Are your commissions not where you want them to be in the Amazon Influencer Program? One of the most common conversations I have with influencers starts exactly like that. Something feels off. They tell me, “I’m doing the things I’m supposed to be doing. I’m doing the product research, I’m picking good products.” And the majority of the time, as we keep talking, the real issue starts to surface — and it’s almost never their product research. It’s the one thing that determines whether you’re successful in this program more than anything else: consistency.
In This Article
- The Conversation I Keep Having With Influencers
- There’s a Baseline Amount of Work — Whether You Like It or Not
- Why Your Carousel Spots Don’t Last Forever
- Your New Content Has to Outpace the Decay
- Good Strategy Cannot Outperform a Lack of Consistency
- How Many Videos Should You Actually Be Making?
- The Monthly Self-Audit I Recommend
- Better Research or More Videos: Pick Your Lever
The Conversation I Keep Having With Influencers
If you don’t know me, my name is Rob. I’ve been in the Amazon Influencer Program for three years, and I spend a lot of time talking with other influencers about what’s working and what isn’t. The pattern is remarkably consistent: someone comes to me frustrated because their commissions are flat or dropping. They have a pretty good understanding of how product research works. They know what constitutes a “good” product. They’re pretty good — not perfect, but pretty good — at pursuing those types of products.
And yet the money isn’t moving. Nearly every single time, the conversation ends up in the same place: consistency. Not strategy. Not product selection. Volume and regularity of output.
There’s a Baseline Amount of Work — Whether You Like It or Not
Here’s something fundamentally true about this program that people don’t like to hear: there is a baseline amount of work you have to do in order to make headway. There’s a certain number of videos, a certain amount of product research you should be doing. You need to put an appropriate amount of effort in to get something out.
Why? Because the program has evolved and gotten big. There are a lot of people in it now, and that changes the math on every single video you make.
Why Your Carousel Spots Don’t Last Forever
Let’s say today you make a video for a product, and in a perfect world you’re the only influencer video on that listing — and it’s selling. You’re making really good money. You know what happens to that video over time? The carousel fills up. Other people show up. People like me. We see a product that’s selling, we see opportunity, and we say, “I want to be there.”
So that product video — where you were at one point the only influencer in the carousel — loses its juice over time. Honestly, you’ll probably get bumped out of the carousel entirely at some point. That’s normal. That’s natural. And it keeps happening faster, because more and more people are joining the program every month.
Your New Content Has to Outpace the Decay
The decay itself isn’t the problem. The problem is what you’re doing on the other side of it. If you’re not making enough new content to outpace the rate at which your old videos are getting swallowed up in those carousels, your commissions pay the price. Product A dwindles because other people showed up — you’re slowly losing clicks, slowly losing commissions. If new videos on new products aren’t making up that difference (and ideally outscaling it), your commissions just keep going down.
That’s how you end up looking around saying, “But I’m doing good product research. I’m doing Creator Connections every day.” And that might all be true. But none of it matters if consistency is lacking. This is exactly why I built tools like the Comparison Video Schedule and Storefront Cross Check into Oink — keeping a steady content pipeline going is the whole game, and most influencers lose not because they picked wrong, but because they slowed down.
Good Strategy Cannot Outperform a Lack of Consistency
Write this one down: good strategy cannot outperform a lack of consistency. Your strategy might be spot-on. Your product research might be dialed in. But if you’re not putting enough into this program to outpace the natural loss on the videos you made in the past, the commissions are never going to do what you want them to do.
There is real opportunity in picking great products — if your research is strong, you don’t have to make as many videos as someone who’s winging it. But “fewer” is not “few.” You still have to put in a consistent amount of effort, period.
How Many Videos Should You Actually Be Making?
So how many videos should you be doing per day, per week, per month? There’s no universal answer, and anyone who gives you a magic number is guessing. It depends heavily on your product research:
- If your product research stinks, you’ll have to do more videos to compensate.
- If your product research is good, you still have to make videos — just maybe not as many.
- Either way, the program requires a certain amount of input, and it doesn’t care about your personal situation or how much time you had this month.
The Monthly Self-Audit I Recommend
Here’s what I actually recommend. Look back at the end of every month and ask yourself two questions:
- Could I have reasonably done more — or even pushed myself a little bit? If the honest answer is yes, you should be doing more next month. You didn’t hit your real quota.
- Are my commissions moving? If you feel like you did everything you could and your commissions still aren’t moving, you’re at a stalemate — and that’s a tough spot that demands a change in approach, not more of the same.
Look at it through an honest lens: am I getting out of this program what I want? Is my product research actually good? If the research is good and the results still aren’t there, there’s really only one thing left — it’s a consistency issue. You’re not putting enough in to get out what you want to get out.
Better Research or More Videos: Pick Your Lever
Once you come to that realization, you have a great opportunity. Ask yourself: what do I need to change? You’ve got two levers. Either your product research gets even better — so every video you make works harder — or you make more videos. For most people watching, it’s the second one, and a lot of people don’t like that answer. They saw something on TikTok about how easy this program is: just make some product videos and money shows up. You can make money that way, but you’ll quickly be disappointed by how much.
That’s not the program’s fault. It’s a gap you need to fill. We all understand product research — we get it, we know roughly what to look for. You know what nobody talks about? Whether they’re consistent enough. What do I need to do to be more consistent? What do I need to do to make more videos? It’s not always about selecting a bigger, better product. Sometimes you’re the problem. Sometimes.
If consistency is your bottleneck, the fastest fix is cutting the time you spend finding products worth filming. That’s exactly what Oink for Influencers was built for — tools like Storefront Cross Check, the Comparison Video Schedule, and the 5 Pillars system take the grind out of product research so you can spend that time actually making videos. Try Oink and turn your research hours into content hours.
