If you’re an Amazon influencer and all you want to do is make product videos, I get it. You don’t want to build an off-site social presence just to send traffic to Amazon. You want to shoot, upload, and get paid. But I’d ask you to put this in your back pocket and seriously reconsider that strategy. Not the Amazon Influencer strategy, but the “all I do is product videos” strategy. Amazon has a funky way of telling us where they’re headed, and if you follow their pointy fingers over the last six months, every single one is pointing the same direction.

In This Article

The On-Site Program Hasn’t Changed Since April

Here’s the first clue. The Amazon Influencer Program has had no meaningful changes in six months. It is almost exactly the same today as it was then. The last real change was when Amazon reduced on-site commissions in March, then followed up in April by saying related sales were no longer qualifying purchases. Since then, nothing. Same program.

Meanwhile, what Amazon has been actively building and rolling out is off-site stuff, even for influencers. Let me walk through the pattern.

Back in April, right when the on-site changes hit, Amazon launched Sponsored Products for Creators. It’s available to Gold and Platinum creators, we’ve been using it since it came out, and while it’s a little chaotic, it’s a legitimately good opportunity. Some people are making real money with it.

The key thing: it’s an off-site play. You take these links, post them somewhere, and even if nobody buys, you still get paid per click. That was one of the biggest barriers keeping people from going off-site. “What if they don’t buy? Then I make nothing.” Amazon bridged that gap on purpose. That’s a signal.

The Creator Marketplace Job Listing

A couple of months ago I did a video about a job listing Amazon posted on LinkedIn for what looks like a new creator marketplace. Brands that want to promote products would essentially hire creators like us to make content, and that content gets run off-site through Amazon ads. Amazon vets and qualifies the creators on behalf of the brands based on sales volume and category performance.

It’s been in beta since about this time last year and some people have used it. And again, everything about it is off-site.

Creator Connections Abroad Is Off-Site Only

Amazon recently started rolling out Creator Connections in other countries, including India and I believe Canada or the UK. But there’s a caveat. It does not include the Creator Connections we know in the US, which is technically called Affiliate Plus. The international rollout is Sponsored Products only, meaning EPC (earnings per click). Post a link, get paid when someone clicks. Entirely off-site. Once again, Amazon is incentivizing and pushing creators to post off-platform.

The New Creator Studio and Repurpose.io

Amazon just released a new version of Creator Studio, and there’s a new section that lists off-site platforms as filters: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. The system is set up so that if you create a link through Repurpose.io, which is apparently a partnership Amazon hasn’t talked about publicly but has been working for a while, your videos automatically sync to your storefront whenever you post on those platforms.

That’s another hint. Amazon is building integrations that treat your off-site content as the source and your storefront as the destination.

Pinterest, Instagram, and the YouTube Integration

Over the last six months Amazon announced the Pinterest integration, the Instagram integration, and most recently the YouTube integration. I think the YouTube one is a much bigger deal than people realize. YouTube will now automatically tag products in your videos and send viewers off their own platform to Amazon. And lately there’s been a strange thing happening where Alexa surfaces YouTube videos while you’re shopping on Amazon. Each platform is sending traffic to the other.

So look at the whole list: Sponsored Products in the US, the creator marketplace job posting that vets creators so brands can hire them for off-site ads, Creator Connections rolling out abroad as EPC only, the new Creator Studio with off-site platforms as sources, Repurpose.io syncing your social videos into your storefront, and three platform integrations. Every finger is pointing off-site.

Why On-Site Isn’t Amazon’s Priority

I don’t want this to sound like Amazon is abandoning on-site videos. I don’t think that’s the case at all. It’s just not getting attention because it’s not their priority. Remember what this thing is called: the Amazon Influencer Program. What we do when we make product videos isn’t really what Amazon envisioned. Go look at the official Amazon Influencer Program Instagram account. I promise you won’t find someone like me on there saying “I make product videos.” The program was designed for influencers with actual influence who send traffic to Amazon. Product videos were a door they left open, and one of the best things about the program is that off-site was never required.

But the ecosystem changed. Walmart has beaten Amazon badly at running off-site ads, and Walmart’s higher commission rates have pulled a lot of creators in. TikTok Shop beat Amazon pretty badly on how the shopping experience was put together. I think Amazon finally looked at the off-site game and realized they were losing it. There was even a LinkedIn article a few months back, from the seller’s perspective, saying sellers feel Creator Connections is slow, while the new ads system and creator marketplace seem to be where the life is.

How This Could Affect Your On-Site Earnings

This program is always full of pivots. If you get a feel for where Amazon is pointing before the pivot arrives, it feels less like a pivot and more like “I’ve already been doing this.” And there are several ways an off-site emphasis could hit your on-site income.

It’s been theorized for years that at some point Amazon may say, “This is called the influencer program. You gave us your social link when you signed up. Now we’re going to make good on that.” Theoretically, that could look like:

  • Your on-site earning opportunity gets tied to how much revenue you generate off-site.
  • The number of Creator Connections campaigns you can accept gets limited if you don’t hit a certain off-site sales threshold.
  • Your visibility in the on-site carousels gets reduced.
  • New programs like the creator marketplace stay locked unless you generate a certain amount of revenue. The job listing specifically mentioned qualifiers based on sales performance and category performance.

Even if none of that ends up affecting on-site directly, the pattern still tells us what Amazon thinks is important. And if it’s important to Amazon, it should matter to you if you want to be successful here, whether you’re affiliate or influencer.

What I Changed My Mind About

In the past I’ve told new Amazon influencers not to bother with off-site until they get their feet under them and are making $500 a month or so from on-site. I don’t know that I believe that anymore. Putting this pattern together over the last several months changed my thinking.

That doesn’t mean you have to do everything. You don’t need a Facebook, an Instagram, a TikTok, a blog, a YouTube, and a Pinterest. But you do need something, somewhere. A website. A single channel. One place where you’re building an audience that you can send to Amazon. I believe Amazon is going to re-center the program at some point and reconnect the correlation between off-site and on-site. It’s just a matter of what that looks like when it gets here. If you start working on it now, you’ll already be in position when it does.

Whether you’re doubling down on product videos or starting to build off-site, the products you choose still decide how much you earn. Oink for Influencers helps you pick winners with the 5 Pillars system, keep your storefront tight with the Storefront Cross Check, and cross-post your vertical videos to Facebook Reels and beyond so your off-site presence starts building itself. Get positioned now, before Amazon makes the pivot for you.

I'm an Amazon Influencer since 2023 and blogger since 2021. My goal is to help you succeed in the Amazon Influencer Program.

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