New Amazon Influencers Shouldn't Pay for Product Research Tools (Yes, I Sell One)

If you’re new to the Amazon influencer program, I don’t think you should be paying for a product research tool.

And yes, I’m aware of how that sounds. I’m the Oink guy. I sell a product research tool. This does not work in my best interest. But if you know me, you know why I’m saying it — and if you’re new, I’d rather you get the free version and build the right foundation than pay me for something you’re not ready to use.

Reason One: These Tools Need Data You Don’t Have Yet

One of the main value propositions of a tool like mine is that it takes the work you’ve already done and squeezes more opportunity out of it. Cross-checking your existing catalog against campaigns. Spotting which of your products are heating up. Finding the patterns in what’s already working for you.

See the problem? You don’t have work you’ve already done.

And I don’t mean “you only have one or two videos.” I mean that until you’re somewhere around 20, 30, maybe 40 videos, the sample size is simply too small for any of this analysis to say anything meaningful. There’s no pattern to find in six videos. A tool can’t tell you what’s working when nothing has had a chance to work yet.

So the first honest reason is just mechanical: paid tools aren’t going to be very helpful to you in the beginning, because they don’t have enough of your data to operate on.

Reason Two: Product Research Isn’t Your Problem Yet

The second reason is bigger, and it’s the one nobody wants to hear.

Most of these tools are wrapped up in the idea of product research — finding the good products, spotting the winners, avoiding the duds. And look, that is absolutely paramount eventually. I’ve written a lot about it. It’s most of what Oink does.

But it is not where you’re at when you’re new. My actual recommendation for a brand new Amazon influencer is: forget product research. Don’t worry about it. It does not meaningfully help you in the beginning.

That’s a strange thing for me to say given what I sell. But optimizing product selection when you don’t yet know how to make a video that converts is like tuning an engine that isn’t built.

What You Should Actually Be Doing Instead

When you’re new, you have exactly one primary goal: make as many videos as you possibly can.

Everything in your house. Then do it again — two videos on everything in your house. You already own the inventory. You don’t need to source anything. You just need reps.

Here’s what those reps are actually buying you:

Learning how to make videos. Framing, lighting, pacing, demonstrating a product on camera without freezing up.
Getting into the routine. Volume is a habit before it’s a strategy. Building the muscle now is what makes scaling possible later.
Figuring out what makes a video good. You will only learn this by making bad ones first and noticing why they’re bad.
Understanding why buyers are watching at all. They came with a question about a product. Learning to answer that question fast is the whole job.
Learning how Creator Connections actually works. Not the theory — the mechanics, the flow, what a campaign looks like from the inside.
Learning what the point of the program even is. Honestly, most people skip right over this at the start, and it costs them for months.

I don’t care whether these early videos sell. I don’t care if they make you money. I’d love it if they did, but that’s not what I want for you in month one. What I want is for you to come out of that stretch with the foundation of this program in your hands.

Because if you build that foundation, you’re in a genuinely great position when the real commissions show up later. And if you skip it, no tool on earth fixes that.

The Things You Think You Need and Don’t

Let me get specific about what new influencers waste time on:

Messaging brands for free samples. Why? You have a house full of stuff you haven’t shot content on yet. Sourcing more product when you haven’t exhausted your own shelves doesn’t make any sense.
Checking your Creator Connections cross-check matches every day. When you have six videos on your storefront, there’s nothing to cross-check. Do this on the free version until there’s actually a catalog behind it.
Deep product research before you’ve made 20 videos. You’re optimizing the wrong variable.

All of these become genuinely important — but they become important when you want to scale. And you’re not in scale mode. You’re in build-the-foundation mode. Those are two completely different jobs.

So When Should You Start Paying?

This is the exact same answer I give on my TikTok lives when somebody asks “when should I get it?” I tell them: just get the free one.

My rough marker is somewhere around 20 to 30 videos, maybe 40 or 50. That’s the point where you’ve got a real baseline to work off of. You have a catalog. You have patterns. You have something for a tool to actually analyze. That’s when it makes sense to look at a paid plan and go, “okay, now I’ve got enough here that this will pay for itself.”

Until then — whatever tool you’re looking at, mine included — get the free version. Build the foundation. And if you do this well enough, soon enough you’ll hit a point where you look at your own workflow and think I think I need to bump this up.

That moment is real, and you’ll know it when you get there. But it comes after the videos, not before them.

Start on the Free Version

I mean this literally. If you’re new, go grab Oink on the free tier, use it to sanity-check the products you’re already shooting, and put every hour you would have spent on research into making more videos instead.

Come back and upgrade when you’ve got 30 or 40 videos and a real catalog to work off of. I’ll be here.