Who Owns The Customer?

Now that I am officially an Amazon Associate, I have been getting my hands dirty by doing many affiliate marketing posts. I guess this is the best program for beginners to learn affiliate marketing. Surely, I got my posts out one after the other. I was careful to endorse only those products that I had genuinely bought from Amazon over the years and had used over time. That was the only way to give authentic feedback on the products and delivery services of Amazon. I searched for product, highlighted the points along with the price and customer experience. Then I embedded the HTML code and the showcase window URL and invited my followers and friends to click the post and buy the product. In a week, more than 60 people clicked on the links and were diverted to the product window on Amazon but no sale so far. That is ok since it is the early days and I figured out the things an associate must do. I pay for traffic and build it through relevant content on my blog. Then I divert that traffic to Amazon. If a sale is made, I make up to 10% commission on the product and that is my income. I hope that one day my earnings will exceed my expense on advertising and content and I would be making some profit. Now that is what the whole game is about.

Make Money on the Sale after the Sale

Wrong, I got it all wrong. You see, the one key thing that we forget is that we divert our traffic to Amazon and if a sale is made, who owns the customer? Yes, who owns the final consumer? The answer is, in this case, Amazon who ends up owning the customer. Now they do not make money when they sell to the customer the first time. In fact, most of the first time sales to a new customer is a loss-making proposition for Amazon. They make money on resale or upselling. They then sell more and more products to the customer especially more expensive products that have a higher profit. So Amazon starts making money on resales and upselling to a customer who they completely own. As an affiliate, you do not get a commission if Amazon resells or upsells to the same customer. You only get paid for the first sale after which Amazon owns the customer and really starts to milk him and squeeze out profits by reselling. The real money on the internet is made on the sale after the sale. That is only possible if you own the customer.

Upsell for Higher Profits

The way to get around this is to get the list of names and emails of all the leads that have gone to Amazon. That way, you know all the customers you have sent to Amazon. Now that you have their name and email, give it to advertisers, promote and sell more related products to them on your own effort. You will then start making money too on the sale after the first initial sale.