Amazon Associates versus Impact Marketing: Which is better?
From Medium to Substack: Choosing between allowing ads versus focusing on subscriptions
For both new writers and established writers, it can be tough to build a loyal subscription audience who is willing to pay for your content. Using myself as an example, when I was a writer on Medium, I had more than 4,000 subscribers in a few years on the platform. On Substack, getting over 100 was a challenge. My writing hasn’t changed. The quality hasn’t changed. My resume hasn’t changed. Just the platform.
Normally, that nosedive in subscribers would sound horrifying to someone chasing readers, but I was beyond tired of Medium moving the goalpost on how writers got paid (ex. claps, readthroughs, clicks, highlights). I would go from making a few hundred (and even four digits for a couple months) to making less than $50 the next month. That’s too much of a yo-yo on pay for the same level of work.
Interestingly, what I found was the Substack subscribers I started off with were more likely to actually click the posts, read the entire post, and occasionally like or share. I can see where they’re sharing posts and how often Google or Bing or social media platforms are grabbing them. On Medium, I couldn’t see these stats. Meanwhile, because Medium is filled with writers who have a habit of following you solely so you’ll follow them back and then never reading each other’s content, it was becoming a popularity contest. Still, writers aren’t writing just for themselves. If that were the case, they’d be writing in journals. They want the public to see their content.
ADVERTISEMENT ~ Amazon
As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a percentage for every purchase with my referral link.
From sponsorships to photo ad purchases
Eyes were starting to gradually visit my content that had never happened in the few years I was on Medium. The first example was a photo marketing company that saw an image of me and my dog on one of my Black Girl In a Doggone World articles. As the liaison for a very well-known company, that photo company offered a considerable amount (as in, enough to pay my mortgage monthly bill) just for their client to use one photo for six months in a non-exclusive deal. I was not surprised that the image caught their attention (I’d won a photo contest for the same image years prior). I was, however, surprised that the image was found at all with a much lower subscription rate.
Then came a financial company that wanted to team up for a sponsorship after they’d read a considerable amount of content on Homegrown Tales. When I joined Substack, I’d spent so much time focused on trying to rebuild reader subscriptions but realized I was doing better on Substack without the multi-thousand count. Why? The people who actually click on my content are coming with the intent to read it, not just to click it and ignore it.
Why I joined Amazon Associates and Impact Marketing
Those two contracts were what led me to join Impact Marketing and Amazon Associates, where I could expand on this idea. I could find products that I actually believe in and would buy (or already own), regardless of my subscription rates. Even a one-timer is as valuable to me as a loyal reader. Plus, I don’t always subscribe to writers’ accounts even if I do like their writings. Sometimes it’s because of the abundance of emails (and nonstop “coming soon” alerts). Usually it’s because I’m comfortable just bookmarking their pages and reading at my leisure.
ADVERTISEMENT ~ Wave
But adding Impact Marketing and Amazon Associates gave me a chance to partner with companies who may be helpful financially on my end but also add credibility to my own pages with quality ads instead of artificial intelligence or automation assuming what a reader wants to see. However, there are some pros and cons for affiliates using either program that you should know before you commit to a brand. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Pros and cons of Impact Marketing
I was startled to find out how differently “influencers” and marketing representatives are treated versus how they’re talked to as consumers or members. There was a stock and IRA company that I had been using for investments and regularly promoted to anyone who would listen. When I saw this company listed on Impact Marketing, I couldn’t leap to my proposal button fast enough to ask if I could partner with them to promote their product. The first peculiar thing that happened was the company listed a $50 earning for new members to sign up. But when they accepted my proposal, they slashed that amount to $25.
Then came the emails from the same company telling everyone if they didn’t answer a new proposal edit within a couple of days that their contract would be canceled. Imagine a business sending you an alert and a threat in the same email. I went to Google Play and reviewed the company for how tacky this was. Even after a mediocre apology, this IRA and stock company was so offended that I included the marketing rep’s name who threatened to cancel all of our contracts and doubled down on specifically ending my Impact Marketing contract.
ADVERTISEMENT ~ Amazon
As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a percentage for each purchase with my referral links.
No love lost. I shut down my multi-year account and my mother’s account (who I’d signed up as a referral), swiftly moving them to another stock and IRA company. Then, I ended my Impact Marketing contract with the company.
Although companies want you to sell their products, be cognizant of how they treat you. I don’t recommend promoting anyone’s product who talks to marketers as though they’re throwaways. That was the only time I ran into a brand experience like that on Impact Marketing. Impact’s website is also not particularly user-friendly, requiring that you constantly log in every single time (the save feature doesn’t work) and rename your location every 30 days. There are lots of tech issues with the Help Desk guessing their way through them (ex. a glitchy newsletter that won’t be taken down until January 30, 2025 and constantly allowing brands you’ve removed yourself from to spam you with newsletters). Expect Impact’s Help Desk to blame your laptop, your smartphone and to be asked to create unnecessary Looms only for them to reach a conclusion they could’ve gotten from a screenshot. There’s a 99% chance the Help Desk is guessing all of their answers.
Additionally, Impact influencers will be giving out free publicity to brands for no money and risk minimal conversions, so be careful about accepting pre-qualified accounts or proposing products that you don’t have enough content to sell. You may end up with lots of emails to promote a company’s product while not making any money from it.
Pros and cons of Amazon Associates
The easiest part of being an Amazon affiliate is you don’t have to educate readers on what this company is. “I’ve never heard of Amazon,” said no one ever. Even if you don’t like Amazon at all (or its founder Jeff Bezos), you know what it is. Since my undergraduate days in college, I’ve sold products on eBay, etsy, Half.com, Amazon Handmade, Amazon and was a former Amazon Vine user. From FBMs to FBAs, I’m very familiar with how these e-commerce platforms work. With Amazon Associates, you’re selling brand products, not third-party (“like new” and “used” products). But because Amazon is so well-known, there are a few obstacles to be aware of on a platform where people are already shopping and don’t really need you.