yourself and something like Amazon affiliate marketing, that’s paying you peanuts, then maybe it’s time to switch the market. Apply yourself just the same way, work just as hard if you want to and just make more money in less time.

That’s my philosophy. I don’t believe in over complicating things, and I believe if there is a shortcut, you should take it. Just like if you’re stepping outside and you live in Canada like me, and you step outside and it’s freezing cold, there’s no shame in wearing a sweater and a Canada goose jacket. It’s just smart. Otherwise, you’ll freeze your balls off.

Terrance Lackey:
Well, there you have it. Make more money in less time. Well, thank you, Igor, for your lessons in life and business. Thank you, list builders, for joining us today. And we look forward to visiting you again in your earbuds.

Igor Kheifets:
Thank you for listening to The List building lifestyle. Get access to previous episodes, the transcription of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, don’t forget to claim your free seat at the workshop I’m hosting this week, where I showed the two step system that made me the top affiliates for people like Matt Bacak, John Crestani, Richard Legg, Michael Cheney, and many, many others.

In fact, on this workshop, I’m going to show you the exact approach I take whenever I promote an affiliate offer, the exact offers I promote, as well as how I was able to make over half a million dollars in commissions using my small list of just 18,000 people promoting a weird type of product that almost no one else promotes. All that is yours at Igor.ac. So go ahead, claim your seat right now and I’ll see you there.