Anyone understand Amazon's Aff Control Panel?

[ian-d]

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Is it just me or is Amazon's affiliate control panel some what over complicated. Admittadly i've not spent a great deal of time in it, but i'm lost!

For example, this month the report shows me that 17 orders have gone through my links, although non show as 'direct' what ever that means. Of those 17, i have just over 15% conversation rate which is good.

However, my commission report is showing only 7 of those having gained me some earnings!

All commissions are on things that amazon do pay out on, but does anyone else get this, and understand why? Is there a delay on the earnings showing? Are the orders being despatched? Does the 17 orders include those that have not completed the transaction?

Any help greatly appreciated! Why can't amazon be on AWin

[kcheung]

earnings on amazon show once the item has been dispatched...if the person refunds the item it's deducted from year earnings as well.

so 17 orders-once dispatched you will see the commission.

[SpongeBob]

Hi Ian,

It's not too difficult - the orders report shows what orders were placed and the earnings report shows what earnings you got. The difference between them is that orders are when people place an order, and earnings are when the items are shipped.

So you only get the commission when they ship the item, but you can still see what was ordered. So if you look at your orders report for yesterday you might have 10 items, but in your earnings report you might have 12 and they may be different items - but all the items from the orders report will eventually appear on the earnings report as and when they're shipped.

Direct orders are for items that you linked to directly, as Amazon pay you a higher percentage commission if you link directly to a product than for indirect orders, where somebody's bought something you've not specifically linked to.

The idea is that if you just have a link to Amazon's home page you get a lower commission than if you promote a specific product.

As an example, if you link to one product and somebody follows that link and buys it and another item, you get a higher commission for the directly linked product than for the 2nd item that you didn't directly link to.

Hope that helps!

[stevebrowne]

One report that they could do which would clear loads of confusion is a "Items ordered but not yet shipped" report. When I try this I have to faff around with Excel to try and find what's still outstanding.

[ian-d]

Thanks for the information guys, understand what you are saying. So presumably the order report is orders placed and paid for, just in some cases not despatched? I was starting to wonder whether they were orders added to basket, but not yet checked out!

Regarding direct linking, most of the orders shown are for specific products that i direct link to using the 'text link' creator, yet none are showing as directly linked, hmm, might need to check i've done them spot on right, and not just pointed to the category.

[stevebrowne]

I find the link builder doesn't give the right link format to get the higher commiussion. You need to do this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/<PRODUCT CODE>/ref=nosim?tag=<YOUR TAG>

The product code is the bit like "dp/B0010DGZYG" (Amazon.co.uk: Doctor Who 5" Action Figure -The Master: Toys & Games) or
"dp/B000VZEIOS" (Amazon.co.uk: Photoshop Elements 6 (PC): Software)

[ian-d]

Thats interested, thanks for the info steve, might give that a shot and see if i get better results!

[roshanb]

I had exactly the same thoughts last night. Glad I wasn't the only one who though it was confusing!